7 Low-Prep May Activities for First Grade
May is a fun month in the first-grade classroom! Graduation is just around the corner, and students (and teachers) are especially excited about the upcoming summer break! If you’re looking for ways to keep those kiddos engaged in learning up until the final weeks of school, I’ve gotcha covered! Today, I’m sharing 7 low-prep May activities that your students will love!
1. May Morning Work Activities
If you’re anything like me, you probably LOVE your morning work routine. In my classroom, morning work helped to create some predictability each day, during what can be a very chaotic time. If you’ve been doing morning work all year long, by May your kiddos should be absolute pros. But if you haven’t, it’s not too late!
Using morning work throughout the month of May will help tame some of the end-of-the-year crazies and keep students on task. Additionally, it helps sets a positive tone for the day and encourages independence among your firsties. Be sure to check out this blog post if you need more tips on how to set up a morning routine in your room.
My May Morning Work pages are the perfect way to review a variety of first-grade concepts quickly, and easily, each and every morning. Each page covers a spiral review of important ELA and math skills, so you can be sure your students are off to a great start every day! Additionally, Kiddos will notice a predictable format on the pages, which helps ensure they’re able to complete them quietly on their own. As a result, you will get a few minutes each morning to take attendance, do the lunch count, and gather supplies for your lessons.
This morning work resource also includes a digital option, which is great as a review tool. I liked to pop these up on the Smart Board and have the students correct their pages while we went through each question as a class. You can also assign the digital version to students who were absent or as homework! No matter how you use them, these morning work activities are a great resource for May.
2. May No-Prep Printables
What teacher doesn’t need a few more no-prep printables? When I was still in the classroom, this was a constant struggle of mine. I’d find myself needing just a couple more activities to fill odd time slots in our day, but couldn’t find much in the way of meaningful activities. Just because we have time to fill, doesn’t mean it needs to be fluff, right?!
That’s why I created monthly no-prep printables that are geared toward giving students the practice they need, without any added prep! When planning my May activities, these always came in especially handy since it’s such a busy month! The May & June No-Prep Printables Pack is filled with 60 fun and engaging math and ELA worksheets that follow a spiral review. Some of the skills covered include:
- Skip counting
- Telling time
- Interpreting data
- ABC order
- Parts of speech
- Opinion writing
- and MORE!
One of my favorite activities in this packet is the Mother’s Day writing prompts. Since May is such a busy month, these are a great way to have your students make a low-fuss gift for their mom. First, simply have the children fill in the sentence starter and add their own details. Next, they will color the pictures, glue them down on a piece of colored cardstock, and then laminate them for a keepsake that moms will LOVE! There are also prompts included for Father’s Day too that you’ll be able to use in June.
3. Camping Color by Word
As you gear up for summer vacation, what better time than May for camping-themed resources?
Since camping is such an exciting family vacation for many kiddos in the summertime, I loved to use these Camping Color by Word Pages to practice sight words and more! This resource includes print-ready pages that cover a variety of sight words, CVC words, digraphs, blends, and CVCe words.
There are also editable options, so you can use any word you’re working on in your classroom, too! Mix it up by adding vocabulary words, spelling words, or any other words you’re looking to target. In addition to the color-by-word pages, there are also extra “on the back” activities that are fully editable as well. These activities include rhyming, ABC order, and sentence writing with your target words. Simply choose the activities that work best for your group, edit them accordingly, and then make copies for your group!
4. Math Task Card Review Activities
May is a month filled with review in the first-grade classroom. By this point in the game, you’ve covered so much ground in your lessons, and it’s time to pause and check in on retention. I find that one subject that needs the most review and repetitive practice is math. In short, it all comes right back to the “use it or lose it” rule! Kiddos need to keep using the math skills they’ve learned to maintain their skills through the summer months.
Because of this, I loved using fun and engaging activities to brush up on everything we’ve covered. That’s where this Math Task Card Bundle comes in SUPER handy! This huge bundle includes 18 task card resources with both printable and digital options for each one. These are great for whole-group scoot games, centers, small groups, technology integration, and more!
During the month of May, I liked to cycle through these math task cards to make sure we touched on all of the critical math skills that were taught throughout the year. Some of the skills covered in this bundle include:
- Interpreting data
- Counting tally marks to 30
- Place value with base ten blocks (to 120)
- Time to the hour and half hour
- 2D and 3D shapes
- 10 more/10 less & 1 more/1 less (to 120)
- Skip counting (forward/backward 2’s, 5’s, 10’s)
- and more!
This comprehensive bundle is a great way to make sure your kiddos review all of the math skills you’ve taught, in a fun way! Plus, the digital and printable formats allow you to use this resource in multiple ways to keep engagement high.
5. May Activities for Center Time – Coming Soon!
Center time is always a student favorite in the primary classroom. I love that center time is an opportunity to use hands-on learning, partner games, and independence to practice what we’ve learned. Center time can be challenging for teachers though since it usually involves LOTS of prep work. Have no fear, I’ve got the perfect solution for you!
These Low-Prep May Centers are the perfect way to give your students the center time opportunities they love, without spending hours prepping all those tiny game pieces. I’m finishing up the final details but this will be added to my store very soon!
My low-prep center activities use print-and-go game boards, task cards, and activities to make planning centers a breeze. In addition, children will love playing these games with classmates, and you’ll love how quickly you can have your May center activities prepped! Included in this resource you’ll find:
- Telling time board game
- Measurement task cards
- Money task cards
- Mother’s and Father’s Day word problems
- Word search pages
- ABC order game
- and MORE!
These center activities focus on math and ELA concepts that are perfect for working through in May and June. Plus, each of the games uses a timely theme like graduation, gardening, and Cinco de Mayo. Your students will love these fun and engaging center games!
6. Comparing Numbers Math Game
Next up, I have a fun math game to share with you that’s a perfect fit for your May activities! If you teach first grade, I’m sure you’ve spent your fair share of time working on comparing numbers. Comparing numbers up to 99 is an important first-grade math skill that’s used all year long. During the month of May, I liked to review this concept in depth with this fun, Comparing Numbers Math Game.
This first-grade math center is the perfect fun, and simple, game to get your 1st-grade students plenty of practice comparing numbers! This bug-themed board game is great for May when flowers are beginning to bloom and the creepy crawlies are out. First, students will draw 2 cards and compare the numbers on each one.
Then, they will move their game piece accordingly and take turns with the next player. Students will love playing this game during centers or on a Fun Friday. This game can be prepped once and saved for year after year use as well! Simply laminate the pieces for durability and store everything in a zipper-top bag.
7. End of the Year Awards
Finally, this last one isn’t quite an activity, but it’s a super useful resource for the month of May! Be sure to check out this Student Awards resource, if you’d like to celebrate with your students before sending them off for summer vacation! This resource includes 19 print-and-go student award certificates in both color and black and white. Each of the awards has a fun award title. Some of the awards include:
- Amazing Artist
- Ravenous Reader
- Star Speller
- Future Teacher
- and MORE!
Since these fun awards are editable and fillable, you can customize them to meet your needs! They also come with a variety of ethnicities and boy and girl clipart options. In addition to the editable, ready-made awards, you’ll also find some generic options that allow for even more flexibility. You can find these in my Tpt Store, or subscribe to my email list to download them for FREE!
Have Fun Planning May Activities
I hope this list of low-prep resources helped jumpstart your planning for May! As always, you can find even more fun activities, printables, and learning games in my TpT Shop to supplement your lesson plans.
As this busy month approaches, don’t forget to lean into those no-prep review activities to help make your month run a bit more smoothly, while still hitting all those standards. Have fun planning, teacher-friend!
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