Items filtered by date: January 2012
Itty Bitty Frog Number & Alphabet Booklets
Leap Year Lessons: Activities For Leap Day Part 2
Leap Day Coin Game: Let's Leap To 29
To coincide with their studies of Lincoln and Washington, many teachers start their intense study of coins in February, so I thought it would be fun to make up a game for Leap Day, using pennies, nickels, dimes and a quarter, to help review those coins.
I find that the more times you can immerse children in hands-on activities, that involve the concepts you’re trying to teach them, the better chance you have of having the perverbial lightbulb go on, as they latch on to something that will help them differenciate the coins.
What better way to do that than by playing a game!
Since Leap Day falls on the 29th and I’m trying to get that fact stuck into my students’ heads, as well as the fact that this is an extra day, since February usually has only 28 days, I made the game Leap To .29 Cents.
I also want students to try and figure out what their best chances are of reaching 29 the quickest will be, depending on the column of coins they choose.
A discussion about strategy can follow of whether column choice matters and why.
I’ve also provided a graph to see which column won the game the most to see if it really did make a difference.
Students choose a partner and take turns spinning the coin spinner.
Whatever coin their paperclip lands on they color in that coin.
If they have already colored in those coins it becomes their partner’s turn.
Play continues ‘til the timer rings.
If someone has not reached 29, the student who is closest to 29 is the winner.
I hope this gives you another idea for your bag of tricks for Leap Day.
Click on the link to view/download Leap Day Coin Game, Leapin’ to 29.
Scroll down for my post from yesterday and the Leap Day Leapin’ Animals booklet and be sure and pop back tomorrow for more Leap Day activities.
Leapin' To 29 Leap Day Coin Game
4 pages. A fun way to review a penny, nickel, dime and quarter. Students choose a partner and race to achieve .29 cents first.
Leap Year Lessons: Activities For Leap Day
I was surfing the net for Lessons on Leap Day and they were really hard to find if not pretty non-existent!
So I felt it was really worth my time to make a unit for this day. I’ll be finishing it up this weekend and posting it.
What I thought would be fun would be for teachers to talk within their grade level, each choose a different activity to last a certain amount of time, and have students LEAP to a different class to do that activity.
To help get the wiggles out, they hop silently like bunnies, frogs, kangaroos etc. down the hall into the next kindergarten/first grade etc. classroom, to do another Leap Day activity.
I started doing research on animals that leaped, as I thought this would be really interesting for kids.
Wow! Did I learn a lot!
Most sources agreed that the highest leaper is the puma or mountain lion that can leap 5-6 times their height in a single bound, but when you compare the “contestants” in terms of their actual height that they can jump, relative to their body size, the tiny flea wins the gold medal!
For example, kangaroos are about 6 feet tall; they can jump 2 times their height, but fleas, can leap more than 130 times theirs!
This means if we would scale up a flea to our size, that would be like us jumping halfway up the Empire State Building in New York!
How’s that for a Leap Day leap?
I made a relatively easy reader, about interesting animals that leap and hop.
I tried to use words from the Dolch word list.
Students cut and glue the matching numbered pictures to the pages.
I also included a math extension where students tell which leaping animal was their favorite. Teachers can graph the results.
The Leaping Animal Booklet and graph are fun activities to plug into your Leap Day.
Click on the link to view/download My Leapin’ Animal Book Leap Day Activity Booklet.
I also wanted to find some YouTube videos for your little ones to watch to see all this leaping going on! Know that for everyone I find that's "Way Cool!" I view about 10 not so hot...
Here's the best of the best!
A University of Berkely study shot some high-speed video footage of leaping lizards, which supports a 40-year-old hypothesis about how theropod dinosaurs, like the velociraptors of Jurassic Park fame, adjusted the angle of their tails to stay stable when jumping. Click on the link to view this awesome clip. Leaping Lizards clip for Leap Day Activity.
I'd never seen real kangaroo's jumping with their babies in their pouch. Nice nature clip. Click on the link to view Leaping Roo's for Leap Day Activity.
No Leap Day would be complete without allowing students to play a little Leap Frog. Why not let them get the wiggles out jumping over each other and then catch this cute clip of real frogs competing in the very serious frog jumping contest in Calaveras County. Too funny, and boy are those frogs huge!
Click on the link to view Leaping Frogs in the Frog Jumping Contest of Calaveras County. Perfect for your Leap Day activities.
Finally, see a snake leap! I never heard of a leaping snake, but a video of a huge green one literally flying through the air as it leaps from one tree to the next in the jungle made a believer out of me. Also shows a winged lizard leaping! Click on the link to view a leaping snake and lizard for your Leap Day lessons!
Be sure and pop in tomorrow for a Leap To .29 Cents Coin Game.
