1-2-3 Come Play I Spy With Me

You can show a child or tell a child, where something is and hopefully they’ll remember.   Taking into consideration their short attention spans and roving thoughts, young children may look like they’re listening, but in reality they’re somewhere else. 

However, if you involve them, with some sort of hands-on activity, chances are you'll not only have their attention, but the information will be solidified.

Put yourself in a 4-year-old's place.  It's warm, you're tired and some big person is droning on showing you where "stuff" is.  Yawn.... Instead:  "How would you like to become detectives and go around the room spying stuff?"   Yippee! A game; movement to get the wiggles out.  Wahoo!

With this in mind, I designed a sort of scavenger hunt for the important things in your classroom.  It's a quick, easy and fun little "find it now, before you really need to..." activity.  

 I tried to think of the things that were important for my Y5's to know where they were located and then searched for clip art to make a map of sorts. 

So that you can clarify things, show the paper to your students and point to the pictures asking "What's this?"  Hearing the vocabulary will also help any ESL students that you might have.  Explain what you want them to do (find the things and zap them with an X, or color them.) 

Pass out the papers and turn them loose.  I had a class set of clipboards that made students feel especially official and important.  You can buy them at The Dollar Store; they are well worth the investment.  I used them for read & write the room, science data collection, games, and interview writing, to name just a few ways I incorporated them.

If you are NOT lucky enough to have a bathroom and sink in your room, take your kiddos down the hall to your restrooms, to complete the activity and have a potty break at the same time. 

Click on the link to view/download the "I Spy Important Classroom Stuff" scavenger hunt activity. Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN away. 

I hope you found something here to make your life a bit easier.  Be sure and pop by tomorrow for another back-to-school FREEBIE. 

"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone!" -Unknown

1-2-3 Come Make A Butterfly Keepsake Frame With Me

As I stated yesterday, despite the fact that summer has yet to be officially launched, I am enjoying designing back-to-school stuff.  As long as I was putzing, I thought why not blog about these new items.  I figure even if some sane teachers are truly on vacation, they can catch up later and scroll to their heart's content, hopefully getting some new ideas that will get them excited to go back.

My grandsons' last day of school isn't 'til this Friday the 20th, so if you too, are still in school because of those dreaded snow day make ups, perhaps you can even use this activity now.

As a good educator, one should not have the proverbial "teacher's pet" but realistically, every year there are always a few adorable students who become favorites.  Even though you treat all of your kiddos equally, those children leave heartprints that become fond memories forever. 

Sweet little Jenna is one of mine.  Thoughts of her, as I type, make me smile.  She was so quiet and shy, and bravely tried to fight those first-day of school tears.  I confided to her mom that she came to me a tiny caterpillar, and by the end of Y5's she had blossomed into a lovely butterfly.  Her mother agreed that Jenna had truly come out of her "crysalis" shell and wasn't afraid to fly!

She was my inspiration for this keepsake frame.  I hope you enjoy making them with your students and that they tug on a few heartstrings as mommies tuck them away.  

The reason this is a back-to-school item, even tho' you'll be doing it at the end of the year, is because you need to make copies of your students' first day of school photographs.  

It's something that most early elementary teachers do, especially if they make an end of the year memory book.  Simply make double prints to save for later, and do a photo shoot of some sort for a last week of school picture as well. 

When I designed my sample, I didn't have any photographs to put in it, so I surfed the web and found "Ho ho" on Crystal's  Little Bit Funky site.  She was kind enough to give me permission to use her son's pictures in my butterfly frame.  Click on the link to check out her helpful blog. 

To make a butterfly frame, run off my templates on a variety of colors of construction paper.  There are two on a page for easy printing.  Trim and fold them in half.  Students cut out the X-d sections and then glue their pictures behind the wings.  Mount on a complementary color of construction paper.  

If you think that this type of cutting is too difficult for your kiddos, have a room helper cut the butterfly frames ahead of time.  Even young children should be OK to cut the leaf, caterpillar and flower out.  They glue these to their frame.  Students or a teacher can print the "First day of ________ ... last day!" portion on the wing sections.  

For that finishing touch, I added a paper punch butterfly.  To make it 3D, I used two butterflies, gluing the thorax of the top one to the thorax of the bottom one, and then bent the wings up, so that the butterfly looks like it's flying. 

Click on the link to view/download the Keepsake Butterfly Frame.  Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN away.  That's how I found adorable little Ho Ho!  Until next time, rest, relax, repeat!

"It's never too late to be what you might have been." -

1-2-3 Come Get Organized With Me!

Well it's already the middle of June and the days are flying by me.  I wish summer would slow down to the pace of those too-long winter days that seem to drag on.  Some of my friends still have a few more days of school, and others have been out a week or more. 

Summer doesn't officially start til June 21st, so there's plenty of time left for relaxing, before our brains begin gearing up for back-to-school and we have to undo the cruise-control mode. 

For lack of something else to blog about, I decided to start designing new things for the fall. This is the first of many articles featuring a back to school FREEBIE.

My husband thinks I'm a bit crazy, but by the looks of what teachers have been pinning and downloading this past week, I am certainly NOT alone.  I truly believe that if you have a passion for education, your "teacher hat" never really comes off, and all it takes to get us excited all over again, is to see a school supply display, smell a box of brand new crayons, or find some books and classroom treasures at a garage sale.

I was always reinventing the wheel trying to make my classroom decor more inviting, organized and just plain cool! After all, this is our home-away-from home! I absolutely love looking at photographs of teacher's rooms.  If you do too, click on the link to come visit mine.

I think teachers look forward to decorating their classrooms, like children start planning their next Halloween costume on November 1st!  Any hoo, even if you have banned yourself from working on "school stuff" for an appropriate amount of down-time, you can still catch up later on all of the great FREEBIES I will be making and posting through out the summer.

The little ditty I put together today, while a warm summer breeze wafted through my office window, is a cute boo-boo book basket.  (Try saying that 3 times!)

Easy, simple and quick; it will help you on the road to getting organized and hopefully make life a bit easier.  The Dollar Store sells a variety of these plastic baskets in all sorts of colors.  So that things looked less cluttered, I used a primary color theme and tried to have all of my basket styles look the same.  

Print off my signage; mount on construction paper; laminate and you're good to go.  Place the basket in your reading area or classroom library section. 

When students are reading one of your books and discover that it needs some repair work to avoid further damage, have them fill out an Rx form of what's wrong with the book and how you can fix it. They tuck the note on the page that needs repair, so that the end sticks out and then drop the book in the "hospital" basket.  

I made up the notes, so that students can get in some extra writing practice, as well as a time saver for me.  No need to figure out what's wrong and where the book needs to be repaired.  If you teach preschool, where children aren't able to write, they simply use the slip of paper as a bookmark for each page that needs fixing.  

Run off a bunch of copies, trim and keep in an envelope.  I taped a Popsicle stick to the back of the envelope and then taped it to the back of the basket, so that it would stick up over the top of the books.  Repairing books is a great job to delegate to a room helper.

There are two signs on a page for easy printing, so why not make one for a fellow teacher or your librarian, as a "Hope you have a great year!" surprise.  If they happen to be your BFF, get them a basket and make up the whole thing for them.  This is also a sweet and inexpensive gift, along with a book, if you're planning on having a student teacher. 

Click on the link to view/download the book hospital basket packet.  Feel free to PIN away. 

I'm off to put on some suntan lotion and play in my garden.  Blessings to you and yours, from me and mine. :-)

"A life without love, is like a year without summer." -Unknown