6 Must-Have Winter Literacy Activities for Kindergarten and First Grade

After the holidays, do you ever feel like you’re heading into a slump? The holiday gifts are put away. The lights are down. The fun parties are over. The winter blues are a real thing! Our students can get a little restless after the holiday break, so I wanted to help you bring some purposeful fun into your lesson planning! These must-have winter literacy activities will engage students while providing opportunities to practice important reading and writing skills!

Just a quick reminder: January is a great time of year to go back and review classroom expectations and procedures. After long breaks, students may forget what they’re supposed to do and may have gotten out of their normal routines. THIS POST has some great tips for resetting expectations!

Now let’s dive into the six must-have winter literacy activities so you can keep your learners engaged!

Kindergarten Winter Literacy Stations

The Kindergarten Winter Literacy Stations make the perfect winter literacy activities! There are six literacy centers that are great for your work stations, centers, word work, extra practice with volunteers, or intervention activities. They are also aligned with TEKS, have teacher directions, simple directions for students, and activity/recording pages.

It includes:

• Frosty Vowels- Medial Vowel Sort
• Piling On the Snow- Endings (-ed, -ing, s)
• Slippery Slope Sort- Noun and Verb Picture Sort
• Wintery Words- ABC Order
• Snowflake Sort- Short I, Long I Sort
• Building Igloos- CVC Word Building

First Grade Winter Literacy Stations

This First Grade Winter Literacy Station Pack is filled with seven literacy activities that go right along with what I will be teaching the next several weeks. Each winter literacy activity is aligned with first grade TEKS and will add a little fun while you cover some difficult standards! It would also be great for second graders who need a good review of these topics.

Besides literacy stations, you could use these activities to introduce new concepts to the class as a whole group or use them in a small group setting to reteach a concept. I will be using it to introduce and review concepts that are covered in my Morning Grammar Work.  Some of those things, such as prepositional phrases, are just TOUGH for 6 and 7 year olds! YIKES!

This resource includes these literacy centers:

• Prepositional Snow Phrases (1.21A)
• ABC Order Snow Boots (1.6E)
• Adverb or Adjective Snowman Sort (1.20A)
• Snowy Sentence Punctuation (1.21C)
• Ch and Th Snowflake Word Sort (1.3A)
• Write a Winter Poem (1.18B)
• Listening Comprehension Foldables (1.9A)

Close Reading Winter Bundle

The Winter Close Reading Bundle has everything you’ll need to help students improve reading comprehension and vocabulary while integrating science and reading. This bundle has 13 passages with each passage including:

• teacher notes
• non-fiction passage with multiple-choice questions
• notes taking page
• vocabulary page
• writing extension page

January Shared Reading

Another one of our favorite winter literacy activities is shared reading. Shared reading poems are the perfect way to integrate literacy and science as you are inviting the students to practice reading with you. Use these four poems and songs to to teach and reinforce different reading strategies and skills, as well as phonics. Grab it HERE!

Winter Flip Books

Winter Flip Books can be used to integrate reading and writing with science and social studies! This saves time throughout your day and provides authentic purposes for reading and writing. Students can fill these out as a whole group, in small groups, or individually. They work great as pieces for interactive notebooks, too. Grab it HERE!

Build a Snowman Craftivity

The Build a Snowman resource is a craft with a purpose! After completing a writing piece, students will self-assess their writing. Then for each writing convention, they get to earn a snowman piece. It gives them a great visual! You can read more about purposeful crafts HERE. Our revising and editing has improved so much since I have started using this concept.

These resources are sure to be a hit with your students!