If you stop in any store you’ll see shamrocks galore.  It’s a well-known and loved symbol for March.

A shamrock theme is easy and fun to implement during the week of St. Patrick’s Day.  Since it has three leaves, it’s a perfect die cut to have students use to count by 3’s or pattern with.

I’ve made 168 traceable mini flashcards for the upper and lowercase letters. Run them off on two different colors to make playing a Memory Match game easier.

I’ve also included cards for skip counting by 2's, 3's, 5's and 10's + counting by 1's to 30.

Each set has their own cover so students can make Itty Bitty booklets.

Children enjoy these just-my-size booklets and like collecting and sharing them with their families, which reinforces lessons learned at school.

I’ve also included directions with tips of how to use the cards to play a variety of games to make learning with shamrocks interesting and fun!

Click on the link to view/download Shamrock Letter and Number Flashcards.

Looking for a shamrock booklet?

A few of my favorites that help teach a variety of standards are:

My Shamrock Shape Book, and The Colors Of My Shamrocks.

The Colors Of My Shamrocks includes a graphing extension and song.

Click on the links to view/download the shamrock booklets.

For more shamrock items click on the link to go to my Shamrock section

I’ll be designing new shamrock word, number and coin games all week so be sure and check back and pop in tomorrow for a shamrock rainbow spinner "craftivity."

Stripe It Up With Seuss And Show Me A Pattern!

Let’s face it, when you have a lot of little munchkins and not a whole lot of time to get assessments done, it’s nice to be able to do some whole-group activities with your students, so that you can see at a glance who has the concept and who is still struggling.

An effective, as well as fun way to do this, is by making the assessment into a hands-on activity.  To assess patterning, run off my stripe template on a variety of colored construction paper and then laminate.

There are 20 stripes per sheet, so if you have 25 students in your class, you will need 5 pieces of each color, so they can make an ABAB pattern and fill their hat.

I like to use every color, as being able to recognize colors is a report card standard for the Y5’s. I can use this game as a “teachable moment” to hold up different colored stripes and have students say the colors in English, Sign Language, as well as Spanish.

Laminate the construction paper and then cut out the strips using a paper cutter.  If you want to keep colors organized keep them in plastic baskets.

This also helps students practice sorting and several life skills, or you can opt to dump them all into plastic shoe boxes and set one on each table.

Run off the Seuss hat on white construction paper, laminate and cut out.  Tell students that you want them to show you various patterns using the stripes.

Explain to them that the white stripe will always be one of the color stripes.  This will help expedite the game.  Call out a pattern that you want the children to show you such as ABAB.

The students pick up 4 stripes of one color and place them on their hat: red-white-red-white etc. Other patterns I assess:  ABCABC -  ABBA  &  AABBAABB. You look around the room and see that everyone has it correct and help strugglers.

If you want to have a sample to show students one that is done correctly, run off extra copies of the hat and color in the various patterns, or put magnet strip on the back of the hat and strips and demonstrate on the white board.  I've also included a spinner and tally sheet if you want to make this into an independent game.

Children play with 2-4 players taking turns spinning the Cat In The Hat spinner.  Whatever pattern they land on they stripe their hat and make a tally on their "I Can Pattern How About That!" sheet.  Play continues 'tl the timer rings.  Teacher walks around to check and see how everyone is doing.

After the game, pass out copies of the hat for students to cut out and color whatever pattern and colors that are their favorites.

Remind them that the stripes no longer have to be white and could even be rainbow-colored.  Students write their name on the brim.

To help strengthen finger muscles, students can also do a rip & tear Dr. Seuss Hat. For a nice variety, allow students to choose whatever colored construction paper stripes they want.

Click on the link to view/download Dr. Seuss Hat Patterning Activity

When everyone is done, give them a "Hats Off To You!" Cat in the Hat bookmark.  Click on the link to view/download the Dr. Seuss Cat in the Hat bookmark.

Do you have a patterning tip you’d like to share?  I’d enjoy hearing from you.  diane@teachwithme.com or feel free to comment here especially if you use one of my ideas.   Thanks in advance.

Seuss-tastic!

Even though I’m celebrating a theme day like Dr. Seuss’ birthday or  doing something special for March is Reading Month like having a Cat in the Hat Day, I still nail all of my report card standards.

