Items filtered by date: March 2012

5 pages. A quick and easy way to review the life cycle of the butterfly. Use as an anchor chart, run off and have younger students color, older students can label the chart or choose the one that they color, cut and glue.

1 page. Use the cards for students to cut and put in the proper life cycle sequence and then make into an Itty Bitty Booklet. You can also play "I Have, Who Has" to help students learn the vocabulary. Run off extra sets and play a Memory Match game.

1-2-3 Come Do A Fun Spring Writing Activity Via a Venn Diagram With Me!

Since Bunny Buddies were so popular, as promised, here’s another Venn Friend, with more on the way for the other months.  Here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, we are close to the city of Holland, and like the country, they are all about tulips and even have some awesome windmills too. 

If you ever get a chance to visit, it's worth the trip!  Literally 1,000's of tulips are everywhere, in every color imaginable and all sorts of varieties.  Click on the link to take a look at some fabulous photographs. 

The hot pink and purple ones are a particular favorite of mine.  Since a tulip is a simple pattern,  I thought I'd design a tulip Venn Friend.

Venn Friend Diagrams are a great way to introduce or review the compare and contrast concept and a terrific way for students to get to know more about their classmates.

The finished product provides an adorable spring bulletin board and working with a partner enhances all sorts of life skills.

Simply run of my masters on a variety of construction paper that is conducive to tulip colors.

Write half of your students’ names on scraps of paper, toss them in a basket and have the other ½ select a Venn friend from this basket or bag.

To make these more of a keepsake, take a photo of each of your students, or use their school picture and have them glue it to their side of the tulip.

Use my list of questions, so each pair of students can interview each other appropriately and come up with lots of similarities and differences.  Students then choose from this list, which things they want to include on their Venn diagram.

You may want to brainstorm this part as a whole group, writing things on a white board, so that younger students know how to spell words.  Each student writes their own “different” tulip side, and then shares the writing of the "same" middle section.

You may want students to number things so they are easier to follow.  When they have completed the writing portion, students glue their tulips together and share with the class.

These make a lovely spring bulletin board, or can be suspended back-to-back and hung from the ceiling by punching a hole at both ends and making a yarn loop.  Click on the link to view/download this spring Venn diagram.  April Venn Friends

Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN away.

"In the spring, I have counted 136 kinds of weather inside of 24 hours!" -Mark Twain

Fluttering With The Butterflies:  Hands-On "Craftivities"

April is the time that I launched my huge unit on butterflies.  It was my Y5’s favorite unit whenever we graphed “favorites”.

I ordered live larva from Insect Lore and my students were amazed to see the eggs hatch into hair-thin caterpillars, eat their way into chubby pencil-thick caterpillars, assume the J-position and spin a chrysalis, finally turning into 5 Painted Lady butterflies that were seen flying around their netted house in about 14 days time.

Every day was hands-on with a large variety of “craftivities” games, and songs that immersed them in the amazing life cycle of the butterfly.

They couldn’t wait to be part of the adventure, create something and become part of the “magic”.

If you subscribed to Mailbox Magazine in 2007-2008 you saw lots of butterfly activities in the Preschool and Kindergarten/First Grade issues by Diane Tondreau-Flohr. 

I think they published over 50 of my designs that were kid-tested and teacher approved for nailing standards and being especially fun.

I’ve since designed zillions more.  Here are a few of my favorites:

The Butterfly, pictured above,is an easy reader that goes through the various parts of the butterfly's life cycle while reviewing spatial directions. By adding a child's school photo to the butterfly, you make this an extra special keepsake.

The Shapes on My Butterfly is also an easy reader, but reviews the 6 basic shapes.  Where Did All The Butterflies Go? practices simple subtraction skills.

Click on the links to view/download these copy-ready booklets, perfect for your writing center or Daily 5 activities.

If you’re looking for some tabletop or center activities, the 95-page Butterfly Unit is sure to have something to keep your students engaged.

If hands-on “craftivities” that nail standards, teach science, make awesome displays and keep students interested, is what you’re looking for, then you’ll want to check out the 153-page Butterfly Art & Activity book 1 or the 105-page Art & Activity book 2

I think my Y5's all-time favorite activity was the "Flutter Flapper".  This explained the entire life cycle of a butterfly. Students hung onto the pipe cleaner which represented the caterpillar stage and was a  "handle" that they flapped. 

It made their butterfly's wings go up and down as they pranced around the room to whatever music they voted on.

The thorax represents the crysalis and the pony bead on the pipecleaner is the egg. I've included a song and directions of how to manipulate the flapper through the various stages.

A parent favorite, was the life cycle done with fingerprints.

The most impressive looking project was our butterfly file folders, which qualified as our scientific research study. 

On the outside they looked like a simple file folder. 

When you opened them up another folder was cut into the shape of a butterfly and contained all sorts of facts printed on a variety of colored shapes which reviewed 2 more standards.

