Pajama Day Activities for Kindergarten

Being in kindergarten has its advantages. For starters, pancakes make a suitable meal for breakfast, lunch or dinner. There’s always time for a good picture book story, and warm cookies served with milk make any day worth repeating. Maybe the only thing that could top pancakes, good books, and milk and cookies is getting to do it all at school in your pajamas.

Bedtime Stories

Kick off Pajama Day by reading a favorite bedtime story such as "Goodnight Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown or “The Napping House” by Audrey Wood. Encourage students to bring their pillows and favorite books from home to share with classmates. Invite parents or an older class in the school to stop by the last hour of the day to read with kindergartners.

Decorate Pillowcases

Send a note home asking parents to send in pillowcases that kindergartners can decorate on pajama day. Old pillowcases or inexpensive white ones from the store work great. Provide puffy paints and fabric markers for students to use to design and decorate their special pillowcases.

Crazy Pajama Designs

Have students lie down and trace their body outlines on large sheets of white butcher paper. Cut out each student's outline. Using paints or markers, design the craziest pajamas possible. Have students vote for their favorite kindergarten designer pajamas.

Milk and Cookies

If an oven is available at your school, ask students to help you make a batch of sugar cookies. Roll out the dough and cut it into shapes. Bake, cool and decorate the cookies with icing and cookie toppings. Serve the cookies with milk. Option: Serve store-bought cookies if you do not have access to an oven.

Bedtime Graph

Create three fun Pajama Day graphs for students to answer. For the first graph pose the question, “What do you sleep with at night?” Possible choices for answers include: stuffed animal, blanket, pet, nightlight and only me. For the second graph ask, “What is your favorite pajama color?” Possible answers include: red, blue, green, pink, purple, orange, black and yellow. For the last graph ask, “What is your favorite stuffed animal?” Possible answers include: teddy bear, puppy, kitten, dragon, tiger and monkey.

Letter “P” Celebration

If your Pajama Day goes along with a study of the letter “p” read “If You Give a Pig a Pancake” by Laura Numeroff. Then measure out correct amounts of pancake mix and water to whip up a fresh batch of mini-pancakes. Of course, if you give a pig a pancake she’ll want some syrup to go with it. Better bring some maple syrup for your kindergartners just in case.