Sometimes you just need new centers! Yes, I get bored with the same ol' same ol'. Do you? I do typically use the same things year to year, but every now and then I gotta try something new. And, for some reason, I had an "extra" week with no theme this year, so that was the perfect opportunity to quench my need for something new. So, I came up with ANYTHING GOES centers. I was really focusing hard on introducing the alphabet and counting to 5. So, I just wanted basic centers where they were doing letters, sounds, and counting; letters, sounds, and counting; letters, sound, and counting! Ok, you get the idea. These are very basic. I want my students to feel successful in what they do, especially at the beginning of the year. A lot of children have no concept of letters, sounds, counting, or writing. So, we do a lot of tracing and then trying to write letters and numbers. As far as beginning sounds, most of my students don't know this skill yet either so I make it easy for them to be successful. I think that's super important! There will be plenty of opportunity for them to show us what they know! Here's what I came up with! Click the image below to check them out!
If your kids love to roam around the room this is perfect for them! Tape up the letters and let them go on a letter hunt!
Plus, these GIANT magnifying glasses make it 10 times more fun!
Aargh!! We practice finding and labeling beginning sounds with this Shiver Me Sounds game.
This game is self-correcting which I love for beginning of the year!
Here's a cute pirate ABC book.
A lot of kids do not know one letter when they come to kindergarten so this one is perfect for showing students which letters match!
I love reading the book LMNO-PEAS. It's adorable! So I came up with this center...all you do is grab a pea pod and then find the matching sound and letter peas. So cute!
I had to do at least one center based on Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! No kinder teacher can think of the alphabet and not think of that book.
I love for my students to see words and letters in different fonts because they won't always see them in text the same way. For this game, you get a tree and read the sight word. Then, match 3 coconut sight words that match...all in different fonts.
Ok! Math Centers!
I think this one was my kiddos' favorite one! The cheese doubled the fun factor!!
Counting is so much fun adding pepperoni and cheese!
To make the cheese I just cut very thin strips off of a foam sheet then cut the strips into little pieces. They just grabbed a handful and sprinkled it on AFTER they counted the pepperonis of course.
This one students had to use a car/bus to drive and count the dots along the road.
I got these little transportation counters from Lakeshore Learning. I use them for everything!!!
The boys and the girls both liked this one. I love how these one reminded them of their softball or baseball teams they played on this summer.
This game is for working on number sequence and counting in order.
And, for a just print, no prep, this one turned out pretty cool. I've said it before, but if you do not have Pocket Dice you need to get some asap! I use them all. the. time. For real. You can find them on Amazon! Click on the picture below to check them out!
So, the kids just roll the cube, count the dots, and dot it with their bingo dotter!
And, this one made us hungry every single day! HA! I kept forgetting my real candles for them to use as counters, but cut up pipe cleaners work just the same. :)
I chose to (before laminating) draw little black dots with a marker on the cupcakes so students knew exactly how many to put on each one. I have several students who do not count to 5 yet. This gave them a little guidance as to how many and what that number looks like as a set.
