Items filtered by date: June 2011

Fun and Fair Ways To Pick A Partner

When it comes to children choosing a partner they sometimes find it hard to make a decision, because they are bombarded with “Pick me, pick me!” as many friends start asking to be their partner.

Other children feel left out because no one wants to be their partner, still others continue to choose the same child to work with ALL of the time.

I try to mix things up and make things fun and fair, with no hurt feelings, by having students pick a partner in a variety of enjoyable, sometimes themed-ways, that often carry an educational purpose with them as well.

Here are some of my favorite tips:

• Find someone wearing the same color as you are.
• Your partner is sitting on your left/right.
• Count off by 2’s, 3’s, or 5’s etc.  Remember your number. Look at the numbers on the board and see who your number match is.  (5 is matched with 10, 15 with 20 etc.)
• I buy stick-on bows at Christmas when they go on sale and make sure that I have at least 12 different kinds with matches.  I put them in two different seasonal bags and then have children choose a bow, stick it on and go find their partner.

It's Partner Time! Make this unique clock:

• Reinforce colors, shapes, numbers, telling time and have fun spinning by making my Partner Time Clock. 
• Laminate the students’ clocks when they are returned; help them punch a hole in the center with a protractor, insert a brass brad and use a paperclip for a spinner!
• Click on the link to view/print everything you need.

A Deck Of Cards:

• Sort cards in a deck of playing cards so that matches come out perfect and then have students choose a card and find their “mate”.
• i.e. the 2 of diamonds is partner with the 2 of spades or however you want to make it.

• I also use seasonal bulletin board border like apples or pumpkins and cut the pieces apart putting upper or lowercase letters on each one.
• Make sure you have only enough apples for the amount of children you have present that day.
• Put them in two different baskets/bags, (one for uppercase and one for lowercase) and then have ½ the students choose an uppercase apple and ½ choose a lowercase one.  Give them a minute to go find their partner.
• You can do the same with different colored shapes.
• Cut apart compound words. Write the answers on the board to assist students in finding their partner.

Puzzles: Who's My Partner?

• Use contractions and have them find their match. Write the answers on the board to help them out.  Use the squirrel/acorn cards in my free Take Action With Contractions Help Book
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• Use my seasonal  Partner Monthly Puzzles.  Like the apple pictured here for September or in February run off a copy of my heart on 12 different colors of construction paper, laminate the paper and then cut the hearts apart. 
  
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• Put them in two different “valentine” envelopes and have the children choose who will be their Valentine for the day.  Click on the link to check them out.
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• Run off, laminate and cut up my Number Puzzles, where the number 3 and the number word are partners, or the number 3 and the set of 3 stars are partnered. 
  
• There are 3 ways to make puzzles with these cards and a variety of other ways to use them.   Click on the link to check them out.

 I hope you found some ideas here of how to make choosing a partner more fun and certainly more fair.  (Hopefully “Partners Without Tears!”)

Feel free to PIN anything you think others may find helpful.

 As always, if you have an enjoyable tip of how your students accomplish this task, I’d enjoy hearing from you.  diane@teachwithme.com

I hope you can pop back tomorrow for more back to school teaching tips. Scroll down for another picking partners idea: Pairing Pears!

"Example moves the world more than doctrine." -Henry Miller

A Cookie Glyph As A Fun Way To Get To Know Your New Students!

Cookie Glyph:

I dreamed this up because I thought it would not only be a fun icebreaker, but it would make an instant and really cute bulletin board as well. 

You can do these with your students the first week of school as a get-to-know-you activity, or you can tuck the directions and a tan construction paper cookie into your Open House Packet for parents to help their child with, and then they can bring their cookie on the first day of school for them to hold up and share with their new friends.  

We have our Open House before school starts.  If you don't, you can tuck it into your "Welcome to my class" letter / school packet that many teachers send out during the summer or simply send it home the first day of school. 

Use my pattern, or revamp it to make it simpler or a bit more involved to fit the age of your students or the time frame you have allotted to complete it in class. 

Take a photo of each student on their 1st day of school.  I use this photo in all sorts of keepsake things during September until I get their school pix back.

I make black & white copies on the photo setting of our copier and keep them handy, along with other photos that I take in a file folder on my desk.

Click on the link to view/print everything you need to do this back-to-school cookie glyph.

Thank you for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN anything you think others might find helpful.

I hope you can pop in tomorrow for another back-to-school idea.

"Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some." -Charles Dickens

I've Got A Little Light And I'm Gonna Let It Shine!

Do you study fireflies?  I think you'll enjoy the following activities!

Click on the link to view/download the entire Firefly Packet or click on the separate links below.  

Almost every night that my husband Daniel and I are out walking with our puppy, Chloe, we are amazed at the “dance of the fireflies”. 

As a child I enjoyed catching “lightning” in a jar and then letting these amazing insects go before they died. I was simply fascinated at their ability to illuminate.

