Items filtered by date: January 2012
Leap Year Lessons: Activities For Leap Day Part 6
Leaping Through Letters And Numbers On Leap Day!
Although I made these sliders specifically for Leap Day (These are animals that are fairly good at leaping/hopping) they also fit in nicely with your other monthly themes.
I’ve designed a slider for all of my units and had my Y5’s make one every month to review a variety of report card standards.
They enjoyed making and collecting them. Sliders were especially helpful for my ESL students and strugglers.
The Leapin' Animals have strips for skip counting by 2's, 3's, 5's, and 10's. Students can also make an upper and lowercase "Letter Leaper" and younger students can count by 1's.
Here’s How To Make A Leap Day Slider:
Run off the animal templates on construction paper.
Decide which letter or number strip you want to review and make copies.
Cut them on a paper cutter. Pre-cut slits with an Exacto knife.
Give children a choice of which animal they want to make.
Students cut out their Leap Day critter and add some colorful details with crayons or markers.
Give students glue dots and wiggle eyes to add a bit of pizzazz.
Children trace the letters and numbers with a highlighter, marker or crayon.
Add a math extension to the process by having them choose 2 or 3 colors and trace in an ABAB or ABC pattern.
Demonstrate how to insert their strip into the slits.
I've made a template for some "Hoppy" Leap Day! sticker labels, if you want students to be able to add one to their creations.
When everyone is done assemble them on the carpet area and skip count together, start leaping from one number or letter to the next, sing the ABC song, spell words, names, etc.
To help get the wiggles out, children can take out their strip and you can do the Leap Day Animal Pokey with them. I've included the song in the packet.
Students can also use their Leap Day Pal for a spatial direction review.
The teacher tells students to put the kangaroo beside, under, above, behind etc.
Teachers can also review body parts with students by having children place their squirrel on their knee, hip, thigh, wrist etc.
Click on the link to view/download Leapin' Animal Sliders for Leap Day
I hope you have a “Hoppy” Day learning and leaping as you go!
Scroll down for more Leap Day Articles
Be sure and pop in tomorrow for some more fun teaching tips!
Leapin' Animal Alphabet and Number Sliders
10 pages. Common Core State Standard RI.K1d Your students will enjoy making and collecting these 6 different animal sliders. Use them as a fun way to assess students too!
Leap Year Lessons: Activities For Leap Day Part 5
As I stated in the first article, I thought it would be fun for your students if you got together with your fellow teachers and each offered a different activity on Leap Day.
Students would then Leap on over to another classroom for whatever time you deemed appropriate, to do that activity and continue leaping until they had visited each teacher and done however many activities your grade level had planned.
I made an entire packet of table top lessons to choose from, for some quickie morning activities that include a maze, pinch & poke, bingo dot, word find, what letter or number comes next, pattern pages, similarities and differences etc.
You can make these into “Ready-Set-Leap into action!” timed activities, or give them a specific amount of time to complete whatever packet you decide to make for them.
You can start off the day by leaving students a Leap Day note and pencil on their desk.
Students can keep all of their papers organized by tucking them into the Mama Kangaroo pouch that they made out of a paper plate.
Click on the link to view/download Leap Day Table Top Lessons.
Help eliminate the wiggles by acting out a few nursery rhymes that have leaping and jumping in them like Jack Be Nimble.
Click on the link to view/download Leapin’ Nursery Rhymes for Leap Day.
Sing the Leap Day Song, to the tune of Bingo, to help review the concept of subtraction, and reinforce a clapping pattern.
Since Leap Day was added on, to keep the seasons on course, you might also want to do a writing extension and make the class book Our Favorite Seasons, which also includes a graphing extension.
Click on the link to view/download Our Favorite Seasons class book, perfect for Leap Day.
Another season-related activity is the easy reader: Seasons Outside My Window, which includes an art activity + several skill sheets. Click on the link to view/download this Leap Day activity.
Read my version of There Was An Old Lady. It's a cute mystery with a fun ending that reviews the months, and includes the 30 Days Hath September Poem.
Students will enjoy “feeding” her the various months and pictures that match them.
Click on the link to view/download this hands-on story appropriate for Leap Day.
Movin' Through The Months is also a wonderful whole-group activity that culminates with a great class book that reinforces the months and also includes the 30 Days Hath September Poem.
This is a photograph of the bulletin board I made when we completed our book. As you can see we did lots of math extensions too.
Make your own, or print off mine to read to your students.
Click on the link to view/download this story that makes a nice review of the months for Leap Day.
End your Leap Day lessons by giving everyone a certificate of praise, which is also included in the Leap Day packet.
Whatever you decide to do to celebrate Leap Day, I hope you have a hoppin’ good time!
Scroll down for more articles on Leap Day and be sure and pop back tomorrow for my 6th and last Leap Day one.
Leap Day Table Top Activities
Leap Year Lessons: Activities For Leap Day Part 4
Leapin’ Lizards Time Bomb is a fun way to help your students learn how to tell time, and is perfect for any day, but I designed it specifically for a special Leap Day activitiy.
Here’s how to play this Leap Day Game:
Run off the Leapin’ Lizards on white construction paper.
Students color their lizard with markers.
Using a protractor, poke a hole in the middle of the clock.
Cover with a reinforcement hole on the front and back.
This will help prevent tearing.
Insert a brad and a large and small paperclip that will be used as hands for the clock.
The teacher sets a timer.
Decide what digital time cards you want students to work on. I’ve made cards for the hour, half hour, quarter after and quarter to, plus a blank set for you to fill in any other times you want your students to practice.
