Simple Low-Prep Kindergarten Writing Activities for Your Classroom

In kindergarten, we spend a lot of time teaching students phonics, blends, and more. Once students are starting to read words, it’s important we teach them how to write using those words. However, teaching writing in kindergarten isn’t always the easiest task! But it just got a whole lot easier with these great writing activities! 

Why Teach Writing in Kindergarten 

When we are teaching students how to write words, it’s important that we make a connection for students between knowing words and their purpose. Using kindergarten writing activities makes learning phonics and words more meaningful. In addition, when students are great readers and writers, other subjects become so much easier for them. 

Practice Letter Tracing 

Before students can really start writing, they need to make sure they know their letters. Letter tracing is a simple activity for students to do during the morning meeting, in centers, as a morning motivator, or a fast finisher activity. 

If your students are just beginning letter writing in your classroom, using Letter Formation Directed Draws can be a great way to get students engaged. Students write the letter, then use the directions to draw the corresponding image. You can also provide students with kindergarten writing activities that start with students tracing the letters. Then, they have to write them independently on lines on the writing practice. 

When you are practicing letter tracing, keep in mind you don’t have to go in alphabetical order. In fact, studies have shown this isn’t the most effective way to go! Make sure you check out this blog to learn more about the sequencing of letter learning! 

Kindergarten Writing Activities with Sight Words 

Writing your letters is such an important part of writing, but you have to do more than just write random letters together. Learning how to recognize and write sight words is so important for the writing process. Kindergarten writing activities can start with sight word recognition! A few great activities to practice sight words include: 

• A sight word hunt! Hide sight words around the room and have students search for them. Then, have students write a sentence with the words they found. This is a great way to get practice not only recognizing but writing sight words. 
• Sight word crosswords! These sight word crosswords for fast finishers, morning motivators, or for a center activity. Finding the sight words is a great way for students to familiarize themselves with the word enough they can use it in kindergarten writing activities. 
• Games for Sight Words! You can also use sight word games to help students with recognition and writing. After playing the games from this Year Long Bundle, you can have your students use two or three of the words in sentences. 

While sight words are an animal of their own, you can use sight word activities to help your students become stronger writers in the long run. 

Using Sentence Frames for Kindergarten Writing Activities 

When you first start using kindergarten writing activities, using sentence frames is a great idea. Students have heard sentences their whole lives and they speak in sentences as well. However, those are things that just are in their world. Thinking about how to piece words together to form a complete thought can be a bit harder until they get the practice they need. These kindergarten writing activities for morning motivators are a great way to help students understand how sentences are put together to make sense. 

You can also use sentence frames for students to “fill in the blank.” Using sentence frames or sentence starters are a great way to get students writing independently. While this can be advanced for some kindergarten students, you can challenge students to push themselves to be stronger writers. 

Make Writing a Daily Activity with Journaling 

Kindergarten writing activities can be something you can do every single day! When you use journals, you can have students practice writing in journals that they turn in at the end of the week. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel though for ideas. Check out all the different writing prompts that you can find at Phonics to Fluency for kindergarten. 

Journaling doesn’t have to be something that takes a long time. You can have students write simple sentences or just a few words for their journal. If your students aren’t ready for independent writing, you can always use sentence starters or sentence prompts to help them out. 

Connecting Writing and Crafts 

Writing should be so much fun! You can make it fun in your classroom with simple resources that are available to you with little to no prep needed! 

To make writing dynamic in your classroom, you want to make sure students are engaging in their writing. To do this, you can connect crafts with kindergarten writing activities. These Kindergarten Writing Crafts are perfect for all types of writing from narrative to opinion writing! With each kindergarten writing activity in this year-long bundle, you’ll get fun crafts to go with their writing. Using kindergarten writing activities with crafts is a great way to help students write while they are working their fine motor skills and having a blast! 

These kindergarten writing activities can be checked out for free with this great resource! You can bring Earth Day to life with these free resources for a fun kindergarten writing activity. 

Writing is an important skill for kindergarten and beyond. Make sure your students are ready by practicing letter formation, working with sight words, and always practice simple writing! With these kindergarten writing activities, your students will be writing like pros in no time!