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 1/8th 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
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
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 7th 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!
Leaping Through Letters And Numbers On Leap Day!
Although I made these sliders specifically for Leap Day (These are animals that are fairly good at leaping/hopping) they also fit in nicely with your other monthly themes.
I’ve designed a slider for all of my units and had my Y5’s make one every month to review a variety of report card standards.
They enjoyed making and collecting them. Sliders were especially helpful for my ESL students and strugglers.
The Leapin' Animals have strips for skip counting by 2's, 3's, 5's, and 10's. Students can also make an upper and lowercase "Letter Leaper" and younger students can count by 1's.
Here’s How To Make A Leap Day Slider:
Run off the animal templates on construction paper.
Decide which letter or number strip you want to review and make copies.
Cut them on a paper cutter. Pre-cut slits with an Exacto knife.
Give children a choice of which animal they want to make.
Students cut out their Leap Day critter and add some colorful details with crayons or markers.
Give students glue dots and wiggle eyes to add a bit of pizzazz.
Children trace the letters and numbers with a highlighter, marker or crayon.
Add a math extension to the process by having them choose 2 or 3 colors and trace in an ABAB or ABC pattern.
Demonstrate how to insert their strip into the slits.
I've made a template for some "Hoppy" Leap Day! sticker labels, if you want students to be able to add one to their creations.
When everyone is done assemble them on the carpet area and skip count together, start leaping from one number or letter to the next, sing the ABC song, spell words, names, etc.
To help get the wiggles out, children can take out their strip and you can do the Leap Day Animal Pokey with them. I've included the song in the packet.
Students can also use their Leap Day Pal for a spatial direction review.
The teacher tells students to put the kangaroo beside, under, above, behind etc.
Teachers can also review body parts with students by having children place their squirrel on their knee, hip, thigh, wrist etc.
Click on the link to view/download Leapin' Animal Sliders for Leap Day
I hope you have a “Hoppy” Day learning and leaping as you go!
Scroll down for more Leap Day Articles
Be sure and pop in tomorrow for some more fun teaching tips!
As I stated in the first article, I thought it would be fun for your students if you got together with your fellow teachers and each offered a different activity on Leap Day.
Students would then Leap on over to another classroom for whatever time you deemed appropriate, to do that activity and continue leaping until they had visited each teacher and done however many activities your grade level had planned.
I made an entire packet of table top lessons to choose from, for some quickie morning activities that include a maze, pinch & poke, bingo dot, word find, what letter or number comes next, pattern pages, similarities and differences etc.
You can make these into “Ready-Set-Leap into action!” timed activities, or give them a specific amount of time to complete whatever packet you decide to make for them.
You can start off the day by leaving students a Leap Day note and pencil on their desk.
Students can keep all of their papers organized by tucking them into the Mama Kangaroo pouch that they made out of a paper plate.
Click on the link to view/download Leap Day Table Top Lessons.
Help eliminate the wiggles by acting out a few nursery rhymes that have leaping and jumping in them like Jack Be Nimble.
Click on the link to view/download Leapin’ Nursery Rhymes for Leap Day.
Sing the Leap Day Song, to the tune of Bingo, to help review the concept of subtraction, and reinforce a clapping pattern.
Since Leap Day was added on, to keep the seasons on course, you might also want to do a writing extension and make the class book Our Favorite Seasons, which also includes a graphing extension.
Click on the link to view/download Our Favorite Seasons class book, perfect for Leap Day.
Another season-related activity is the easy reader: Seasons Outside My Window, which includes an art activity + several skill sheets. Click on the link to view/download this Leap Day activity.
Read my version of There Was An Old Lady. It's a cute mystery with a fun ending that reviews the months, and includes the 30 Days Hath September Poem.
Students will enjoy “feeding” her the various months and pictures that match them.
Click on the link to view/download this hands-on story appropriate for Leap Day.
Movin' Through The Months is also a wonderful whole-group activity that culminates with a great class book that reinforces the months and also includes the 30 Days Hath September Poem.
This is a photograph of the bulletin board I made when we completed our book. As you can see we did lots of math extensions too.
Make your own, or print off mine to read to your students.
Click on the link to view/download this story that makes a nice review of the months for Leap Day.
End your Leap Day lessons by giving everyone a certificate of praise, which is also included in the Leap Day packet.
Whatever you decide to do to celebrate Leap Day, I hope you have a hoppin’ good time!
Scroll down for more articles on Leap Day and be sure and pop back tomorrow for my 6th and last Leap Day one.
