Back to School Preschool Activities

This post will explore a variety of activities that are perfect for the beginning of the year in a preschool classroom!  You will find math, alphabet, crafts, centers, and more on this page.  

School Bus Letter and Number Seek and Find Mats

These seek and find mats have a variety of uses in a preschool or prek classroom.  You can use them in math centers, literacy centers, fine motor centers, sensory bins, small groups, as independent practice and more!  You can even turn them into write the room activities by placing the cards around the room and having students use the seek and find mat to trace the letters and numbers as they find them.  Read about all the different activities here: Back to School Seek and Find Mats with School Buses.

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Alphabet and Number Seek and Find Mats - Back to School Buses

It's that time of year when we all start going back to school.  One thing that goes on in many preschool and kindergarten classrooms around this time is an evaluation of what letters and numbers your students already know so you can begin instruction where it is most beneficial for your students.  These back to school mats provide a fun, hands on way to introduce letters and numbers, or for students who already have learned to identify letters and numbers, this activity provides an engaging way for students to review this material.

There are a variety of ways to use these alphabet and number mats.  One of our favorite ways to use these mats is to use dot markers to record the letters we find.  Once a card is turned over (or found if you hide them in a sensory bin or around the room) is for students to use the dot marker to record which letter or number they saw.

Students can also simply color the number or letter they turn over or find.  This makes a great fine motor activity for students to practice staying in the lines.  

Adding bingo chips makes this a great table top center for students to work on independently.  Students will turn over a card then use a bingo chip to cover the correct letter or number.

Instead of bingo chips, you can use magnetic letters or numbers.  You can place this page on a cookie sheet to actually have the letter or number magnets stick.  With this activity, students will turn over the card, find the matching magnet and then match it to the number or letter on the mat.

If you want just a simple matching activity, you can just use the mats with magnets or mini erasers to match the letters on the mat.  In this picture my toddler would grab a magnetic letter and then find it on the school bus mat and place it on top.  

Another activity is a write and wipe activity.  This can make a great writing center for students who need some handwriting practice.  Students will turn over a card then trace the number they found.  This can also be a write the room activity where students walk around the room to find the number then trace it on their mats.

Skills Practiced with these Mats:

• Letter Recognition
• Number Recognition
• Handwriting
• Fine Motor Skills
• Hand Eye Coordination

Back to School Seek and Find Mats for Letters and Numbers

FOR A LIST OF ALL THE THEMES AVAILABE FOR THESE MATS CLICK THIS LINK

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Pencil Addition Puzzles

My oldest daughter loves to do puzzles.  When she was in Kindergarten, I would try to make as many puzzle activities as I could to help her practice the different concepts we were working on.  These addition pencils was just one of the activities I made for her to practice her addition facts.  

These pencil puzzles make a great math center for kindergarten or first grade.  When I used them with my daughter, I would just give her a set of pencils and ask her to put them together as she solved the problems.  

She would always line them up in a long straight line as she solved each addition fact.  She would end up having a line of puzzles from our front door all the way into our living room!  I know she loved the fact that these puzzles were hands on and allowed her to demonstrate her knowledge of addition facts without having to write all the answers down on a sheet of paper.  

I have recently learned about task boxes, so I have been going back through my older items and organizing them into these task boxes.  My pencil puzzles fit perfectly into the task boxes I have purchased.  This allows for easy center storage and easy center set up!  I can now just pull out the box and the center is ready for my child to use (my third child is currently in kindergarten and just learning to add).  Besides task boxes, these cards can be used as a small group activity, a table top center or as an independent math center for students to practice on their own or with a partner.

Back to School Addition Pencil Puzzles

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