I simply design things with that particular theme.  To say I LOVE doing that is an understatement!  There is just not enough time in the day to make all of the ideas, nor was there ever enough time in the day to get in all of the activities I wanted to do with any of the grade levels I taught!

You may have found it difficult to find things to teach those tough 3-D shapes.  Me too, so I designed  Dr. Seuss: The Case Of Cat’s Missing Hat.  Can you imagine what he’d say if we stuck a beach ball sphere hat on his head?

Hopefully your students will giggle at the craziness, as they trace and then write the words, figuring out that the cat’s hat is a cylinder and the March wind blew it away.

I’ve included word and picture cards so students can make an Itty Bitty booklet.  Print off extra copies (words on one color, pictures on another) to make Memory Match games easier to play.

Laminate them for something fun to do when students complete tasks.  Click on the link to view/download Dr. Seuss: The Case Of Cat’s Missing Hat

If you’re looking to make some awesome Dr. Seuss 3-D shapes the Truffula tree has a cylinder trunk and a sphere top.  I would love to visit Mrs. Lodge’s library to see her lovely Truffula trees.

She made them from inexpensive pipe insulation and tissue paper.  Click on the link for her step-by-step directions.  Dr. Seuss Day Truffula trees.

I also made a flat-shape Cat in the Hat - Dr. Seuss booklet.  I think your little ones will enjoy Cat On A Shape.

Students also trace and write the shape words and then color the shapes.

When everyone is done, read the booklet as a whole group to reinforce concepts of print.

This packet includes a Dr. Seuss hat art extension.  Students design their own Cat in the Hat hat.  Brainstorm with your students what words rhyme with hat and write all of the At Family words on the board.

Students can include them on their hat.  To really make these a keepsake, enlarge their school photo, cut them into ovals and have students glue their hats as if they are tipping them.

Your bulletin board caption:  Tipping Our Hats To Good Readers!  Hats off to you and all of your efforts in helping to make reading extra special and fun during March is Reading Month!

Click on the link to view/download Dr. Seuss: Cat On A Shape packet.

Be sure and pop back tomorrow for more fun!

I hope you and yours have a delightful Dr. Seuss Day!

1-2-3 Come Do Some Seuss Activities With Me

The Cat in the Hat’s hat seems to be the most recognized symbol for Dr. Seuss.

I like using it for a variety of activities during a Dr. Seuss is on the Loose celebration. If you want to make a quick and easy 3-dimensional stovepipe hat out of a paper plate and construction paper Click on the link. Dr. Seuss Hat

Why not have students design a new Dr. Seuss hat. Instead of stripes, why not stars or polka dots?  Run off my template on white construction paper and tell students that the sky’s the limit.

They’ll make a cute bulletin board. Click on the link for Dr. Seuss hat template. I LOVE dressing up for theme days and make my own costumes via a trip to the Good Will, + some felt, no sew glue and a bottle of puffy paint.

You can easily slap on a character to a jumper, blazer or vest. I found some cute costume ideas, including this adorable little girl who is truly a cat IN the hat at Mom’s Best Nest.

Click on the link to check them out. Dr. Seuss Day Costume Ideas.

Dr. Seuss certainly colors our world with whimsy!

To help you review colors and reinforce color word recognition, you’ll enjoy The Colors Of Seuss On The Loose.

This 4-on-a-page mini booklet, features some of Seuss’ most colorful characters like the brightly colored yellow Sneeches.

Students read the simple sentences, trace and then wrtie the color words.

There’s a color version as well as a black and white template so that students can color the Grinch green and the Lorax orange etc.

The packet includes color words and Seuss hats so your students can make Itty Bitty booklets as well as play Memory Match games. Two graphs provide math extensions.

Click on the link to view/download The Colors of Seuss On the Loose Booklet

Dr. Seuss’s My Many Colored Days is the perfect book to read to accompany this activity. It’s one of my all-time favorite Seuss books.

Because it’s about colors as well as feelings, I designed My Seuss-Hat Feelings Booklet.

This is also a 4-on-the-page mini booklet to save on paper when printing and features a blank-faced cat so that students can fill in his emotions.

This is a great writing prompt booklet that will help reinforce the use of adjectives and description as well as review color words and how they are associated with emotions.

