Both kindergarten and first grade students enjoy listening to their teachers read aloud to them. Reading to children helps them learn new words and ideas, motivates them to want to learn to read on their own and it allows them to use their imagination to explore a different world beyond their own personal experience. Reading aloud introduces children to the unique language of books. The formal grammatical structure and the descriptive nature of stories can help develop children's literacy skills. Reading aloud also helps children develop thinking skills. Whether you're a teacher or parent, it's always important to discuss the story that you've just read to the children afterward. Ask them what they think of the story and what lessons they learned from what they just heard.
Create a bingo game for your kindergarten students. In each square, put a letter that corresponds to an animal that you've studied in your class. During the game, you can call out the name of an animal (and the letter that the animal's name starts with) and ask the children to find that letter and mark it. You can also show the children a photo of that animal and try the same activity. This is a fun lesson for kindergarteners, and it helps them get a better grasp of the alphabet.
When you're teaching your first graders about different attributes of animals, combine this lesson with playing tag. Each student gets to pick what kind of animal he or she wants to be. You will call out an attribute of an animal -- for example, "two wings." All the children that are two-winged animals have to try to run to the opposite end of the designated area. If they get tagged by the other children, they have to turn into trees and stay in place. They can still use their arms, but not their legs, to tag. Call out another attribute -- for example, "four letters." The game continues until there is only one "animal" that remains. This is a fun game that first graders will enjoy, and it will teach them about animal attributes.
A lesson that kindergarten students need to learn is the difference between living and non-living objects. One method of teaching your class about this topic is through an art activity. Ask your students to make a drawing of their favorite living thing, and ask them to write why it's alive. For example: "It eats" or "it moves." Similarly, on another piece of paper, ask the students to draw something that's non-living and ask them to write why it's not alive. This activity helps the kindergarten class build word formation and writing skills and it also encourages thinking skills.