1-2-3 Come Do Some Saint Paddy's Day Activities With Me   

St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner, so I've been busy designing a few things for that week.  Today's blog features 4 of my favorites, plus the featured FREEBIE of the day.  

First up is the quick, easy and fun "Pot Of Goals" writing prompt craftivity.    Students complete the "goal" coin sentence prompts.

Coin Prompts: "I want to...", "I want to be...", "I want to go...", "I want to learn...", "I want to see...", "I want to read..."

Younger kiddos can dictate a one-word response, while older students also include a reason why. 
So that you can program your own, I've also included a set of blank coins.

Mount on rainbow-colored construction paper, and hang in an arch in rainbow-color order, on a large wall. 
Your title can be: "A Rainbow Of Wonderful Writing". 

Next is a shamrock glyph, which is a super-fun little something to do on St. Paddy's Day, or whenever... 

No matter what grade I taught, my students LOVED making glyphs.  They are a quick, easy and interesting way to practice and assess 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, and are also an interesting way to get to know your students; plus completed projects make an adorable bulletin board, as each one will be different!

To practice data collection & analysis, as well as process of elimination, have students pick a partner to "interview", to help them figure out which glyph is their partner's.  I've included a data collection worksheet for this, challenging them to try and solve the "mystery" with the least amount of questions.

I've also included 6, whole-group graphing extensions, to practice another math standard. 

A Shamrock Venn Friend  is also a super-fun way to get to know your students better.  These too make an adorable bulletin board for March, and are a visual way to practice "comparison-contrast" writing.  

Introduce the lesson with the "What's a Venn diagram?" poster, then have children partner up.

To help them do a thorough job completing their Venn diagram and jump start the writing process, I've included a list of 40 questions that they can choose from to discuss with their partner.

Each student does their own "different" portion of their shamrock. Afterwards, the two-some glues their shamrock to the “pot of gold”, and takes turns filling in the “same” section oval, which is then glued to the top of the pot.

For that finishing touch, students color their leprechaun, add a school photograph on the leprechaun’s face, then glue it to their side of the Venn diagram.

For added fun, and to practice another standard that mixes math with literacy, I’ve also included a graphing extension. 

Finally, the St. Paddy's-Themed CVC Word Packet is a personal favorite. 

To break things down, the packet focuses on 100 CVC words that begin with the letters "L is for leprechaun"; "M is for March"; "P is for Patrick", and "S is for shamrock.”

The packet includes:
* A Celtic shamrock craftivity that reinforces CVC words beginning with the letter S
* A leprechaun craftivity that reinforces CVC words beginning with the letter L.

* I’ve also included dice and spinner games, plus …
* A whole-group "Feed the leprechaun” review game, with a matching, mini- independent "Feed the leprechaun" activity.

There are…
* Long and short vowel sorting mats,  5 bookmarks for CVC word writing, 26 alphabet shamrock cards, with 20 extra vowel shamrock cards, plus  4 CVC worksheets with 4 anchor chart answer keys.  I've also included . . .

* 100 black & white “trace & write” CVC word cards, with covers to make Itty Bitty booklets, 100 mini-CVC word cards, and 100 full-color CVC word cards to use for flashcards, pocket charts, games, puzzles etc.

Finally, there's a "Super Shamrock Sentences” worksheet, 4-page tip list of ideas, games and activities to use the various word cards for, plus a certificate of praise for "wonderful word work." 

Today's FREEBIE also has a St. Paddy's Day theme. It's a set of 16 number "strip" puzzles, which help practice sequencing numbers from 1-10, counting backwards from 10-1, plus skip counting by 10s to 100.

I've included full-color puzzles to use in a center, as well as some black and white ones, so that kiddos can make their own. They are vertical as well as horizontal.  

Well that's it for today.  Thanks for stopping by.The sun is shining and even the tall, ugly piles of dirty snow have started to melt. 

Hooray!  Spring is finally on its way.  Wishing you a carefree day filled with springtime fun.

"Spring: The season of rebirth, renewal and regrowth!" -Unknown

1-2-3 Come Do Some "SH Word Blend" Shamrock Activities With Me

Since shamrock begins with the SH word blend, I thought it would be fun to design some March word activities with them . 

I had so much fun, that one thing led to the next 'til I had a whopping, 112-page, "Shhh! It's a Shamrock" packet, filled to the brim with a huge variety of activities for teaching and practicing the SH blend.

The packet includes:

* A “Shhhh! It’s A Shamrock” slider craftivity. There's one for beginning SH blend words, as well as one for words ending with the blend. 

* A “Riddle Time” leprechaun poster that challenges students to guess the 2 words that “begin and end with the SH blend”, with matching shamrock "guessing cards", and a definition answer key poster.

(Want to know the answer? Shhhh!  It's a secret.)

* 9 worksheets
* A graphing activity

* A “Blend to the End” worksheet board game.  This is my personal favorite. 

I designed the game board in the shape of an S, and incorporated a bit of math with literacy. 

