Back to School Morning Work for Kindergarten
As you set up your kindergarten routine for the new school year, you should consider adding morning work to the mix! In this post, I’m going to share how Back to School Morning Work can help your students get ready for a successful year in kindergarten!
3 Reasons to Use Morning Work in August
With everything you need to cover at the beginning of the school year, it can be tricky to add morning work to the mix in August. However, morning work can be a very helpful addition to your back-to-school lesson plans! There are three specific reasons why I find morning work to be so effective, even at the beginning of the school year.
1. Fine Motor Practice
At the beginning of the year, there is often a wide range of fine motor skills represented in the classroom. Some students can write effectively and confidently while other students are still working on holding a pencil.
Morning work provides an additional opportunity for fine motor practice so your students can get more comfortable with paper-pencil tasks. In addition to holding a pencil, morning work also involves coloring activities that can help students improve their hand strength and coordination.
2. Establish Routine
One of my favorite reasons for using morning work at the beginning of the year is that it helps to establish the daily routine more quickly. There is a lot going on in a kindergarten classroom first thing in the morning! Morning work can help your students get ready for the school day while you answer questions, talk to parents or staff, and take attendance.
It doesn’t take long for students to get used to seeing a morning work activity when they walk in the door. This familiar routine is a great way to ease into a day of learning.
3. Build Independence
A morning work routine can encourage students to be more independent learners. At the beginning of the year, it’s common for young kindergarten students to rely a lot on feedback and direction from you. (I’m sure we’ve all had those sweet students who hold up their papers after each step of a task and say “Like this, teacher?”) However, morning work is a great tool for breaking that habit.
Morning work doesn’t teach new material, so students are less likely to ask clarifying questions or need extra support. Plus, the activities generally follow the same format every day. Since students will be familiar with the content and format of the morning work activity, they are more likely to complete them with minimal support. The more success students experience with morning work, the easier it will be for them to break that habit of asking you for feedback each step of the way.
Back to School Morning Work for Kindergarten
What does morning work look like at the beginning of the school year? It doesn’t have to be complicated! In fact, simple tasks are going to be the most effective. Let’s take a closer look at some literacy and math morning work for August:
Literacy Morning Work
At the beginning of the school year, students should focus on being able to write their first name. This is a skill that will help the entire day go more smoothly! Each morning work printable has space for this important name-writing practice so students can master this skill more quickly.
In addition to name practice, morning work at the beginning of the year should focus on the letters of the alphabet. Daily practice can help students become more familiar with identifying and writing the letters of the alphabet through tracing activities. Students can practice letter identification by coloring the correct uppercase and lowercase letters. Even if students aren’t quite as familiar with the letters, they can benefit from the fine motor practice of tracing and coloring.
Phonological awareness is also an important foundational skill for students to practice at the beginning of the school year. Morning work can address some of these skills, such as identifying the number of syllables in a word or coloring pictures that rhyme.
Math Morning Work
Morning work printables can also help your students practice important math concepts when they arrive in the classroom. Number identification is something that students are working hard to master at the beginning of the year and morning work can give them some much-needed additional practice.
Students can trace and write numbers for fine motor and number formation practice. They can also practice identifying numbers written in different fonts. Morning work can combine number identification and counting practice by having students count objects and color the correct number.
One-to-one correspondence can be a tricky math concept for students at the beginning of the school year. Morning work printables give students the opportunity to color a group of objects to match the number. This helps students keep their counting organized since they can color as they count.
Morning work can also help students review shapes! Students can trace and color a variety of shapes.
Printable Kindergarten Morning Work for August
Would you like to incorporate some morning work into your back-to-school routine? Check out this printable Kindergarten Morning Work for August! These printable activities are perfect for the beginning of the school year because they practice skills your students are already familiar with, such as tracing and counting.
You can use these printables in other ways! They are also perfect for centers, homework, or early finisher activities. The printables follow the typical sequence of learning over the course of the kindergarten year, so you can use these seasonal printables for important skill review throughout your daily routine.
Each printable follows a predictable format so students can become more independent and confident with each activity. Click below to take a closer look at this back-to-school morning work for kindergarten!
August Morning Work for Kindergarten
Save This Back to School Morning Work
You have so much to do at the beginning of the school year! To save some time, be sure to save this post so you can quickly find it later. Just add the pin below to your favorite teaching board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find this post when you’re planning for a new school year.
