25 Resources, Ideas, and Projects for Learning Together in January

Inside: Looking for ideas for your January kindergarten plans? Here are 25 experiences to help you create a more meaningful month with kids.

Your January Kindergarten Plans

While January might be the first month in the calendar year, it is the midpoint of the kindergarten year and your kiddos will be returning to school with some solid skills they have acquired in the fall.

During this second half of the year, you will want to continue to build fluency with these skills, but also provide experiences for children to apply these skills in meaningful, authentic ways.

There are also a few fun events that you might teach into and include in your January plans.

January 1st New Year’s Day

January 10th Save the Eagles Day

January 18th Winnie the Pooh Day

January 19th Popcorn Day

January 17th Martin Luther King Jr. Day

January 20th International Day of Acceptance

January 25th Opposite Day

January 29th National Puzzle Day

January 31st Hot Chocolate Day

25 Ideas for Creating a Meaningful Month

Try something new this month by adding one or more of these ideas to your January kindergarten plans!

Welcome the New Year with a Fresh Start by creating new table teams, setting out new crayons and pencils, and eating an orange together (round foods are thought to bring good luck in some cultures!)

Explore traditions such as making resolutions, wishes, and time capsules and celebrating with special foods, clothes, noise making and ball drops with a New Year Virtual Event. 

Tell the Life Story of Martin Luther King Jr., where they will learn about his commitment to peace and fairness and create a timeline that they can use to retell the story of a his life to others.

Start a Daily Intention and Reflection Practice just like Ben Franklin who was born on January 17th.

Help prepare your kiddos for mid-year assessments with Fluency Letter and Sound Cards and Games or Fluency Number Cards and Games.

Pair how-to writing with authentic experiences such as How to Build a Snowman, How to Make Hot Chocolate, How to Make Snow Cream, or How to Dress for Winter. 

Set up a Weather Watching Station in your classroom and invite children to keep a Weather Watcher Journal to track and compare your local weather. 

Explore 4 Types of Precipitation , bring in some ice and snow for children to observe, and explore and make precipitation paintings.

Explore the question, What Shape is a Snowman’s Nose? while learning about 2D shapes with this Snowman Math Mini-Unit.

Enjoy singing the number rhyme, Five Jolly Snowpals, as you work on phonemic awareness and number sense skills.

Add Winter Mosaic Mats and snowflake building materials to your art center for children to get creative with loose parts.

Help kids Grow Their Thinking Around Matter with fun ice experiments and challenges such as an ice cube melting race.

Plan a Mitten Math Day where kids can practice measurement and counting using their own gloves or mittens. 

Pair a hot cocoa day with Marshmallow Math, where children use marshmallows to measure everything they will need for hot chocolate including the cup, spoon, and packet. 

Take a Virtual Field Trip to the Arctic to help a polar bear find his way home.  Follow that with a Day in Antarctica where you help a lost penguin get back to his family.  

Make building an Arctic habitat a Block Center Challenge by adding fun props such as ice cubes, polar animals, styrofoam, and snowflakes.

Engage kids in the research process by doing some Penguin Research for some great science and literacy integration.

Take a Winter Walk to observe and record the signs of the season.

Create Winter Research Groups to explore how plants, animals, weather and people change with the season.

Set up a Classroom Makerspace and offer 3 Kinds of Makerspace Challenges for your little engineers.

Host a Welcome Winter Party where kids can make pine cone bird feeders, decorate candles, create collage snowmen, eat a snowman snack, and play a snowman game.

Build your kiddos writing “muscles” using Growing Writers: Sentence Writing, where kids meet the “sentence caterpillar” and follow his steps to write a complete sentence.

Add winter Draw and Label it! sheets to your writing center.

Involve kids in a Groundhog Data Collection Project where they will survey classmates and each other about predictions for Groundhog’s Day on February 2nd.

Build community and celebrate your kids’ success this month with a fun virtual Snowpal Party where children disguise themselves as Snowpals and join “Snowmen at Night” for lots of fun and frolic as they throw snowballs, go ice skating, drink hot cocoa, and more. 

And a BONUS one just for You! Create a Happy Teacher List so that your own self-care becomes a priority this month!

For more ideas within specific subject areas, visit the Roots & Wings Resource Library.