New Year Activities for Kindergarten

Inside: Welcome back your kindergarten kiddos with these New Year activities for a fresh start to January.

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When you work in a school, the “new year” comes twice – once in September and once in January. A bit confusing for Kinders who also think school ends on the 100th day (how many times have you explained that one?!)

Anyhow, both are about new beginnings and fresh starts, and after all the hullabaloo that December brings, January is a welcome change!

What’s New? in the New Year

While there are no party hats, horns or ball drops to greet the children when they arrive, they quickly notice that the tables have new “wintery” names to reflect the season: snowflake, evergreen, and pine cone and that they will be sitting with new friends that they can get to know better (cue up: Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?)

new year activities in kindergarten
There is also a new “trophy” for the VIP table to earn (the weekly reward for good table manners).

table trophy for good kindergarten table manners

And a new sharing “snowball” for our morning meeting that they will use to do a “toss and tell” about one thing they did over the holiday break.

winter snowball toss and tell morning meeting

New pencils, new crayons, and new name cards (with our last names) are also part of our first day back.

new pencils for the new year in kindergarten

Honoring New Year Traditions

In December, we began learning about traditions and shared our own holiday traditions with one another. We continue this learning in January with new year activities that help us learn about the traditions associated with this holiday.

We read Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution, and do a turn and talk to share one thing we’d like to learn or get better at in the new year.

Squirrel's New year's resolution for kindergarten resolutions

We read The Wishing Tree and The Wish Tree and make New Year wands and wishes.

We learn that many people eat round foods for good luck in the new year, and enjoy eating oranges together while listening to An Orange in January.

New Year Activities and Traditions - eating round foods

And best of all, we celebrate all of our growth in the first half of the year, by completing the winter pages in our Show How You Grow Books (and peeking back at our fall pages to see just how much we’ve grown since September!)

new year ideas - show how you grow books to celebrate learning

Our first day back is not only a fresh start, but a soft start of sorts, to slowly ease us both back into the new year and the beginning of the second half of our kindergarten time together.

More New Year Activities to Enjoy

For more New Year ideas and activities, try this fun virtual event. Just display the New Year’s backdrop, and use the clickable Google slide and videos to teach about New Year traditions that include making resolutions, wands, wishes, and time capsules and celebrating with special foods, clothes, noise making and ball drops!