Items filtered by date: December 2012

What Are You Doing For Martin Luther King Day?

If you plan on celebrating Martin Luther King Day with your students, you may want to take a peek at the 40-page MLK mini unit I’ve put together.

It includes several “craftivities” that are quick, easy and make lovely bulletin boards or hallway decorations.

The 1^st is a stained glass window, where students  can glue colored tiles in a pattern or simply keep it random.

I’ve included one of my favorite Langston Hughes poems on the back.

I chose a dove to top off this “dangler” because I feel that Martin Luther King's beliefs are synonymous with peace, which the dove is a symbol of.

My Y5’s enjoyed accordion folding paper, to make the 3-D wings, which was a great fine motor activity for them.

The MLK  Letter Dangler, allows students an opportunity to express what their dream is, and is a nice review of those capital letters as well.

Click on the link to view/download the Martin Luther King mini unit.

Snowflakes are a huge theme for me in January, so I combined making a strip snowflake for a Martin Luther King activity.

If you cut strips in a variety of colors, your students will create a rainbow blizzard for you, that looks truly awesome on a bulletin board. 

Use aluminum foil for the background for that extra bit of pizzazz and suspend cardboard or plastic snowflakes from the ceiling , so that they dangle just in front of the top of your b. board.

Click on the link to view/download the Martin Luther King snowflakes.

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“Your success and happiness lies in you.  Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you, shall form an invincible host against difficulties.” –Helen Keller

Waddle You Do, To Help Students With Letter Recognition?

Are you studying penguins with your students?

This was one of my Y5’s favorite themes.  I think they are so adorable and enjoy designing with them.

I just finished Penguin Letter Puzzles

Since putting together a puzzle as well as identifying  letters were report card standards, I decided to combine the 2 activities.

Print, laminate and cut out the puzzles.  Store them in a file folder or manila envelope.

Students spill them out at a center and work on matching the lowercase letter on the heart to the uppercase letter on the balloon.

You can also pass them out and play “I Have; Who Has?” “I have the uppercase letter A.  Who has the matching lowercase letter?

Students enjoy these reinforcement games because they are easy and fun, and you have a chance to whole-group assess to see who is having difficulty and needs extra help.

When children can do these activities successfully, you can give them the two certificates of praise.

I’ve also included a set without the puzzle lines, so you can put them on the wall for a December or January ABC border.

There’s a blank page as well, so you can program the penguins with numbers, names, words, equations etc.

Click on the link to view/download Penguin Puzzle Pals.

Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN anything you think might be useful to others.

“Learn from yesterday; live for today; hope for tomorrow.” –Albert Einstein