Items filtered by date: January 2012
Playing Card Valentine Counting Booklet
Valentine Day Cards
How Sweet It Is! A Card and Writing Prompts All Rolled Into One!
Recycle those old newspapers and you’ve got yourself a really cute Valentine or writing activity for February.
Run off copies of the "Here's the scoop!" cones on brown construction paper and have students cut them out.
Make templates from file folders for your students to use to trace onto a page of the newspaper.
They cut out their scoop of ice cream, glue it to their cone and then top it off with a cherry heart.
I’ve also provided a template for the “cherries” or you can give students large sparkly-heart stickers to add that finishing touch.
Run off the “flipped-up” messages and give students a choice of what they want to do/write about, OR you could have them make this a valentine AND writing prompt and do both, then staple the pages together.
I “hinged” the completed cone with a small square of Scotch tape stuck to the cherry and attached it to a sheet of scrapbook paper.
Stores have all sorts of packs on sale at this time of year. If not, print off a 40-50% off coupon from one of the major craft chains.
These make a cute bulletin board on a black background with paper lace for the framed border. OR…
Hang them in a row in the hallway, just high enough so that people can flip and read. Send them home on Valentine’s Day.
Click on the link to download the Here's The Scoop Valentine Card February Writing Prompt activity.
Be sure and pop back Tuesday for more Valentine ideas.
Here's The Scoop Valentine Prompt
More Ideas for 100 Day
I know that some teachers have already celebrated 100 Day, but for quite a few, that day is coming up around Valentine’s Day.
There have been many requests on the various web rings that I frequent, for some “different” ideas and themes, so I came up with Ants a few weeks ago.
Start your day by surprising your students with a 100 Day Party Smartie card on their desk.
Increase their finger dexterity and fold paper to form the number 100 and make a "growth" card comparing their weight and height from the 1st day of school to the 100th day.
I LOVE hippo’s and thought the above play on words would be appropriate. Harley and Helga were fun to draw. I hope you enjoy them. I designed the following hippo-riffic activities around them:
Trace, cut and glue the mixed up words to spell one hundred for a different kind of skill sheet.
Hippo Todd is fond of odd numbers and Steven (my son’s name,) likes even numbers. Have fun filling in the appropriate ones all the way to 100 by playing this “Speed” game.
I haven’t seen anyone make 100 tallies and that’s certainly a great way to count by 5’s. Can you accomplish this feat in 100 seconds?
Get in some estimation exercise by guessing how many candy hearts will fill up Harley’s mouth, then do some math extensions by the ton!
Make a class book, pencil topper, necklace, valentine, and two puppets—one from a lunch bag and one for your fingers.
Puppets are great for showing spatial directions, identifying body parts, counting, 
helping to retell a story, and even doing the Hippo Pokey with!
Click on the link to view/print the 100-Day Hippo-themed packet.
Whatever you’re doing for 100-Day, I hope it’s simply hippo-licious!
Thanks for visiting today. For lots more 100 Day ideas and activities click on the link.
100 Day Activities: Hip Hippo Ray
43 pages. Some unique activities to help celebrate 100 Day in a big way!
Fun With Conversation Candy Hearts
1-2-3 Come Do Some Candy Heart Activities With Me
A Sweet Way To Learn!
I’m so excited! Last year I found the Acme Heart Maker site where you could type in 4-letter words on candy hearts. 
I went crazy making some cute CVC words for you, but was a bit bummed because the letters only print in all caps. However, they do look just like real candy hearts, which are also printed in all caps.
While working on this article, I found cryptogram.com where you can type in up to 11 upper or lowercase letters! Wahoo! 
How perfect to make a surprise heart note for all of your students, or allow them keyboard practice, and let them make their own heart or message, in an independent computer-center activity. I even made one for my husband, and taped it to his bathroom mirror. He chuckled this morning. 
Some school's 100 Day lands on or close to Valentine's Day I made up a 100 Day candy heart as a cute note for your kiddo's. If you want, attach a box of the conversation hearts.
The Dollar sells them 4 in a pack. There's also smaller candy heart cards. Use them for Memory Match or "I Have; Who Has?" color games. Click on the link to view/download the 100 Day With Candy Hearts packet.
Of course my brain was working over time trying to think of the zillion ways I could use this. I got out my Dolch word list and made a complete set of Conversational Hearts from all of the lists Pre-Primer through 3rd grade.
You can do several things with these. Simply use them as anchor charts, or print them off and laminate them. Make Memory Match games, put them up on your word wall for February, have students put them in alphabetical order, or have students choose several and make sentences with them.
Play a whole-group game and put the laminated hearts in a box, have students take one out identify the word(s). If they cannot they are out of the game. Another way to play this is “Kaboom!” Pass around the candy heart cards. Go around the circle.
Children read their word(s). If someone has a bomb card, everyone yells “Kaboom!” and you start over. The person holding the bomb, can remain in or be out of the game depending on how you want to play.
Click on the link to view/print the Dolch Word Candy Hearts Click on the link to view/print the bomb cards.
There are many math centers you can do with candy hearts: patterning, guess-timation, counting, graphing, measurement etc. I've also included puzzles for centers.
Pictured is an example of a guess-timation sheet. There's also one where students guess how many candy hearts will go around the heart shape.
I made numeric candy heart anchor charts as well as trace and write the number worksheets.
There are 2 graphing extensions: 1 for graphing your students' favorite flavor of candy heart, the other for graphing their favorite color candy heart.
I’ve included some fun new skill sheets for you in More Fun With Candy Hearts click on the link to view/print this 33-page mini conversation heart unit. Last year’s booklet was Fun With Candy Hearts.
Finally, I made up 208 traceable number and letter flashcards with covers so that your students can make Candy Heart Itty Bitty booklets for counting, skip counting by 2’s, 3’s, 5’s, 10’s, color words and colors, + the alphabet (upper and lowercase letters). These also make great Memory Match Games too! Click on the link to view/print Candy Heart Itty Bitty Books
Want some more fun things to do with candy hearts?
National Geographic has a Candy Hearts Bingo Game. Click on the link to check it out.
Allcrafts.net has a tutorial of how to make your own candy hearts. Click on the link to check that out.
Make these lovely snowflake valentines out of a coffee filter and put some candy hearts on them for a cute party favor. Click on the link to see how the Peppermint Plum Blog Spot does it!
Thanks for visiting. Feel free to pin away. I hope you can stop by tomorrow. I'm finishing up candy heart packets for contractions, opposites, and colors!
"You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great." -Zig Ziglar
Candy Heart Dolch Word Lists
More Fun With Candy Hearts II
33 pages. Common Core State Standard: RF.K.2d Includes all sorts of math extensions, including estimation and pattern mats + CVC word candy hearts!
Candy Heart Itty Bitty Books