My Leapin' Animal Booklet
7 pages. Common Core State Standard: RF.K.3c A great activity for Leap Day. This is a relatively easy reader that includes sight words and words from the Dolch word list that incorporate facts about interesting animals that leap.
Living History: Civil War Reenactment
Rewind History To The Present For A Peek Into The Past!
I wanted to post these pictures in case anyone is looking for some pix of civil war times just in case you’d like to enhance your study of Abraham Lincoln.
These would make a nice slide show.
During the summer, while we were visiting the Tawas Point Lighthouse in Michigan, my husband and I happened upon a “Living History” reenactment of this time period.
The folks pictured, were kind enough to pose and give permission to post. They do this kind of thing often and enjoy providing a really educational look into the past.
There were lots of hands-on activities, like dipping wicks hung from a stick into hot wax to make candles, a blacksmith demonstrating his trade, soldiers explaining their uniforms and shooting off their rifles.
You could even try your hand at sawing wood.
People displayed quilts, photographs and other things of the time.
Click on the link to view/download Living History Civil War Reenactment Pix
If you’re looking for another history-based activity, I wrote a play that my daughter’s class presented when she was in the 8th grade.
It was a terrific way for them to do research and learn about Lincoln and the time he lived.
Click on the link to view/download the play: A Day In The Life Of Abraham Lincoln
I hope to see you tomorrow! I'll post some more fun stuff!
Living History: Civil War Reenactment Photographs
Studying Coins 2: Coin Autograph Booklet
Money Matters!
The more different opportunities you give students to experience coins, the better chance they have of latching on to some sort of comparison, fact or piece of trivia that helps the light bulb go on, so that they are able to identify the coins and give you some information about them.
Making this Autograph Coin booklet is a fun way to do that. Run off copies for all of your students, or simply make one for yourself and share your teacher’s copy with them. 
I was fascinated with the President’s signatures.
Washington and Jefferson wrote with feather quills. Set up a center activity where students write their name with a feather-dipped in paint.
I did this for a Constitution Day activity and have a template for that. Click on the link to view/download the quill page from Activities For Constitution Day.
To get some name writing practice in, include an extra page with the booklet and have students collect some autographs of their friends, or to expedite things, have each student sign one paper, and run off copies for everyone, entitled Your Classmate’s Autographs.
Click on the link to view/download the Coin Autograph Booklet Do you have a teaching tip you’d like to share? I’d enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com or leave a comment here, especially if you used an idea! Thanks in advance.
Coin Autograph Book
Studying Coins
My Y5’s really enjoyed making flip booklets.
The cutting and gluing were great fine motor skills, and writing facts offered practice in handwriting that prepared them for doing research in upper grades.
They especially liked the secretive and surprise element of something being hidden under a flap.
Here’s how to make a coin flip booklet:
Run off my templates on two different colors of bright copy paper for the booklet and white paper for the coins.
Students color the coins the appropriate color, then cut and glue them to the matching circles on the cover of their booklet.
Children cut on the lines to make flip-up pages.
Write the “Master” template on your board and brainstorm/discuss with students the answers. Write them on the board so that children can copy them onto their paper.
Make sure to tell them NOT to cut their insert page into individual pages, but to simply glue the whole long paper into the bottom of the inside of their booklet.
Some little ones get scissor-happy and make more work for themselves.
Another “head’s up”: Remind students to write the information in appropriate order, dime first, penny second, etc.
Some students want to start with the penny, but the dime is glued first on the cover, because I want to reinforce smallest coin to largest.
This helps give students another way to compare, recognize and remember the coins.
So that children remember how to make tally marks, Using glue dots, I glue 4 Popsicle sticks of one color on a sheet of construction paper, and then cross the 5th one over using a different color stick.
I number the sticks and put a magnet strip on the back of this mini-poster that I hang on my white board as a reminder. It also helps students remember which way to cross the 4 sticks.
You can give your students another opportunity to “play” with these 4 coins and enhance their flip book by having them do crayon rubs of the coins.
Set out a real penny, nickel, dime and quarter at a TV tray center, along with copper and silver-colored crayons and scrap paper.
Students put the paper over the coin and rub the crayon over it.
They choose their best picture, cut it out and glue it on the flipped-up page, to match the appropriate coin.
On the front of their booklets students write: It makes “cents” to Diane. Inserting their name on the end of the sentence and putting one word on the first 2 flaps and “cents to” on the 3rd flap.
Click on the link to view/download the Coin Flip Booklet
Once your students have learned all of the coins reward them with a certificate of praise. Click on the link for Coin Certificates.
I hope you and your students have a cent-sational time learning about coins this way!
If you have a tip you’d like to share, I’d enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com or leave a comment here. Thanks in advance.
See you tomorrow with another coin idea; an autograph book of the presidents!
