24 Common Core Activities for Kindergarten Success!

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Use these Common Core activities for Kindergarten success! These learning activities for kindergarten help kids work on all the areas needed to meet common core standards.

All parents want their children to succeed at school. Right now, part of that is understanding Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

Over the last few years, Common Core has gotten kind of a bad rap. But we’re not here to discuss that.

The most important thing for your child’s success is that you understand how the standards work, and what they look like in school.

Many parents are concerned about how to help their kids at home when they don’t understand Common Core.

I know that I can help my kids at home, supplementing their learning, if needed. But it’s knowing what they need to learn is what’s tough for me.

Often I’m just going off of what they bring home from school.

However, if a teacher is teaching hands-on, there’s often not much to bring home for me to know what they’re working on.

I am happy to be working along with Be a Learning Hero to bring us some answers.

They have created a website that answers all of our Common Core questions, plus lots of tips and guides to help us as parents at home.

To help you make sense of Common Core standards and assessments—and to give you peace of mind as you support your child through the sometimes challenging experience of learning—BeALearningHero.org provides parents with information, resources, and tips.

These tools for parents about the Common Core can be found on Be A Learning Hero:

I’m sure there’s lots and lots of questions you have regarding the Common Core, I urge you to check out Be A Learning Hero to find all the information you’ll need for your state and your school.

What I’m most interested in is what I can do at home to help my kids succeed through each year of school. And this site has helped me narrow down what my child will need to know at each grade level! Thank you!

Simple activities to do to help a kindergartner succeed with common core standards

You Can Do These Common Core Activities For Kindergarten at Home

What I found through Be A Learning Hero is that according to PTA.org, there are 10 main things that kindergartners must learn by the end of the school year (click that link to find other grades too).

These are activities that you can do at home with your kindergartner to help them learn those 10 main things by the end of the year.

Help Kindergartners Succeed in Language & Literacy

These common core activities for kindergarten focus on the literacy and language standards of the common core. There are activities listed to help with each area to learn.

Learn the entire alphabet. More specifically, learn both upper and lowercase letters.

Write the letters of the alphabet (some, not all), both upper and lowercase, on the sidewalk or driveway. Your child can then draw lines connecting the uppercase letter to its matching lowercase counterpart. See more about it here: Learn Upper & Lowercase Letters on Sidewalk

Another fun way to work on a specific letter is to cut a shape (like a Heart – for letter h – or an Apple – for letter a) out of paper and write both upper and lowercase letters around the edge. Have your child clip a paper clip over the letters that it starts with (h for heart). See more about it here: Find the Letter on the Heart

Learning letters (upper & lowercase) - a Common Core Activity for Kindergarten

Find 10 active ways to learn the alphabet here.

Learn all the letter sounds.

Make it a race! With letter magnets on the fridge, call out a letter sound and have your child race to find the letter as fast as they can. Time them! See more about it here: A Race to Learn Phonics

Play catch with a ball! Add letter sound learning in the mix by calling out a letter, and have your child respond with a word that begins with that letter. See more ways to play it here: Alphabet Ball

Alphabet ball game for to learn phonics - a common core activity for Kindergarten

Find more letter sound activities in 50 alphabet activities.

Print the letters of the alphabet.

Make writing more than just about writing. Make a secret code for them to solve! Make a code legend for each letter of the alphabet. Write the code on another sheet of paper for them to fill in the blanks! See more on how to do it here: Crack the Secret Code

Create mailboxes for kids to write letters to send to their friends or family (for just pretend). See more about it here: Mailbox Pretend Play

Pretend to write letters to friends - one of many common core activities for kindergarten

Retell familiar stories.

Set up scenes from a story and act them out together. Telling the story from beginning to end in their own words. Find more details on how: Act Out a Story

Make storytelling a fun activity by retelling classic stories that we know my heart. Add props and your child’s imagination! See A Mom with a Lesson Plan for more tips on storytelling with kids.

