4 pages.

Make a cute winter bulletin board, or locker decoration, with these snowman name stackers, which will help little ones with name identification, as well as a shape review of circles, squares and rectangles. 

1-2-3 Come Do Some Snowman Craftivities With Me!

I LOVE rip and tear craftivities for little ones.  It's so important to strengthen their finger muscles and tearing strips of paper is an especially fun way to do that. 

Run off my snowman template.  I purposely make these small, so that children don't get tired and bored trying to fill up too big of an area.  Inform students to rip up their strips, putting each color in a pile, before they start to glue. 

This way, they can rub their glue stick over an entire section and simply press those colored pieces on that area.  This expedites the gluing and keeps children's fingers from getting too sticky.  You'll still have a few that will rub glue on that little piece and stick it on that way, which takes a lot longer.

You can do this as a whole-group activity.  While students are at special, lunch or recess, place the strips on their desk/table area, so they can get started when they return. 

You can also do this as an independent center.  When students completed their table top morning lessons, I had special centers the Y5's could transition to.  This really helped children stay on task and focused, as they wanted to make whatever fun thing I had on those TV tray centers.

So that my kiddo's didn't make a huge mess of all the colors of paper strips, I slid the paper in the openings of a plastic basket. 

Another option for rip and tear, is to rip the paper parts and then glue them together like a puzzle. 

I suggest this for Y5's and older, as some of my kiddo's had a hard time figuring out where to tear, while trying to keep their paper folded and stay on the line.  Before hand, demonstrate this. 

In later years, I held up the hat and said, "Do what I do." Doing this activity with step-by-step directions (monkey-see, monkey do) really expedited things.   These look wonderful hung back-to-back from the ceiling. 

In the photograph, they are hung along with our cylinder snowman windsocks.  My hallway was always decorated to the hilt, which was a real self-esteem builder.

These snowmen were also the January page for my Y5's  Rippin' Through The Year  monthly keepsake booklet.   Click on the link to view/download that booklet.  Click on this link to view/download the  Rip & Tear Snowmen packet which includes both kinds.

Another group activity that's great fine motor practice, is "Stuffy." We have a recycled paper box in the teachers’ lounges through out our schools.  The last day we’re in school, before Christmas break, I visited these rooms and loaded up a big black trash bag, with as much paper as I could carry.

If you don’t have a recycled paper box in your school, start one.  These scraps are great to make “shred” and do all sorts of activities with.

When my students came back from vacation, we'd build our own two-snowball snowman out of a couple of white garbage bags.  My Y5’s named him “Stuffy.”  Children sat on our Circle of Friends carpet and crinkled up paper “snowballs.” 

As they got a snowball done, I had them toss it towards our big garbage can that was lined with the white garbage bag.  Every time they made a “bucket” they gave themselves a tally mark, under their name that I’d written on the white board.   If they missed, they simply tried again. 

Afterwards, everyone got a snowman sticker, and the one who made the most “buckets” got a trip to the treasure box.  This is great counting, and tally mark practice, as well as wonderful fine and gross motor exercise too. 

Take the garbage bag out when it’s pretty full and have students continue to stuff ‘til the bag is nice and round.  Make sure the bottom bag is bigger than the “head”.  When you are happy with Stuffy’s size, put your snowman "ball" in the corner of the classroom, so he leans against the wall for support and “build” him from there.

Using duct tape (It’s nice and sticky) put on the head.  Decorate with a real stocking cap and scarf.  Poke a hole on either side and use two rulers as arms. Two paint sticks work well too.  A pair of gloves or mittens, go on each end and wahla (!) your own inside snowman.

Add a construction paper nose, “coal” black eyes and red cherry mouth pieces, + some circles for the buttons; stick them on with duct tape.
Each month I tried to do something that was RECYCLED and Stuffy fit the bill for January.  Click on the link to print Stuffy's directions.

Finally, a simple and quick decoration for your students' lockers is to make the Snowman Name Stacker. 

If you don't have lockers, these look adorable lined up on a hallway wall.  Have your students help you arrange them in alphabetical order, or from tallest to shortest. 

You can make a template, trace once and cut out 3-6 circles at a time, or run off my template on white construction paper and have students cut out their own circles. 

For younger children, especially those with long names, have a 2-3-circle cutting limit and then allow them to add as many pre-cut circles as they need to spell their name.

Demonstrate how to glue just the edge of the "snowball" to another to "build" their vertical snowman stacker. Review vertical and horizontal vocabulary with them, as well as the circle, rectangle and square shapes. 

Give each child a pre-cut black square and rectangle.  Have them glue the shapes together to make a hat to glue to the top of their snowman. 

Using crayons or markers students draw and color a face.  Wiggle eyes are also fun. You could cut their school photo in the shape of a heart, and have them glue that to their hat as well.

Afterwards, students write a letter on each of the belly snowballs, so that they spell their name.  If you have the time, go over their letters with Elmer's glue and have them sprinkle on glitter. 

As a math extension, graph how many letters in students' names, or which letters were used the most. Add up everyone's totals for a grand total of how many letters for the entire class. Click on the link to view/download the Snowman Name Stacker.

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"Getting an inch of snow, is like winning 10 cents in the lottery." -Bill Waterson

7 pages.

This booklet is an easy and fun way to assess your students' name writing skills each month.  To help strengthen finger muscles and dexterity, I've included a themed coloring page for great fine motor skill practice.

1 page. I make this game for my students at the beginning of the 1st week of school to reinforce name recognition. Later, you can program word wall words and put them in separate Snack Baggies, or simply write complete sets of the alphabet and have students arrange them, to make up words, or practice their spelling words in a fun way.

1-2-3 Come Make A Name Map With Me!

I teach “mapping” as a writing strategy to my college comp students.  It’s a fun visual way for them to get their thoughts organized on paper, before they begin to write their essay.

A name map is a terrific way to introduce "mapping" to elementary students.  This is also an interesting icebreaker for the first week of school and a great way to get to know your new students.

Children think of a symbol that represents them and draw that in the middle.  I chose an apple as it’s sort of universal for school or teaching.

Branching out from the center symbol is a variety of things about the person such as hobbies, their favorite season, birthday, what they want to be when they grow up etc.

By having students use their two favorite colors to write their first and last names in the center of their object, everyone gets to know another “tidbit” about that person.

The completed activities make a wonderful back to school bulletin board too!  Make sure you do a personal one of yourself, so that you have a sample to show your students as a way to explain things, as well as a means for them to get to know their new teacher. Includes an explanatory note home to families.

Sharing name maps is a nice activity to do after reading the story Chrysanthemum, a wonderful back to school tale, whose main character is a little mouse named Chrysanthemum.  She loved her unusual name until she started school and everyone began making fun of her.  It's one of my all-time favorite back-to-school books and especially great if you need some stories to go with "bucket-filling."

My inspiration to do name maps, came from an art teacher’s “heart maps” that he did with his 4^th graders at Riverside Elementary.  Click on the link to check out their awesome endeavors.  I hope you and yours have as much fun making these as I did.

Click on the link to view/download Name Maps.  This packet is a special FREEBIE in my TpT shop. Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN away!  For your convenience, my "Pin it" button is at the top on the menu bar.

“There’s few things as uncommon as common sense.” –Frank McKinney Hubbard