The Polar Express Activities for Kindergarten

The Polar Express Activities for Kindergarten

If you are looking for The Polar Express Activities for Kindergarten and Polar Express activities for first grade, you are in the right place. The Polar Express is a classic Christmas story that is beloved by parents, teachers, and students. Check out all our learning ideas to bring their book to life and to tie in so many learning skills in a fun way so your students won’t even know they are learning. The Polar Express Activities for Kindergarten is right here.

Start with The Polar Express

Each year I read the Polar Express with my students. We can also snag some fun Polar Express Activities for Kindergarten. I strongly feel the book is perfect and your students will enjoy it. Yes, it is long but it is also beautiful in illustration and vocabulary. Many teachers recreate a Polar Express train experience and invite guest readers to come. We do this as well and it is amazing. We also give each child a paper ticket and a bell from the dollar store.
You can grab the book here and start this tradition in your classroom with learning fun.

Extending the book for Building Words

Next, we use the book to guide instruction for What a fun way to invite learning in your classroom. One of the activities we do is to build words using blends and the train theme. You can see the words we created below.

Reading and Matching Words

Reading and Matching Words

Then, we played fun delivering the gift came. Students have to read the word on the present and find the sleigh that will deliver it. How fun is this to review words they know and understand?!? What a fun The Polar Express Activities for Kindergarten.

Reading Comprehension Fun

Next, we play our reading comprehension game. It is prepped in our basket here. My students don’t see the class list we use and they don’t know that we add a check by their name for each question they answer correctly. We add an X by their name for every question they get wrong. What an easy and great way to keep track of reading comprehension without your students even noticing.

Connecting to Writing

Using a piece of literature to tie into what we are reading helps students make great connections to what they read about. Using The Polar Express to be the topic of writing is just smart… and fun. One of the keys is to provide a good word wall to help those with writing. At this point in the year, I am highly encouraging as much independent writing as possible.

Little Readers

Another trick I implement in my classroom is little books. They are easy to create with a school copier and they can create more for my students to read. Let’s face it, having enough books is a struggle for EVERY teacher.

But I don’t just give my readers books, this book asks them to write in it to finish the sentences. Now I am creating readers and writers.

My Favorite Part

I can not even hide that my favorite part is using the writing prompt to ask if that student WOULD get on The Polar Express or WOULD NOT get on The Polar Express. What a great open-ended question to see if they understood the book and how it connected with them. We use this art project from Stephanie Stewart. 

Math Fun Too

Don’t fear… we have to review math skills in this pack too. Check out our writing numbers activity above for The Polar Express Activities for Kindergarten.

You can grab this Polar Express Learning Pack from my shop here.
You can grab this Polar Express Learning Pack from TpT here.

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