Pre-K & kindergarten worksheets & activities

Common Core kindergarten math has five domains: counting and cardinality, operations and algebraic thinking, number and operations in base ten, measurement and data, and geometry. Most of the year goes to two big ideas: representing and comparing whole numbers with sets of objects, and describing shapes and space. Students also add and subtract within 10 and start to see the numbers 11 to 19 as ten ones and some more ones.

By the end of kindergarten, students should count to 100 by ones and by tens (K.CC.A.1) and count forward from any given number instead of starting at 1 (K.CC.A.2). They should also count up to 20 objects to answer "how many?" and write the numbers 0 to 20.

Kindergartners add and subtract within 10 using objects, fingers, drawings and equations, and solve simple word problems (K.OA.A.1–2). They break numbers up to 10 into pairs, find the number that makes 10 with any number from 1 to 9 (K.OA.A.4), and become fluent with addition and subtraction within 5 (K.OA.A.5).

Kindergartners name squares, circles, triangles, rectangles and hexagons, plus the solid shapes cubes, cones, cylinders and spheres, whatever their size or orientation (K.G.A.2). They also describe where objects are using words such as above, below, beside and next to, and tell flat shapes from solid ones.

The Common Core standards start in kindergarten, so pre-K goals come from each state's early learning guidelines. Most expect children to count to at least 10 or 20, count small groups of objects one by one, recognize numerals to 10, compare which group has more, and name basic shapes such as circles, squares and triangles.

Math is the biggest set, with cases for every core standard listed above. There are also science, social studies, phonics activities in the same detective format: students solve each question, match the answer to a suspect and cross suspects off until one is left.