Describe events.

Kindergartners need to learn to use drawing and writing to describe an event, as well as telling about it their experience. A journal is a great place to do this. Learn what a journal looks like for Kindergartners at The Measured Mom.

Take part in conversations. 

Socializing may not come naturally for young kids. Start out by simply talking about their day at school. If you always get an “I dunno” you can try some of these questions to ask your child about school here. Be sure to listen and take turns speaking.

State their opinion.

Set up times of the year where you interview your child. Beginning and end of the school year, or the 1st of the year, or even at their birthday. Ask about their favorite things, what’s their favorite color, sport, holiday, season, book, movie, etc. Print out an interview for a keepsake: Interview with Kids Printable

Learn common words such as sight words.

Incorporate learning sight words into art and make it magical! Write the words on a piece of paper in white crayon. Paint over them with watercolors. See more about it here: Magic Letter Learning

Make practicing sight words fun to do! Simply write a list of the words they’re working on and have them flip through a magazine (ones like Highlights and the Lego Magazine) and circle those words. That’s it! See more about it here: Spot the Sight Word

Spot the sight word - a kindergarten common core activity

Lots more fun ways to learn sight words found here.

Understand and use question words.

Make a spy game to solve a mystery. A Mom with a Lesson Plan does a whole birthday party of spy activities to help kids solve the who, what, when, where, why and how of the missing goodie bags.

Make story stones (add pictures to rocks using mod podge) and tell stories together. Think of all aspects of a story, who, what when, where, why and how. See how to make story stones at Happy Hooligans.

Help Kindergartners Succeed in Mathematics.

These common core activities for kindergarten work on all the concepts of math that are required to meet the common core standards for the kindergarten level.

Counting objects.

Count objects in nature! Find things around you to count such as rocks, twigs, or even the petals of flowers. Find more about it here: Counting Flower Petals

Use a dice to count out objects. Count buttons, kernels of corn, pom poms, blocks, or anything else that your child is interested in. Roll the die (or roll two dice for more!) and count out the objects one by one. See more details here: Counting Kernels One to One Correspondence

Count with dice - find more common core activities for kindergarten

Find more counting and one to one correspondence activities.

More than. Less than.

A family favorite of ours is to play the card game “War”. Split the deck evenly between players and each of you turn up a card. The greater number wins (And takes the other cards). A tie? Put down two more cards card (one face down) and the second cards that are face up ‘play again’, greater one wins all of them in play! Find other ways to play War at Fantastic Fun & Learning.

Make towers of blocks to work on more than and less than! If you balance a board across the two towers you can see which one is more or less! More details at Dalle Un Colino

Visual adding and subtracting.

Go bowling! Start with 10 pins (or try pop bottles) to knock down. Ten minus ____ is what? You can see more details and print out a worksheet from What the Teacher Wants.

Set up a pom pom drop using cardboard tubes and painter’s tape. Have two different tubes pointing into one basket. Have your child count and put in pom poms into one tube and do the same for the other tube. Adding them together in the basket. See more details: Visual Adding Pom Pom Drop.

A visual addition activity using a pom pom drop - more common core activities for kindergarten

Less than 10 adding and subtracting problems.

Create a fun obstacle course using pieces of paper (sticky notes) with easy addition and subtraction problems. Stick them all over the table and chairs, on top of, underneath, and around. Have your child solve the problem to be able to step on it. Fine more details here: Learning obstacle course for kids

Learn all about shapes.

Search for shapes around the house! Snap photos of them prior to your child joining you and then together you can search for the shapes in your photos! See more details: Photo Scavenger Hunt for Shapes

Hang up a shapes in a doorway with yarn. Make sure there’s at least 2 of each shape. Have your child jump and grab the matching shapes. Find more details on how here: Jump & Grab the Matching Shapes

Jump & grab the matching shapes -- a common core activity for kindergarten

Find more simple shape activities.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Be a Learning Hero. The opinions and text are all mine.

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