1-2-3 Do Some New Year Activities With Me

I hope everyone had a safe and relaxing New Year.  We enjoyed watching the Tournament of Roses Parade.  I made up a few interesting writing prompts that you can give your students on the day they come back.  They are nice for the writing portion of your Daily 5. 

One prompt packet is about the parade and includes a Venn diagram comparing Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade to the Tournament of Roses New Year's Parade.   Click on the link to view/download the New Year Parade Writing prompts. 

The other is a Happy New Year writing prompt-craftivity. Run the balloon pattern off on a variety of colors of construction paper.  Students choose one, trim, and complete the 3 writing prompts.  Children add hands to the clock so that it reads midnight.  Gluing on a school photo adds that finishing touch.  

You can also have students write a longer prompt on the back of their balloon.  Tie with yarn or curling ribbon and dangle from the ceiling. 

I've included a pattern for this New Year (2014) as well as two with a blank for whatever number (201____ and 202____)  you need, so that you can use this craftivity each year.  Click on the link for the Happy New Year Writing-Prompt Craftivity to view/download it.

There's also a packet of New Year posters, mini-cards and bookmarks that you can print off and place in your students desks, on their tables or tuck into their backpacks.   Click on the link to view/download the Happy New Year Poster-Bookmark packet.

I had a request for a list of my favorite books for January, so I compiled one with 77 of my all-time favorites.  Click on the link to view/print it. January Bibliography 

Finally, in yesterday's blog article I promised to complete the Snowman Color Matching Game that's a great companion to the Snowman Colors packet.  Click on the links to grab them.  There are several ways to use the Snowman Color Matching Game packet. 

Students can match the scarf and hats to the appropriate color word snowman as an independent center, or children can pick a partner and take turns spinning. 

Whatever color they land on, is the snowman that they "dress" in the matching colored items. I've included a blank set, where students can draw on their own snowman faces, as well as a set that has faces on them. 

You can give each student their own snowman to complete and have them glue the hat and scarf on.  These can then be used for your winter word wall. 

Students can also make their own personal "favorite" color snowman, as I've included a snowman pattern for that too. Click on the link to view/download the Snowman Color Matching Game. 

Thanks for visiting.  Feel free to PIN away.  I design and blog daily, so I hope you can stop by tomorrow for the newest FREEBIES.  I'm working on some adorable mitten activities, interesting stuff for Martin Luther King Day, as well as some super-fun things for Chinese New Year.   

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do, than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -H. Jackson Brown from P.S. I Love You