So that my students can quickly do the calculations, I have them use two different color markers to write down beginning & ending SH blend words.

They have the option to roll a dice or flip a coin to see which type of word they'll write down.  I've also included . . .

* A beginning & end sorting mat.
* 18, SH blend picture cards in color for a center activity, plus black & white, so that students can make their own game, with 2 size options.
*18 matching shamrock word cards to play a variety of games

* The super-fun “Shhh!” whole group word game, where the teacher reads the beginning sound and students complete the word by saying shhhhhh! "fishhh fish!".

* An alphabetical list of 43 beginning sh blend words.
* An alphabetical list of 68 ending sh blend words.
* A 4-page tip list of things you can do with the “trace & write” word cards, including the “Kaboom!” game.

* A “What Word Card Is The Leprechaun Hiding?” flip the flap poster game.

*  38 “trace & write” ending SH word blend cards, with 40 for beginning SH blend words, along with an “Itty Bitty” book cover for both the beginning and ending word cards.

Before my kiddos turn these into an Itty Bitty Blend booklet, we do a variety of activites with them.  So the cards don't get lost, my students make ...
* A cute mini envelope craftivity to keep the word cards in. (My kiddos absolutely LOVE this!) 

I have a theory that if children make something, instead of just giving them an envelope, they truly appreciate it more, which results in them taking better care of their word cards.  I've also included . . .

* A set of beginning and ending SH blend picture puzzles .
These are number “strip” puzzles for sequencing numbers from 1-10, counting backwards from 10-1, plus skip counting by 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s.

They come in color, so you can use them as a center, plus black & white, so students can make their own.

Click on the link to zip on over to see my latest packet of fun:  Shhh!  It's A Shamrock.

Today's FREEBIE also features shamrocks.

It's a set of 10 Frames, with math symbol cards and manipulatives for playing a variety of math games. I hope you find them useful.  

Well that's it for today.  I have a few more Saint Paddy's Day things to finish up, them it's on to kites. 

Wishing you a day filled with the luck of a leprechaun.

"Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me." - Saint Patrick

Spring Spirals

I love decorating for the various seasons and holidays.  It energizes me.

Children’s creations make the best decorations and displaying them is extremely important in building self-esteem and helping students take pride in their accomplishments.

Other teachers and students enjoyed going through my hallway “art museum” filled with “mess-terpieces”.

Their comments to my students were also very encouraging. I find that schools look more interesting, fun and inviting to visitors, when they are festooned with student "craftivities".

An announcement by our principal + warnings by teachers to “Keep your hands off the dangling decorations!” did a pretty good job of helping to keep things from getting slapped down.

Spring Spiral Shamrocks are one of those awesome tempting danglers.  A spiral offers great fine motor cutting skill practice.

If you are dealing with Y5’s and younger cut the spiral out so that they have a circle to hang on to when they cut. Remind them to stay on the “road” and continue to cut on the line as they go along.

Demonstrate this and show how you turn your circle as you cut showing  how the “road” will then spiral and dangle down.

Because I made lines across so that children know when to stop coloring, a few little ones might be tempted to cut across, so explain these lines as “stop” features for coloring and that they are NOT to be cut.

Because I teach about rainbows and rainbow color order in March, I like to combine those concepts with shamrocks to get more “bang for my time.”

You can make your ceiling display colorful by giving your students an assortment of rainbow-colored spirals to choose from, or you can have them color their spirals with crayons or markers.

Just and FYI that this is a lot of coloring for a little one as in order for the colors to be dramatic, you need to color both sides.

It is easier to color the spiral before it is cut out, but then in order to color the back, it needs to be cut out in order to see where to color.  This is definitely a task for older students.

You can add more colors of the rainbow with the center shamrock as I included a smaller shamrock template for the middle.

Simplify things and make it white or another shade of green or a variety of rainbow colors.

I wanted to show all of the rainbow colors so to create the cool effect pictured, I peeled broken crayons, sharpened them over my shamrock, put a piece of wax paper over the shavings and then pressed an iron on low heat on top of them, you’ll get an instant melted rainbow and lots of oooh’s and ahhh’s from your students.

I teach my students a short rainbow song to help them remember the color order of the rainbow.

Every year when we are working on a rainbow activity they burst into song.  This “craftivity” includes the song.

You can also add 3-D pizzazz to the back of your shamrock by cutting out 2 additional shamrocks, folding them in half gluing them together and then gluing the 3-D shamrock to the back of your flat one.

This additional step is also recommended for older students.  Punch a hole in the top of the shamrock, add a yarn loop and dangle from the ceiling.

If you want to put up a caption: ________________________’s class is spiraling into spring!  You can also skip the spiral and just do the melted crayon shamrock.  It makes a lovely March bulletin board.  Caption: __________________'s class is melting into spring! OR... Wishing you a colorful spring!

Click on the link to view/download Spring Spiral Shamrocks
Be sure and pop back tomorrow for What's In The Hat? A quick and easy shamrock review game.