School Sparks - Kindergarten Readiness

Why I love worksheets in kindergarten

As a kindergarten teacher, I often used worksheets in my classroom as a way to help children practice a certain skill set or to supplement a lesson. Time after time, I found worksheets to be an engaging and productive way for children in kindergarten to cement their knowledge of the given topic. Also, worksheets allowed children to work at their own pace through the activity, since each child could work quietly as his or her desk and submit the worksheets whenever they were ready.

I never gave my kindergarten students homework, but I did periodically send children home with blank worksheets that they could complete with their parents, at their leisure over a weekend or long holiday. Each time I sent blank worksheets home, numerous parents would inevitably approach me the following week to ask for additional worksheets. They may have noticed their child was struggling with a particular area and wanted ideas for how to help their child get more comfortable or they saw that their child loved a particular worksheet he had done in school and wanted a few more similar worksheets to do with their child at home. Worksheets turned out to be an extremely easy (and portable!) way for me to include parents in the lessons I was teaching their children at school.

Through these conversations with the parents of my students, I realized that it was difficult for many parents to find quality, educational kindergarten worksheets that would engage their child while also helping their child learn valuable skills. With this realization, I began creating a set of kindergarten worksheets based on the worksheets I used with my kindergarten students with that idea that all parents could use these worksheets with their children at home.

Tips for using these kindergarten worksheets

The kindergarten worksheets on this site are divided by area of study: math and numbers; letters and words; the alphabet; visual discrimination; auditory processing; phonemic awareness; fine motor skills; and other kindergarten themes (such as days of the week, months of the year, and emotions). Within each area, there are numerous categories which are designed to reflect what a kindergarten curriculum for that particular area might entail.

To get started, consider which area you want to work on with your child (such as math or letters). For example, are you hoping to help your child improve his fine motor control or are you interested in teaching your child about how to identify individual sounds within words? Once you have identified which area you are most interested in, you can select which subcategory within that group has kindergarten worksheets that appeal to you and your child.

For each area, I try to include kindergarten worksheets and activity suggestions that address the same basic concept but are designed for children of different ability levels. For example, a set of patterning worksheets may have beginning, intermediate and advanced worksheets that all cover the same basic concept of pattern identification and creation but are adjusted for different skill levels.

When first beginning to work with your child on a particular area, I suggest starting with the beginning kindergarten worksheets in that area. If your child already has knowledge in that area, quickly completing the beginning worksheets will fuel his confidence as he later attempts the intermediate or advanced worksheets. And if your child is learning something for the first time, the beginning-level kindergarten worksheets are specifically geared towards helping children who are just learning something for the first time be successful.

Kindergarten worksheets are not just for kindergarten-aged children

I call this set of worksheets “kindergarten worksheets” because they cover the same lessons that I taught to my students when I was a kindergarten teacher. However, each classroom’s curriculum is different, just like each child is different. If your preschool students are ready for lessons on bar graphing or cutting curves lines, for example, you should certainly not be deterred from using these “kindergarten worksheets” in your preschool classroom. Likewise, if your first grade students are learning to count to 100 or how to write the letters, these worksheets would be great for those students also.

For parents working at home with your child, I similarly suggest you ignore the “kindergarten” designation in the title of these kindergarten worksheets altogether. Regardless of your child’s age and what level in school he either is in already or will soon be starting, if you believe he is ready to learn a new concept, then you should freely print the kindergarten worksheets you are interested in without wondering whether your child is too old or too young to be doing “kindergarten” work. That is the true benefit of working with your child at home - you can tailor each activity to your child’s specific skill set.

Printing these kindergarten worksheets

Each of these kindergarten worksheets was meant to be printed out and then completed by your child, with your assistance, where necessary. (In fact, many worksheets have pieces you need to cut out for your child before he can do the activity on the page.) When you find a kindergarten worksheet you like, you may want to consider printing two of that worksheet so that your child can complete one now and one in a few days. Repeated exposure to a new idea helps young children more quickly master it.

Your computer will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print any of kindergarten worksheets on this site. It is a free program available for download at get.adobe.com/reader/.

All of the illustrations on the Kindergarten Worksheets were created for School Sparks by the lovely and talented Alessia Girasole.