Items filtered by date: January 2012

Launch March Is Reading Month by setting up a quick and easy TV tray - table center.

I picked up my wooden TV tray tables at a garage sale for only $3.00.

They are perfect to set up a small center for students to stamp at or pick up supplies to do a quick project and are great space savers because they take up very little room, and fold up nicely for storage.

These Dr. Seuss “Thing 3” Banner-Bookmarks are sure to become a cute keepsake. You can either print off color copies or use the black and white template and have students color their own.

Make up your own sample ahead of time, to show children the appropriate colors.

Cut students’ school pictures into ovals and lay them out on the TV tray along with pre-cut construction paper, a glue stick, a hole punch, and 18 inch strips of red, white or blue 1/8^th wide ribbon.  You can also use yarn.

Students can hang them on their doorknob or use them as a bookmark.

If you’re putting up a March is Reading Month bulletin board, these make an adorable boarder, or scatter them kitty whompus on a black background with the caption: Reading’s The Thing In ________________’s Room.  Come Read Along With Us!

Click on the link to view/download Dr. Seuss Thing 3 Banner-Bookmark

12 pages. An interesting and fun way for students to review colors and adjectives and how they relate to, and describe feelings.

3 pages. A fun activity to launch March is Reading Month. A cute center for Dr. Seuss' Birthday or Cat In The Hat Day too. Includes a color and black and white template for students to color. Children glue their own school photo over Thing 3. These make

17 pages. A whimsical way to review colors and color words. Perfect for your March is Reading Month celebration, Dr. Seuss' birthday, or a Cat In The Hat Day.

Newsprint Art:

Combine letter recognition and counting with this simple and fun art center.  This is a great "go green" recycling project for March.

Save up old newspapers and find the pages that have mostly printed articles with hardly any pictures on them.

Tear them out and put them in a pile.  Trace and cut out 6 tag board templates of a shamrock and a Seuss hat.  (Recycle some more by using old file folders.)

Choose one of these as a center activity for Dr. Seuss's Birthday (March 2nd) a Cat in the Hat Day for March is Reading Month, or do the shamrock for St. Patrick's Day.

Students trace the template on their sheet of newspaper, circle all the letter S's that they can find, and count as they circle them. 

Students write a grand total somewhere in a space on the newsprint. Children highlight the entire shape with a green highlighter if they've traced a shamrock, or color alternating red stripes if they've done a Seuss hat.

When they are done, they cut out their shape and glue it to a piece of construction paper. For a great math extension,  graph results and add up the total number of S's everyone found.

These make sharp looking boarders for a b. board. Click on the link to view/download Newsprint Dr. Seuss Hat and Shamrock

4 pages. A great math extension for Leap Day! Give students the 3 rules to figure out past and future Leap Years and have them answer the mystery question: When were the last Leap Years and when will the next one be? Finish up with the bookmark and a ju

Looking for one more thing to plug in for Leap Day, how ‘bout an easy reader booklet that reviews the 6-basic shapes?

Your students will enjoy Who Leaped Away With The Shapes Today?

They read the repetitive sentence, trace and then write the shape word, as well as trace the shape around the critter that absconded with that shape.

Children who finish early can go back and color the characters.

When everyone has completed their booklet, read it as a whole-group activity to review concepts of print.

Print off your school photo, cut it in an oval and glue it to the last page. Run off copies for your students.

Before you give them the solution to the “mystery page”, graph their guesses as to what animal they think stole all of the shapes on Leap Day.

I’ve also included another graphing extension to see which Leapin’ animal is their favorite.

For more shape as well as color identification, run off my large animal shapes on a variety of colored construction paper.

To practice letter sounds, I’ve written an alliterative sentence on each shape.

Leave the character’s name as well as the shape out and have the students fill it in as you hold up the card and read the sentence.

Whenever I’m dealing with colors I have my students tell me the names in English as well as Spanish.

You can make an extra set and glue them to  8x10 pieces of tag board of a file folder.

Sprinkle the shapes on the floor and call on students to leap and hop to a specific one.

Choose the 4 most difficult ones for your students and hang one in each corner of the classroom.  Play 4-Corners.

Choose an “It”.  Cover its eyes and count backwards from 10-0.  Everyone else has to leap and hop to a corner before you get to 0.

Anyone not in a corner and standing frozen is out and joins you and “It” in the middle of the carpet.“It” (eyes still covered) calls out a shape.  Everyone in the corner with that shape is out.

Play continues ‘til only one child is left.  My Y5’s absolutely LOVE this game and the constant repetition of the shapes, helps them with identification.

Play “Mystery Shape”. Glue the shapes to old file folders and trim so they are that shape.

Toss them in a large paper grocery bag.  Students sit in a circle.

Pass the bag to the first child; without peeking they pick up a shape and keeping it in the bag they feel around it with one hand and try and guess which shape it is.

After 30 seconds they pull it out to see if they are correct and identify the shape that they are holding.

These shapes will also help your students get the wiggles out.

Add some music and movement to your Leap Day by gathering your little ones in a circle.

Pass out the shapes to 6 children and choose a 7^th to play the teacher.

Sing The Kids And Their Shapes to the tune of Farmer In The Dell.

When their part in the song is sung, the child with that animal shape goes into the middle of the circle and jumps and leaps around.

The song ends with the child-teacher standing alone, because she took all the shapes, finally everyone falls down!

You might know from past articles that I’m crazy over recycling and plan at least one project a month involving recycled items.

I also love melting broken crayons in muffin tins or using candy molds.  Leap Day was the perfect day to make a variety of colored frogs so that my students could make a cool Leap Day Shape Collage to go with the above booklet.

Make just enough for a center, or one for each child.

I also recycled old file folders to cut into the shape templates.  Students arranged them on the “Who Leaped Away With The Shapes Today” paper  (included with booklet) and then colored around the edges.

Click on the link to view/download Who Leaped Away Leap Day SHAPE booklet.

This ending is similar to my booklet There Was An Old Lady that reviews the months and would be a nice “go along” to read with this booklet.  Children enjoy “feeding” her the monthly-words and their matching pictures.

Click on the link to view/download this extra Leap Day booklet.

Another companion booklet that my Y5’s really enjoy is Who Took The Cookies From The Classroom Cookie Jar? The cookie manipulatives have letters, numbers as well as shapes on them.

As with the above story, I’ve designed manipulatives to pass out to your students who fill the classroom cookie jar with them, when that part of the story is read.

Click on the link to view/download this fun booklet, great for Leap Day

Want more animal shapes?

Since Teaching With Angry Birds was such a huge hit, I just finished Angry Bird Shapes.

Save them for another day, or toss them into the Leap Day craziness.

Click on the link to view/download Angry Bird Shapes.

Whatever you and yours are leaping into on Leap Day I hope it’s simply grand!