During the first weeks of school, incorporate an "About Me" thematic unit into your kindergarten curriculum. Include activities that touch on the different content areas and allow children to learn about themselves, as well as one another. In the area of science, provide children with activities that allow them to explore their senses. Read different works of literature that relate to the theme for English-Language Arts. Another activity for literacy development may include having children draw pictures that illustrate their families and have them share the pictures with the class, which will promote vocabulary development. During arts and crafts, students can create collages that illustrate things they like. Family trees can be made for social studies.
Thematic units that focus on the seasons are an ideal way to teach students about the changes that occur in the environment during these times of year. Present these units at the start of a particular season---a fall theme at the start of fall and so forth. Include activities to help children gain an understanding of the different seasons. For a fall-themed math activity, students can sort and make patterns with colored fall leaves. During a winter unit, students can experiment different ways to melt ice for science. A spring-themed Language Arts activity may include writing spring-related sight words such as bird, tree and flower.
Thematic units provide students with opportunities to learn about different holidays. For a Halloween math activity, children may practice one-to-one correspondence by placing amounts of Halloween stickers on the numbers that they correspond to---two bat stickers on the number two and four witch stickers on the number four. During a Valentine's Day unit, have students match uppercase letters to lowercase letters that are printed on heart-shaped cutouts. During a St. Patrick's Day unit, teach students about limericks for an English-Language Arts activity.
Teach your kindergarten students about the importance of health and nutrition with a thematic unit. Encourage students to create collages that illustrate healthy foods and non-healthy foods for an art and fine motor activity. During science, they can feed healthy foods to a pretend healthy food monster. Use plastic examples of healthy foods to create patterns, practice sorting and practice addition skills. Ask children to identify the letters that begin with specific healthy foods to promote phonemic awareness.