1-2-3 Come Frolic With Me: Winter Craftivities, Bulletin Boards and Games

I was really on a creative roll yesterday.  All one needs to do is spend a little time on Pinterest and your brain will shoot into over drive!  So many ideas and not enough time in my life to do everything I'd like to.  Sound familiar?

While browsing, I found a wooden snowman used as a countdown to Christmas.  I found versions of this idea all over, so not sure who was the originator, but I thought the moveable carrot nose would be perfect for the classroom. 

It was fun designing a paper snowman face that can review upper and lowercase letters and numbers to 20.  I've included a face for skip counting by 2's, 3's, 5's or 10's.  

You can also simply make one for your calendar center and countdown the days in January.  

These make a quick and easy way to whole-group assess too. 

Call out a number/letter and have students move their snowman's nose to that position or... move your teacher sample to an uppercase letter, and have students find the matching lowercase letter on theirs. 

For added pizzazz I ran the carrot noses through my crinkle machine.  My Y5's called this the "Cruncher Muncher."  It provided great fine motor practice as students turned the crank to get the paper through the rollers. 

Poke a hole at the end of the carrot and use a brass brad to fasten the nose to the snowman.   Click on the link to view/download the Snowman's Nose packet.

For more letter and number practice, have your students put together these winter pine tree puzzles.  They can be done as an independent center activity, or you can make copies for your students. 

Children cut the green number/letter tiles and then glue them in appropriate order on the boxed grid.  For that extra bit of pizzazz, run the template off on blue construction paper and have students dot on "snowflakes" with a Q-tip. 

If you celebrate 100 Day in January, this is a wonderful "craftivity" that makes a cool bulletin board.  Caption:  Mrs. Henderson's Kinders Are Doing Tree-mendous Work!  Click on the link to view/download the Pine Tree Puzzles

Another awesome bulletin board for January, features a New Year's writing prompt. 

Basketball, soccer and football are all sports where players score goals, so I thought it would be fun to have students write what their goals were for the New Year on the ball of their choice.  

I've included a poster that you can put in the center of your bulletin board as a caption. 

Besides the balls, there are also 2 writing prompt pages for journal writing, which includes one with a hockey theme.   Click on the link to grab the New Year Goals Packet. 

Another New Year's activity you can have your kiddo's do, is see how many words they can come up with, using the letters in Happy New Year.   I've included a list of 267 words. 

When students are done, share your list to see if there are any words that they aren't familiar with; have them write them on their paper and look them up.   Click on the link to check out the How Many New Year activity.

Since the fact family houses have been such popular downloads, I designed an igloo "Frosty Fact Family Fun" packet.  Choose whatever number you want your students to work on. 

They write it in the center of the snowflake and then write all of the equations that they can think of, on the outer sections of their snowflake, to show that number.  

Do one each day; to make their booklet, have students glue their snowflake to an igloo-shaped page.  Add their photo for that finishing touch.  Click on the link to view/downlaod the Frosty Fact Family Fun packet.

For More number fun, I think you'll enjoy the snowflake number cards.  Use these for your word wall, a bulletin board, flashcards, games, or an independent center. 

Print; laminate and cut into puzzles for even more ideas.   I've also included 3 sets of snowflake tiles so students can sort, pattern and make groups/sets to match the number on the cards.  Click on the link to grab the Snowflake Number cards.

Finally, I had a request from Karla out in Vermont, for penguin alphabet and number cards. 

She wanted something small that her pre-schoolers could manipulate.  She only needed numbers to 10, but I included a blank template for you to program with more. 

There's also a list of ideas you can use the cards for, including games like "Kaboom!"  Click on the link if you'd like a set of these mini-penguins.   

Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN away.  My "Pin It!" button is at the top.  As you can see I design and blog daily, so I hope you can stop by tomorrow to see all the newest FREEBIES, created by this brain that needs a shut-off button!

"Celebrate what you want to see more of." -Tom Peters

Waddle You Do, To Help Students With Letter Recognition?

Are you studying penguins with your students?

This was one of my Y5’s favorite themes.  I think they are so adorable and enjoy designing with them.

I just finished Penguin Letter Puzzles

Since putting together a puzzle as well as identifying  letters were report card standards, I decided to combine the 2 activities.

Print, laminate and cut out the puzzles.  Store them in a file folder or manila envelope.

Students spill them out at a center and work on matching the lowercase letter on the heart to the uppercase letter on the balloon.

You can also pass them out and play “I Have; Who Has?” “I have the uppercase letter A.  Who has the matching lowercase letter?

Students enjoy these reinforcement games because they are easy and fun, and you have a chance to whole-group assess to see who is having difficulty and needs extra help.

When children can do these activities successfully, you can give them the two certificates of praise.

I’ve also included a set without the puzzle lines, so you can put them on the wall for a December or January ABC border.

There’s a blank page as well, so you can program the penguins with numbers, names, words, equations etc.

Click on the link to view/download Penguin Puzzle Pals.

Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN anything you think might be useful to others.

“Learn from yesterday; live for today; hope for tomorrow.” –Albert Einstein