Even though I’ve turned this into a 3rd grade blog, I have a bunch of Kindergarten resources that I want to put up on my TpT site. Over the last 5 years or so, I’ve been using Activity Bags in my Kindergarten classroom, and they have been well-liked by both students and parents. There are 20 themed bags, which include instructions, books, hands-on materials, and resources from the classroom. Children would take each bag home for up to a week, the most popular bags being the stuffed animal bags (Mirabelle’s Bag and the Fuzzy Bear Bag). The parents seemed to most appreciate the Fine Motor Skills Bag, especially if their child could not yet tie their shoes! I store the bags on hooks behind my closets.
Here is an example of the contents of one of the bags. This is bag #4 – Rhyming and Word Families, which includes a wipe off word family house, Rhyming Radishes folder game, wooden letters and word family cards, word family postcards (Vistaprint), a word family journal (Michaels was always great for picking up the $1.00 journals, though the prices have gone up lately), a pencil box with pencils and a pencil sharpener, 3 rhyming books for kids to read, feedback cards (so families can tell you what they liked/didn’t like and if any pieces are broken or missing – also from Vistaprint), and the instruction sheet which goes into each bag. Note that every item has a number label on it so that when random items come in days (or weeks, or even months) later, you can easily put it back in the right spot.
I have put together a resource with all of my activity bag instruction pages, instructions for creating the bags, parent letters, printables, bag tags, check off sheets for signing bags out to students, and some samples of Vistaprint creations that I used for the bags. It is all editable since other people will likely not have the same books and resources that I used, but it will serve as a great starting point. The following themed bags were used:
#1 – Counting Bag
#2 – Sorting and Graphing Bag
#3 – All About Me Bag
#4 – Rhyming and Word Families Bag
#5 – Measuring Bag
#6 – Time and Money Bag
#7 – Mystery Bag
#8 – Scientist of the Week Bag
#9 – Estimation Bag
#10 – Letter Sounds Bag
#11 – Alphabet Bag
#12 – Shapes and Colors Bag
#13 – Mirabelle’s Bag
#14 – Nursery Rhymes Bag
#15 – Fine Motor Skills Bag
#16 – Sight Words Bag
#17 – Name Game Bag
#18 – Making Words Bag
#19 – Fuzzy Bear Bag
#20 – Numbers Bag
To download the Activity Bags file, visit my Teachers pay Teachers store.