Students could choose from a variety of projects to show the life cycle of the butterfly. 

A few of their favorites were a crown, necklace, caterpillar and reinforcement hole activity.

These were set up as centers.  My personal favorite was the tissue paper butterfly collage made from Elison diecuts. 

I made the butterfly 3-D by simply folding the wings of an extra butterfly and gluing it to the top of the bottom butterfly.  Passersby could not believe these project were done by little kids, as the finished artwork was stunning. 

Butterfly Etc. includes 126 pages of projects, games and lots of songs that help teach about butterflies as well.

Click on the links to view/download these units.

I hope you and your students have as much fun flying through this stuff as I did designing it.

I know my students did, and our hallway always looked awesome fluttering with beautiful butterflies!

Do you have a buttefly activity you'd like to share?  I'd enjoy hearing from you diane@teachwithme.com or you may also leave a comment here.

Feel free to PIN anything you think others might enjoy as well.  I think sharing is so important!

"Education, to be successful, must not only inform, but inspire." - T. Knowlson

12 pages. Common Core State Standards: RF.K.3c, RF.1.3c This is a fun and interesting way to review Dolch Words. Print the templates on Avery (30-on-a page) labels and press the stickers on large Popsicle sticks. Use them to play games and make phrase

Hurry! Let's Make A Sentence!

A fun thing you can do with Dolch words is to print off my labels and press the stickers on large colored Popsicle sticks.

Simply download my template, put a sheet of large Avery (30 on a page) labels in your printer.  (In my HP you put the sheet face down, in my Epson printer it's face up.  Make sure you do a test, so you don't waste labels.) and then click print.

I wanted to use the big labels so that students could easily read them and I could use this cool font by Kevin and Amanda called “Tonight’s The Night”. Click on the link to check out their free fonts.

You’ll need to trim the labels down a bit so they fit, but I think it’s worth the effort because they show up nicely.  Press hard so that they will stay put.

Keep the sticks in a cute mug or basket that you can pass around.  Students choose a stick and read their word.  If they can, they stay in the game.  If they can’t, the stick goes back in, and they’re out of the game.

Challenge students to find other children with words that they can team up with to make a phrase or sentence.  See who can make the longest phrase or sentence, using the most words, before the timer goes off.

Students can go to this mug/basket and create sentences and phrases when they are done with other work, or use it as a writing center or Daily 5 activity, and have students choose sticks to make phrases/sentences and then write them on a sheet of paper using correct capitalization and punctuation.

Click on the link to view/download Dolch Word Labels There are 2 sheets for each Dolch Word List (Pre-Primer through 3rd Grade).  Enjoy! 

If you're looking for more Dolch Word activities, click on the link to zip on over to that section of my site.  The Dolch activities, especially the Dolch word Bingo games, are some of my most popular downloads! You can also scroll down to take a look at that blog article.

Do you have a Dolch Word or Daily 5 activity you can share or another way you used the word sticks?  I’d enjoy hearing from you! diane@teachwithme.com or feel free to leave a comment here, especially if you use one of my ideas. Thanks in advance for your time.

That's it for today. I'm off with my hubby to take a relaxing drive and enjoy all of the beautiful fall colors.  Thanks for visiting.  I hope you can stop by again for another fun teaching idea and FREEBIE.   I try and design new things every day, so do stop by often.   

"The wastebasket is a writer's best friend."  -Isaac Bashevis Singer

                                        1-2-3 Come Hatch Some "Craftivities" With Me                                                                                                                

I Hatched, is an easy spring writing activity that makes an adorable bulletin board or hallway decoration.

Your students will not only have fun with this March/April writing prompt, but will learn more about their classmates and possibly about themselves as well.

Simply run off my chick and egg templates.  Students cut them out and fill in the information.

I’ve included a letter home to parents, as younger children don’t always know any more than the month they were born in, and some don’t even know that.  You could also send this activity home to be completed over spring break, and then share on the day children return.

The “favorite activities” pennant adds more flair and an additional writing extension.  I’ve included 6 graphing extensions to reinforce that math standard and so students can visually “see” their classmates' answers.

Add feathers; wiggle eyes and straws to jazz things up and you hopefully have “eggs-actly” that little something you’ve been looking for to spice up your writing block.

To reinforce verbal acuity skills and learn more about their friends, have students share their creation with the class, after everyone has  “hatched” their egg, then hang them in the hallway for that finishing touch of springtime.

Click on the link to view/download the I Hatched Springtime Writing Activity

Each year our preschool hatches baby chicks in their classroom.  It's a fascinating experience they share with my Y5s. 

I found a short baby chicks hatching video (1:13) on YouTube, if you'd like to share it with your kiddos before or after they do the "I Hatched" craftivity.

Thanks for visiting. Do you have a spring writing prompt or craft that's a favorite?  Would love to hear from you.  diane@teachwithme.com  or feel free to leave a comment below.

"If you want to feel rich, count the things you have that money can't buy." -Unknown