1. Print off my “You light up my life with LOVE.” bookmark, color it and leave it in a special place for that special someone to find.  Click on the link to view/print the firefly bookmark.

2. Run off copies of my wax paper winged firefly.  Students cut out their brown firefly and glue a yellow "glow" tip to the end.  Add wiggle eyes with glue dots.  Cut a black pipe cleaner in 1/2. Make it into a V.  Scotch tape the V to the back of the firefly.  Curl each end around a pen to make antennae.  Accordion fold an 11x5 sheet of wax paper, round the edges, fold in the middle and staple to the center of the firefly.  Cute as is, or hot glue to a clothespin. 

Click on the link to view/print wax paper-winged firefly.

3.  Buy a package of Popsicle sticks that look like ice cream spoons.  Paint the rounded side with neon yellow paint and then a coat of glow-in-the-dark paint.  Paint the upper part light brown. 

Add wiggle eyes and tissue paper wings.  If you twist a ½ piece of pipe cleaner around the middle and make it into a ring, you’ve just made yourself a finger puppet; or hot glue a clothespin to the back, add a magnet and hang on your refrigerator to leave love notes to light up someone’s life!

4. Print off my template and make a firefly keepsake jar by dipping your index finger in bright yellow paint, and then making firefly bodies by pressing your fingerprint all over your bug jar. 

Let the prints dry and then brush on glow-in-the-dark paint with a Q-tip.  Add wings with a white pencil or crayon. Put  an aluminum foil lid on the top and you have “lightning in a jar!”

Click on the link to view/print the firefly keepsake jar templates.

This is a great activity to do after reading 10 Flashing Fireflies.  I only put 7 fireflies in this blue Ball Jar, but if you do this as a follow up to that story, have children do 10 fingerprint fireflies.

5.  Cut 5x7 rectangles of yellow construction paper.  Cut out the template of my firefly out of cardstock and trace around it with a yellow crayon on the yellow construction paper.  Place a Dixie cup of diluted black tempera paint in the middle of the table.  You should have enough tempera so that the paper will get covered, but enough water so that the water-paint mixture will bead up on the waxed crayon and reveal the firefly and not paint opaquely over it. 

Have children “wash” paint over their entire middle of their paper. 

I do this activity after I read Eric Carles’ book The Very Lonely Firefly. I tell my students: “OK let’s go find some more firefly friends for this firefly.” I ask them: “When do fireflies come out?” They respond: “At night.” So I tell them: “The sun is shining on this paper.  It is bright yellow.  You have to make night come by painting it black, so that the fireflies will come out.”

They are amazed to see their firefly appear!

6. For an adorable firefly bulletin board done with Christmas lights click on the link. 

Firefly Language Arts Activities:

Firefly Bibliography: "What do we see in the summer night? Ten flashing fireflies burning bright!" Click on the link to view/print other firefly books that I recommend. I've highlighted in yellow my favorites. Click on the link to view/print a copy of my firefly bibliography.

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123 Count Fireflies With Me: Read, trace, write, count, and then cut and glue the group of fireflies to the matching numbered boxes.  Have students use a yellow bingo dot marker to fill in the appropriate amount of dots in the squares.

For an easy reader counting booklet click on the link. Firefly counting booklet.

Don’t be “bugged” by the –ight words! Get a jump-start for fall and study them with my cute lightning bug flashcards.  Click on the link to view/print them.  Make the cards even more fun, by painting the letters with glow-in-the-dark paint!  Firefly flashcards

Click on the link to view/print a firefly fan book of trace and write the firefly vocabulary words & a firefly life cycle fan book. Firefly Fan Books 

Cut out the strips, punch a hole in the middle of the bottom. Put the pages together with a brass brad so they unfold like a fan and you have a cute way to review words and science!

Click on the link to TRACE and put the -ight words in ABC order. Firefly skill sheet.

Print off my lightning bug silly story poem, hang it in your room, turn off the lights and pretend you’re a lightning bug and read it in the dark by pointing at each word with a flashlight. Firefly story poem + notes home.

Click on the link to make a firefly class book.

Click on the link for my firefly prose poem.  For another cute lightning bug poem click on the link.

Math Practice:

If you’re teaching summer school and doing fireflies with your students, or home schooling, clink on the link to view/print a firefly graph.

 123-Count fireflies with me skill sheet. Click on the link to view/print firefly counting skillsheets + an addition subtraction skill sheet.

For a firefly life cycle wheel, click on the link.

For a fact sheet on fireflies and a firefly to label and color, click on the link.  Firefly stuff

For a "bright student" firefly certificate of praise, click on the link.

For some awesome firefly photographs of real fireflies, click on the link.

I hope you enjoy these fun firefly activities, and I hope you get to see some real fireflies this summer! 

As always, if you have a firefly activity you do with your children, I’d enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com

Feel free to PIN anything you feel might help or interest others.

Until next time try saying this tongue twister: Fifty-four fireflies friskily flitted frantically from the frog’s ferocious feast!