In this blog post: Want to plan a FREE end of the year watermelon day for your preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, or first grade class? Find everything you need for this end of the year theme day in this blog post!
If you’ve been around for awhile, you might know that one of my favorite theme days to do at the end of the year in Kindergarten is a watermelon day.
Probably because a day (or week) full of watermelon activities doesn’t require much prep time or money, but it always means instant engagement.
This blog post is going to be packed full of free watermelon day activities that you can use on their own, or combine them with my All About Watermelons Watermelon Day pack.
Let’s walk through what your end of the year watermelon day can look like with these free activities. You will be able to download all of these activities together at the end of the blog post.
This blog post contains Amazon Affiliate links.
Morning Tubs
Today’s watermelon themed morning tubs activity is about as low prep as it gets – just print and add dice and game pieces like mini erasers or chips. This math game practices counting to 50, 100, or 120 and counting on.
How to play: Students can play this on their own or with a partner. They will roll a die and move their game piece as they count on that many spaces. The goal is to get to the end first if played as a partner game.
But watch out for the water slick spots! If a student lands on one of these numbers, they will slide back to the number at the end of the arrow.
This watermelon day morning tub activity can also be used as a math partner game or math center. We love a multi-use resource!
Literacy Activities
After morning tubs, we are ready for morning meeting and then our whole group literacy lesson. This includes an interactive read aloud with discussion focused on one comprehension strand. We’ll follow up the lesson with a student response sheet.
For your end of the year watermelon day, I found the perfect read aloud. It’s literally called Watermelon Day by Kathi Appelt!
I’ve planned a few different response sheets that you can use to follow up this read aloud depending on your grade level.
Students can identify the character and setting, retell the story, identify how the watermelon changed throughout the story, or make connections to the main character.
Want more watermelon themed pictures books to read aloud throughout the day? Check these out:
- The Watermelon Seed by Greg Pizolli
- One Watermelon Seed by Celia Barker Lottridge
- Let’s Go To the Watermelon Farm by Need More Acres Farm
Phonics Activities
For phonics, i’ve planned no prep phonics worksheets that you can use during your whole group phonics lesson, as an activity while you’re pulling students to assess, or during literacy centers.
Students will create a color code for each letter or picture. Then, they will color the fish to match the color code.
This activity uses look-alike words, so students have to really focus on the words they’re reading!
One page is included for each phonics skill, except for alphabet letter ID, which contains the whole alphabet.
Watermelon day writing activities
For your end of the year watermelon day, I chose a writing activity that was already a freebie on my blog. However, I thought it was just perfect for this!
This writing prompt asks students to write about why This Year Was So Sweet! They also get to make a watermelon craft to go along with it, which means it would be the perfect end of the year bulletin board.
An alternative for Preschool and Pre-K, or an art activity for all grades, is this watermelon directed drawing.
watermelon day math
On this end of the year watermelon day, we obviously must play Watermelon Seeds. I’ve included gameboards to work on 2D shapes, 3D shapes, fractions, and telling time to the hour and half hour.
How to play: Partners will take turns rolling a die. They will cover the corresponding shape, fraction, or clock on their side of the mat. However, if that one is all covered, they have to cross out a watermelon seed.
The first player to cover all of their spots wins. But if you lose all of your watermelon seeds before the game is over, you automatically lose!
Don’t think your students can handle the watermelon seeds aspect? No worries! You can just leave that part out and have them use this as a roll and cover game. 🙂
Watermelon Day activities
For your free watermelon day activities, I wanted to plan activities that were different than my Watermelon Day pack in case you wanted to combine them.
First, you’ll want to break out the watermelon for a taste test! Students can brainstorm words that describe a watermelon and write them in the circles.
Students can also use their five senses to explore watermelons. How does a watermelon look, feel, smell, feel, and of course, taste?
For this end of the year watermelon day, students can compare three different fruits and decide which they like best; watermelon, apples, or bananas.
Students can graph the results and then count how many they had in each category.
Finally, i’ve included an extra Spin and Color activity. For preschool and pre-k, there is a visual discrimination spin and color activity. Students will spin a watermelon picture and then color or dab the match.
For Kindergarten and first grade, there are phonics spin and color activities with CVC words and vowel teams.
DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE watermelon DAY ACTIVITIES!
Ready to plan an end of the year watermelon day for your students? You can download all of these hands on bubble day activities for free! Just enter your email below and they will be send straight to your inbox.
TIP: Make sure that you use a personal email address. School districts often block emails with outside downloads. Have any trouble? Email me at [email protected].
I hope you have a wonderful end of the year!
Natalie
