Kindergarten literacy stations are one of my favorite times of the day! My students love working on their reading and writing skills with a variety of activities. One of their favorite activities is using alphabet stamps for our “Stamp It Up” station! These stamps are great for letter recognition, fine motor practice, and they break up the monotonous “paper and pencil” work. I made a whole bunch of stamping printables for my students to use during our literacy stations. Take a look at how we use them in our classroom!
Practice Stamping
Before you get your students started with their stamping activities, you’ll want to practice using the stamps first. I like to give all of my students a blank piece of paper and have them practice using the stamps. We talk about how to get the right amount of ink, how hard to press down, and how to wiggle the stamp in the ink and on the page to get the perfect stamp. Go over the basic rules, such as no stamping anything but your page, putting the stamps back in the correct place (keep reading for stamp storage tips), and how to get the ink pad shut properly.
Alphabet Stamp
An important part of kindergarten literacy stations is practicing the letters and matching the uppercase and lowercase letters. This alphabet stamp activity has students work on this skill. The entire alphabet is shown, which also helps them learn the order of the letters.
Beginning and Ending Sounds Stamp
Beginning and ending sounds stamp activities are also included. One activity focuses on stamping the beginning sound to match the picture while the other focuses on stamping the beginning or ending sound that is missing from the word. For the second activity, each page has focus sounds listed at the top right, so students can practice just a few sounds at a time. To mix it up, you can have your students use either lowercase or uppercase alphabet stamps for the beginning sounds.
CVC Word Stamp
CVC words are a big focus during kindergarten literacy stations. These words are the building blocks of learning to decode, blend, and read words. This activity has students sound out and stamp each letter in the word, giving them ample practice on beginning, middle, and ending sounds and blending them together.
Sight Word Stamp
Learning sight words is key in kindergarten! Sight word stamping is another fun way to practice and get more repetition with sight words. For this activity, students stamp the sight word and write it on the lines for extra sight word and handwriting practice.
Sentence Stamp
I love this one because the students get to put all of their skills together and determine which sight word makes sense in the sentence and stamp it into the boxes! This is a great opportunity to discuss complete sentences and double-checking to make sure the sentence makes sense when reading it altogether.
There are other activities included in the bundle to help practice these skills and other essential literacy skills. These stamping printables can be incorporated into your day in many ways, including:
- literacy centers
- morning work
- fast finisher activities
- fine motor stations
- independent work
- leveled groups
Stamping Supplies
To use these activities, you will need a few supplies to get started. I picked up the uppercase and lowercase stamps at Michaels. I love this set because they also include numbers! Don’t forget to use those 40% off coupons! 🙂 You can also find them at Amazon or Lakeshore Learning!
You have to check out this fabulous idea I found on Pre-K Pages on how to store the alphabet stamps! Using ice cube trays to store them is so smart! She suggests writing the letters on the bottom of each space with a permanent marker so the students can put them back in the correct spot. You can also use letter stickers to label them too.
Want to incorporate stamping into your kindergarten literacy centers? You can find these stamping activities and more in my new Stamp it Up unit! Which activity are you excited to use first?
