All Flakes Welcome!
Are you looking for a fun wintry way to review addition and subtraction math facts?
Try these frosty flakes!
Students can simply do one page as a skill sheet for a table top lesson or you can cut out the flakes and assemble them into an igloo booklet filled with 10-snowflake fact pages.
Make it a bit more special by adding student photographs.
I've also included a certificate of praise.
Click on the link to view/download the Frosty Flake packet.
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Do you have an addition or subtraction activity you could share with us? I'd enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com or post a comment here.
"There are few things as uncommon as common sense." -Frank McKinney Hubbard
Deck the Halls With Keepsake Ornaments!
This 36-page Christmas Ornament packet is filled with 16 different ornaments that your students will enjoy making, or perhaps you’ll want to choose one to whip off a bunch of, as gifts for your little ones.
Every year I machine embroidered my students’ names on a snowman hat and made them these “snow” special snowball ornaments, in celebration of the fact that they could write their name.
In the past, I’ve also skipped the name portion and done them with Sunday school groups for Christmas craft night.
You can use any of these, as creative independent centers for a fun December activity to reinforce listening and following directions, as well as increase fine motor skills.
Some of them actually look good enough to eat, like these construction paper cookies topped with shaving cream and glue "frosting!"
Festoon your hallway or trim your bulletin board with awesome borders and then send the ornaments home a few days before break.
Click on the link to view/download the Christmas Ornament packet.
Even when doing “craftivities” it was always important to me to review a variety of standards.
One of my parents’ favorite ornaments was the fingerprint tree.
It’s more recent, so it’s not in the above packet. The tree is a great way to review the concept of +1 more and counting to 10, all the while producing a lovely keepsake.
Click on the link to view/download the fingerprint Christmas tree.
Thanks for visiting today. Feel free to PIN anything you think others may find useful.
Do you have an ornament you could share with us? I’d enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com
“One mother teaches more than a hundred teachers.” –Jewish proverb
A Gift Of Learning
Are you looking for some quick and easy projects for your students to make that can be a bulletin board or hallway decoration, yet are still teaching report card standards?
You’ve come to the right place! These craftivities also provide great fine motor skill practice too.
A wonderful keepsake art project, that makes a great puppet manipulative, so that you can whole group assess spatial directions, and body part identification is the reindeer lunch bag puppet.
It’s terrific for interactive play during a reading of many December stories featuring reindeer characters too.
Afterwards, line students up, have them slip on their puppets and count them.
You can also do The Reindeer Pokey, sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and even have children put their reindeer up, down, behind their back, over their head, between their legs etc. so that you can assess spatial directions.
Plus it's a great way to get the wiggles out at the same time. While you're at it, have children identify colors in English and Spanish and review the shapes on the bag.
Call out a body part and have students touch their reindeer to their nose, shoulder, wrist, ankle, thigh, shin etc as a means of whole group assessing that standard.
So you can review ordinal numbers, have the 4th reindeer in line take 2 steps forward, have the 1st reindeer take 2 steps back etc.
Click on the link to view/download the Reindeer Lunch Bag Puppet.
A fun way to review some basic shapes as well as that more difficult 3-D cylinder shape, is with this adorable Santa windsock.
Santa’s hand print beard, makes this an adorable keepsake!
Click on the link to view/download the Cylinder Handprint Santa.
Another shape that we study is the oval. Making a Christmas mouse and then tucking a candy cane in a slit for a tail is great fun. A pom pom nose reviews the sphere shape as well.
Your little ones can easily whip these together after a mouse-related December story.
Click on the link to view/download the Candy Cane Mouse.
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“Take the attitude of a student. Never be too big to ask questions. Never know too much to learn something new.” –Og Mandino
1+1=1 Compound Word!
Are you working on compound words with your students? This is a comprehensive list of 2,718 compound words for PK-12th grade.
Choose ones appropriate for your grade-level. I spent hours compiling this alphabetical list of compound words for you to choose from.
This is the 3rd updated list. I've added 40 more compound words. (The 2nd up-date had 22 additional compound words + corrections.)
In this 19-page packet there’s also a compound word anchor definition chart, compound word of the day poster, and a compound word header poster of Compound words we've spied! so that your students can make up their own list of words when they discover them while reading.
Build students' vocabularies and have them learn a new compound word each day as you count up to 100 Day!
I've provided a cover for a compound word booklet. Choose a compound word from my list, or have students select a compound word that they'd like to learn.
Have them write it in their compound word booklet, break down the two words, and define them. What a fun way to increase their vocabulary skills.
Working on compound words is a great activity for Daily 5 "word work" too.
Click on the link to view/download the 2,718 compound word list.
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“Accomplishment influences confidence, and confidence influences accomplishment.” –Harold S. Hook
This Is How We Do It!
Do your little ones put their mittens on and then wonder why they can't zip up their jacket, or put their boots on first and then get their feet stuck inside their snowpants?
I found that if I put a picture prompt poster up in the hallway that listed the articles of clothing that should be put on first, second and third etc. my Y5's not only got ready so much faster, but I had a teachable moment for them to learn ordinal numbers.
No more taking stuff off to start over again. For many of my little peanuts they barely had time to play because they were taking so long to get dressed to go out for a 10-minute recess!
I gave them the added incentive of having a sticker snowflake-star chart of who got done the quickest.
The first three done, got snowflake stickers. 10-stickers meant a trip to the treasure box. This incentive got things moving quickly.
What boot to put on always posed a problem too, until I had a room helper, cut silver Duct tape squares with me.
We stuck them on the right toe of everyone's right boot and taught students to put their right boot on FIRST. (The one with the silver square on it!)
It was a lifesaver as well as timesaver! Print off several posters and put them up in various locations in your hallway, by your students' lockers.
Review the posters and what the pictures mean, so children know the order of how to get dressed.
I included the line about socks, because for some unknown reasons, many of my little ones were peeling them off along with their shoes.
I hope this poster helps your students get ready fast, so they can get outside, get those wiggles out, and have a great recess. Click on the link to view/download This Is How We Get Ready! winter poster.
Thank you for visiting today. Feel free to PIN anything you think others may find helpful. Do you have a getting ready tip you could share with us? I'd enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com or leave a comment here.
"Quality schools are the result of quality teachers and deidicated staff going above and beyond the call of duty." -Unknown