1-2-3 Come Review The 5 Senses With Me.      

This “play-on-words” ( "My _______ is Sense-sational" ) writing prompt craftivity is a nice review of the 5 senses and definitely has the “Awwwww” factor, as children use their 5 senses to describe their mom, dad, or other special person.

It’s very versatile & something that’s quick, easy & fun for Mother’s Day, or use the blank “fill in” templates for Father’s Day.

These “fill-in-the blank" pattern pages are also perfect if you happen to have a child without a mom, or perhaps a student would like their paper to say “Mum”, “Mommy” or “Ma Ma”.

I made my samples using real answers from children. I hope they bring a smile to your face. 

A particular favorite of mine is the answer to the question: "What does your mom smell like?" to which Kaiden replied, "Water cuz she smells good after a shower."

I’m sure the ideas your own students will come up with, will be as sweetly hilarious as well.

Since classrooms today are filled with a lot of diversity, I designed 12 girl & 12 boy head patterns, which offer a nice selection for your students to choose from. There's also a blank template if a child wants to draw their own head.

Instead of drawing a portrait of themselves, another option is for children to draw a picture of their mom or dad. 

Students pick one, then add facial features, color it, and finally label their five senses.

Have students pick a partner, and take turns drawing one hand on a folded sheet of construction paper. This way they only have to cut once to get two hands, which they glue to the cover of their card.

For the writing prompt portion of the card, there are 4 girl & 4 boy options, plus a generic bear pattern to choose from.

Students complete the sentences, color & sign their card, stapling the cover to the top.

Younger kiddos can simply dictate their answers to the teacher, a room helper, or their older reading buddy. 

Today's featured FREEBIE: "Orange You Glad?" is an end-of-the year treat you can make to give your students on the last day of school. 

If you've got that covered, I've also included a pattern for the beginning of the school year as well.   I hope you find them useful. 

Well that's it for today. Thanks for stopping by. 

Time to begin my "too long" To Do list... No matter how many things I check off, I seem to always replace them with a dozen more!  Wishing you a delightful day.  

Definition of a Mother: "A person who does the work of 20 people for free."

Read To Succeed!

One of the most requested items from teachers is “easy readers.”  They say that they need more little booklets for students to work on during Daily 5 as well as ones to send home so that students can practice reading them to their families.

I like to make up easy readers that also reinforce additional standards like math, science, colors, etc. so that I get more “bang for my time buck” so to speak.

I also want my students to have an opportunity to write some of the main words in the easy readers to get practice with those skills too.

I dabble with goofy endings, or ones with a unique twist, and sometimes allow students to think of an alternative ending, so that they can use their imaginations.

One of my biggest pet peeves with many published easy readers was that they abruptly ended with no real conclusion.

This week I completed several.

My Mom is perfect for a Mother’s Day writing prompt and reinforces the use of adjectives and verbs.  Make it even more of a keepsake by having students glue their school photo to the last page.

Click on the link to view/download My Mom Mother’s Day booklet.

Several teachers wanted a booklet that reviewed the seasons.

Since many of you also study trees, I thought it would be nice to combine the two.

The Seasons Of My Tree (photo top right) does just that, with a cute twist at the end, that I’m sure your students will enjoy dreaming up.

Click on the link to view/download The Seasons Of My Tree

Who Invited The Ants To The Picnic? (photo bottom right) is a sweet pre-summer, easy reader that reinforces number words and counting to 10.  It provides an opportunity for students to write two alternative endings to the story.

Click on the link to view/download Who Invited The Ants To The Picnic

I just finished story cards for the old-fashioned tune, The Ants Go Marching.  So if you'd like to incorporated these with the picnic booklet, or teach your little ones this fun counting song, click on the link to view/download

The Ants Go Marching story cards.

I hope you enjoy these new booklets. If there’s something special you’re looking for, just shoot me an e-mail and I’ll see what I can whip together.  diane@teachwithme.com

I’ve found that if one teacher needs it, there’s sure to be many more out there who do too! i.e. I only had 1 request for some activities with an Angry Bird's theme and Angry Birds Activities & Angry Birds Shapes, are two of my most popular downloads!

