1-2-3 Come Do Some More Chrysanthemum Activities With Me 

Since my students absolutely LOVE the story "Chrysanthemum" by Kevin Henkes, I've made an assortment of Chrysanthemum-themed activities to practice a variety of standards. 

Today I'll be featuring 3 of my newest creations. First up, are some Chrysanthemum Number Puzzles.  

They are a quick, easy and super-fun way for your students to practice sequencing numbers from 1-10, counting backwards from 10-1, as well as skip counting by 2s, 3s, 5s & 10s, plus I’ve added a template for those “toughy teen” numbers as well.

There are 7 different Chrysanthemum-themed patterns, each has an example of all of the above templates, with 97 puzzles in all.

Some are vertical, while others are horizontal.  Pick and choose your favorites to make a collection of choices for your students.

Print, laminate & trim the full color options and use as an independent math center.
Use the black & white ones, so that students can color & cut up their own puzzle.

For an interesting “craftivity” have children glue their puzzle to a sheet of construction paper.

Remind them to leave a little bit of a gap between each numbered strip, to create an especially cool mosaic effect.
Completed projects make a cute back to school bulletin board.

Next up is a set of "Fix the Sentence" cards. These 27, Chrysanthemum-themed sentence cards, are a quick, easy and fun way to review and sequence the story, while practicing capitalization and end punctuation.

Read the cards together as a whole group to practice a lot of sight words.

Choose a student to come up and using a dry erase marker, circle letters that should be capitalized and then add end punctuation. (period, question mark & exclamation point).
You can do this on a whiteboard, with a pocket chart, or pass a card out to each child to correct.

For more practice, as an individual activity, have students choose X number of mini cards and rewrite the sentences correctly on the worksheet provided.
Afterwards, students can swap their paper with a partner to correct.

I've included 2 sizes of mini "fix the sentence" cards for this, which make a nice Daily 5 word work activity too.

There are 27 mini cards on one sheet of paper.  Simply print, laminate and trim several copies for a class set

As an independent center activity, have children arrange the cards in sequential order.  To make this activity self-correcting, number the cards on the back. 

Finally, since my students absolutely LOVE glyphs (Didn't matter what grade I taught and that's lots!) I designed a Chrysanthemum-themed glyph, as a quick, easy and fun way to get to know your new students. while assessing listening and following directions.

Since this is one of my report card standards, glyphs also provide a "hard copy" to use as proof that a child does or doesn't.

Completed projects make a wonderful back to school bulletin board, as each one will be different!

I’ve provided two, Chrysanthemum-themed glyph posters to use for the center of your display.

Afterwards, have children pick a partner, and try to guess which glyph is theirs by asking them a few key questions, which will narrow down the field.

The featured FREEBIE today is also based on one of my all-time favorite back to school books ("The Kissing Hand", by Audrey Penn).

Chester, a little raccoon is apprehensive about going to school 'til his mom kisses his hand, so he can continue to feel her comforting presence, so I thought it would be fun to give my students a few Hershey Kisses in a Snack Baggie after I read the story.  

I designed 3 "header" tags for the top of your sweet treat.  There are patterns with 5 on a page as well as 10.

Click on the link to grab your copy and let the smiles begin.  The Kissing Hand-Inspired Snack Bag Tags.

Well that's it for today.  Thanks for popping in.  I hope you found something useful. 

We continue to melt here in Michigan with unusually hot 90 degree temperatures. PTL for air conditioning, so I have energy to get the mountains of stuff done I need to.  Wishing you a relaxing day. 

"Dear Weather, Stop showing off.  We already know you're hot!" -Unknown

A Cookie Glyph As A Fun Way To Get To Know Your New Students!

Cookie Glyph:

I dreamed this up because I thought it would not only be a fun icebreaker, but it would make an instant and really cute bulletin board as well. 

You can do these with your students the first week of school as a get-to-know-you activity, or you can tuck the directions and a tan construction paper cookie into your Open House Packet for parents to help their child with, and then they can bring their cookie on the first day of school for them to hold up and share with their new friends.  

We have our Open House before school starts.  If you don't, you can tuck it into your "Welcome to my class" letter / school packet that many teachers send out during the summer or simply send it home the first day of school. 

Use my pattern, or revamp it to make it simpler or a bit more involved to fit the age of your students or the time frame you have allotted to complete it in class. 

Take a photo of each student on their 1st day of school.  I use this photo in all sorts of keepsake things during September until I get their school pix back.

I make black & white copies on the photo setting of our copier and keep them handy, along with other photos that I take in a file folder on my desk.

Click on the link to view/print everything you need to do this back-to-school cookie glyph.

Thank you for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN anything you think others might find helpful.

I hope you can pop in tomorrow for another back-to-school idea.

"Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some." -Charles Dickens