Students put those clock cards face down.
The Time bomb cards are also mixed in.
Children play in groups of 2-4, taking turns pulling a card from the pile.
Each child has a time card. They circle the time that they pull on their time sheet, and rotate the paperclips on their leapin’ lizard clock to show the correct time.
If they get a time bomb card they lose their turn.
When the timer rings, students count up their circled times, the one who has leaped through time the most is the winner.
If you have enough hole punches, have students use them, as they help strengthen students’ hand muscles and make for a great fine motor skill.
Turn the Time Cards into real old-fashioned time cards by having students “punch” the times that they pull.
When the timer rings, children count up the number of holes that they have next to the times on their time cards.
Give everyone a certificate of praise.
Click on the link to view/download Leapin Lizard Time Bomb Leap Day Game
Follow this activity up with a writing extension and make a class book where students write about what time they “…leap out of bed and what their favorite time of day is and why.
There’s also a graphing extension that goes with the booklet.
There are 3 other class books to the Leap Day writing prompts, which includes my personal Super Hero favorite. This class book also includes a graphing extension which asks which super hero the students think can leap the highest and farthest.
Click on the link to view/download the Leap Day class books.
Be sure and leap on in tomorrow for yet another idea!
Scroll down for the other Leap Day activity articles and links.
Leap Day Class Books
Leapin' Nursery Rhymes
Leapin' Lizards Time Bomb Game
10 pages. Common Core State Math Standard: 1.MD.3 Help students learn to tell time with Lizzy Lizard. Great for any time, but especially cute for your Leap Day activities.
Leap Year Lessons: Activities For Leap Day Part 3
One of the first things that come to my mind when I think of leaping is a frog, so I decided to design a few things for Leap Day with a frog theme. Hopefully this will give you some more ideas so that you can share them with your fellow teachers, so that you can each provide a lesson for your "Leap from room-to-room" Leap Day!
Run off duplicate sets of these frog cards and laminate them to make a variety of Leap Day activities.
Play Leapin’ Letters: Print the upper and lowercase letter cards on two different shades of green construction paper to make playing a Memory Match game easier.
Students pick a partner and flip over an uppercase letter and then try to match it to its lowercase partner.
Play continues ‘til all of the cards have been matched. The student with the most pairs wins the game.
Play “I Have…Who Has? Put card-pairs in a basket/bag/box. How ‘bout a kangaroo pouch?
Start with the person who has the letter A who says: “I have uppercase A who has lowercase a? “ Students lay the cards in sequential order on the carpet.
Finish off the game by pointing to the cards and singing the ABC song.
You can also mix in “Kaboom” bomb cards into the bag.
Children each choose a card from the pouch and keep it hidden.
Teacher also chooses a card. She shows her card and tells what she has and then calls on a student. They show their card and tell what they have.
If they have a bomb card, everyone yells “Kaboom!” and both the child who called on the bomb-card child, and the child with the bomb, are out of the game.
Play continues ‘til there is only one child left.
Scatter the cards all over the floor and have students leap around finding them.
When they are all picked up, have students hop over to the carpet area and sit in a circle. Arrange the cards in correct order by counting by 1’s, 2’s, 3’s, 5’s etc.
Decide which concepts you want to reinforce for Leap Day, run off those pages and have students make Itty Bitty booklets by tracing the numbers/letters, cutting out the individual cards and then putting them in appropriate order and stapling them into a mini-Leap Day booklet.
My Y5’s really enjoyed making, sharing and collecting these “just-my-size” booklets.
Click on the link to view/download Leap Day Frog Letter and Number Itty Bitty Card Booklets
To get the wiggles out show students how to play “Leap Frog.” Set a timer to ring in five minutes. Have students keep track of how many children they have jumped over.
Take this leaping activity a step farther and make large lily pads cut from green tag board.
Scatter them within leaping distance and write sets of skip-counting numbers on them. Have a set for counting by 2’s, 3’s, 5’s and 10’s.
Program a set for younger students to count by 1’s to whatever number you want them to count up to.
Have students leap from lily pad to lily pad skip counting as they go.
I adhere them to the floor with duct tape so children don’t slip.
To end the activity run off my “Hoppy Leap Day” lily pad and have them trace the numbers and make a 3-D lily out of a coffee filter.
Print off my "Hoppy Leap Day!" sticker labels to add that finishing touch.
For more number fun on Leap Day, I’ve also designed “Don’t get stuck!” Frog Facts.
A frog’s tongue is extremely sticky so they can zap insects for a tasty meal.
Children will enjoy writing fact families on the frog’s tongue.
Choose a specific number or two, have students write the equations on the frog’s tongue and then solve the problem.
Keep the tongues flat, or for a fun fine motor skill, have students roll the red or pink paper tongue strips into a coil using a pencil or crayon, they'll look like a party favor horn!
Click on the link for Frog Facts and Leap Day Lily Pad activity.
Another game that you can play as a reward for a job well done counting is “Hot Frog, Lizard, Rabbit or Kangaroo!”
This is played just like Hot Potato. Children sit in a circle and you play some jumpin jivin’ music.
They pass around a stuffed frog, lizard, rabbit or kangaroo.
When you stop the music every few seconds, the child holding the “Hot” thing is out of the game and has to Leap out of the circle.
Students who are out of the game, leap around to the music, ‘til there is only one child left who is the winner.
Scroll down for more Leap Day articles.
Pop back tomorrow for another Leap Day Activity, plus I'll have the entire Leap Day Unit done!
Frog Facts and Lily Pad Fun