Thanks for visiting; feel free to PIN anything that you feel might be helpful to a parent or teacher.

I hope you can stop by tomorrow for more tips.

Happy Reading!

Mother’s Day Bookmark:

• This is a fun center activity that students can put together quickly.  It makes a nice tuck-in for the cards you may be making.   To make it extra special have students glue their student photograph to the back message.  Laminate them and then tie a ribbon or yarn bow and staple it to the top for an extra-special touch.
• Simply print off the bookmarks. Using a paper cutter, trim them and have students glue them to strips of yellow, blue, green or red construction paper.  Run off the message memo and have them glue it to the back of the bookmark and then trace the words, sign it and add their photo.   Click on the link to view/print the Mother’s Day bookmark masters.

What’s the tallest flower in the garden?

• Demonstrate the comparative adjectives tall, taller and tallest by having students make 3 flowers using green-colored straws for stems.  You can pre-cut the two shorter straws to expedite things, or add a math extension by passing out rulers and telling students how long you want these two straw-stems to be and then have them measure and snip.
• If you have a Big Lots store in your community, they have huge pastel colored straws that make the “tallest” flower even more fun to make. 
  
• Use a flower punch to make fancy centers for your flowers or simply run off my flower pattern on a variety of colored construction paper and have students cut them out. 
  
• Punch holes in the centers with a hole punch and then carefully insert the blossom.
• Run off leaves on green construction paper.  Each student needs 2 leaves for the short flower, 4 for the medium, and the tallest one, unless you are using the giant straws and then 6 leaves look nicer.  This can be a lot of cutting for little ones, so you may want these pre-cut and simply make a template and cut 5 at a time. 
  
• Stick the leaves to the straws using glue dots.  I’ve also made labels if you want to have students affix those as well.  Click on the link to view/print the tall-taller-tallest flower activity sheets. 

Flower Power Math:

Students look at the number inside the flower and then color that many petals, and match the uppercase flower to the leafy lowercase stems on the bottom in these springy-skill sheets.  I’ve made a blank tulip page for you to make more letter combinations if you want.  Click on the link to view/print the flower skill sheets.

Small, medium and large frogs on a log:

• Students glue pre-cut brown construction paper to a toilet paper roll and then add log-like details with a brown or black marker.  The frogs will be poked into the log so they can be used as a subtraction manipulative.  Poking holes with a protractor can be time consuming so you may want this done ahead of time.
• To expedite things you can send t.p. rolls, construction paper, directions and a sample home with a child whose parent has volunteered to help assemble projects at home.  The parent can simply staple on the construction paper and then poke holes for you.
• All children have to do then, is add the details and cut out their frogs.  You can add wiggle eyes to one of the frogs for a bit more pizzazz.  If you don’t want to make this an interactive art project you don’t have to poke the holes.  Simply add tabs to the frogs and have them glue their frogs to the log, or for younger children have them cut out the frogs as ONE unit and use only one toothpick, to simplify things.
• I’ve made two styles for you to choose from.  Run them off on construction paper so they do not flop over.  I use scotch tape to stick a toothpick to the backs of the frogs so that students can poke them into their log.
• This manipulative is great to use with frog stories and songs that have frogs jumping into ponds.  As you read the story, or sing a song, a group of students can stand in front with their logs and take a frog away (subtract) as he jumps into the pond.  Count the remaining frogs left on the logs and then continue.  Many stories/songs involve 10 frogs so you could make your own teacher manipulative using a paper towel tube, so that you have room for 10 frogs.  Click on the link to view/print the frogs on a log masters.

Etc.

For more fun spring art and activities check my 98-page May Art book.  I also have a 78-page Frog Unit as well as an 83-page Flower Unit chock full of wonderful lessons to keep your students actively learning!

Why not become a gold subscriber and get all of these things at no additional charge and enjoy an entire year of fun with new things added each month.

 Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a marvelous May doing it!