Write various sight words such as "the," "we," "go," "and," "I," and "went" on index cards. Print out pictures of houses, parks, stores, animals, flowers, airplanes and different types of foods to glue on index cards. Invite kindergartners to use the sight word cards and pictures to form sentences. For example, students might construct "I went to the park" by putting together sight word cards and a park picture. Encourage students to have a partner read their sentences.
Invite kindergartners to bring in small collections of items from home for sorting and pattern games. Collections might include bottle caps, marbles, pasta shapes, dried beans, rocks, plastic coin money, keys or buttons. Place collections in the math center and encourage students to pick a collection to sort by color, shape, size, texture, number of buttonholes or other attributes. Invite students to make a repeating pattern with the collections. Copy patterns on strips of paper to hang on a pattern bulletin board.
Encourage kindergartners to conduct science experiments to begin learning about scientific inquiry. For example, provide a tub of water and items for students to conduct a sink or float experiment. Invite students to make predictions, then test out their predictions by placing objects in the tub of water. Place a balance scale in the science center and have students experiment with which objects are lighter or heavier. Provide magnifying lens and everyday objects such as rocks, leaves, snails, caterpillars or salt and sugar crystals for kindergartners to observe.
Create word family file folder games to help students practice spelling skills. For example, for the "--at" word family glue pictures of a cat, rat, bat, mat and bat inside a folder. Write "-at" at the top of the folder and laminate for durability. Have students use washable markers to spell out words below each picture. Create word family folder games for other word families such as "--ack," "--all," "--ar," "--et," "--ig" and "--ock."