Jamie Lee Curtis’ book Today I Feel Silly as well as Glad Monster Sad Monster are also great “Feelings” books with fabulous use of color and make nice comparison contrast stories.

Books are a great vehicle to explain this concept to children and introduce them to Venn diagrams, as well as give them more experience with graphing.

I’ve included 2 Venn diagrams, 2 graphing extensions + an assessment tool in this packet.

I truly believe that “Children don’t care how much you know ‘til they know how much you care.” Little ones have more going on in their young lives than we realize.

Giving this easy assessment every few months can really be an eye-opener for you.  Children are not always as happy as they seem.

Click on the link to view/download My Seuss-Hat Feelings packet.

Scroll down for more Dr. Seuss activities.  Whether you’re celebrating Dr. Seuss’ birthday or planning a Cat in the Hat day, I hope it’s simply purrrr-fect!   

Launch March Is Reading Month by setting up a quick and easy TV tray - table center.

I picked up my wooden TV tray tables at a garage sale for only $3.00.

They are perfect to set up a small center for students to stamp at or pick up supplies to do a quick project and are great space savers because they take up very little room, and fold up nicely for storage.

These Dr. Seuss “Thing 3” Banner-Bookmarks are sure to become a cute keepsake. You can either print off color copies or use the black and white template and have students color their own.

Make up your own sample ahead of time, to show children the appropriate colors.

Cut students’ school pictures into ovals and lay them out on the TV tray along with pre-cut construction paper, a glue stick, a hole punch, and 18 inch strips of red, white or blue 1/8^th wide ribbon.  You can also use yarn.

Students can hang them on their doorknob or use them as a bookmark.

If you’re putting up a March is Reading Month bulletin board, these make an adorable boarder, or scatter them kitty whompus on a black background with the caption: Reading’s The Thing In ________________’s Room.  Come Read Along With Us!

Click on the link to view/download Dr. Seuss Thing 3 Banner-Bookmark

Newsprint Art:

Combine letter recognition and counting with this simple and fun art center.  This is a great "go green" recycling project for March.

Save up old newspapers and find the pages that have mostly printed articles with hardly any pictures on them.

Tear them out and put them in a pile.  Trace and cut out 6 tag board templates of a shamrock and a Seuss hat.  (Recycle some more by using old file folders.)

Choose one of these as a center activity for Dr. Seuss's Birthday (March 2nd) a Cat in the Hat Day for March is Reading Month, or do the shamrock for St. Patrick's Day.

Students trace the template on their sheet of newspaper, circle all the letter S's that they can find, and count as they circle them. 

Students write a grand total somewhere in a space on the newsprint. Children highlight the entire shape with a green highlighter if they've traced a shamrock, or color alternating red stripes if they've done a Seuss hat.

When they are done, they cut out their shape and glue it to a piece of construction paper. For a great math extension,  graph results and add up the total number of S's everyone found.

These make sharp looking boarders for a b. board. Click on the link to view/download Newsprint Dr. Seuss Hat and Shamrock

Looking for one more thing to plug in for Leap Day, how ‘bout an easy reader booklet that reviews the 6-basic shapes?

Your students will enjoy Who Leaped Away With The Shapes Today?

They read the repetitive sentence, trace and then write the shape word, as well as trace the shape around the critter that absconded with that shape.

Children who finish early can go back and color the characters.

When everyone has completed their booklet, read it as a whole-group activity to review concepts of print.

Print off your school photo, cut it in an oval and glue it to the last page. Run off copies for your students.

Before you give them the solution to the “mystery page”, graph their guesses as to what animal they think stole all of the shapes on Leap Day.

I’ve also included another graphing extension to see which Leapin’ animal is their favorite.

For more shape as well as color identification, run off my large animal shapes on a variety of colored construction paper.

To practice letter sounds, I’ve written an alliterative sentence on each shape.

Leave the character’s name as well as the shape out and have the students fill it in as you hold up the card and read the sentence.

Whenever I’m dealing with colors I have my students tell me the names in English as well as Spanish.

You can make an extra set and glue them to  8x10 pieces of tag board of a file folder.

Sprinkle the shapes on the floor and call on students to leap and hop to a specific one.

Choose the 4 most difficult ones for your students and hang one in each corner of the classroom.  Play 4-Corners.

Choose an “It”.  Cover its eyes and count backwards from 10-0.  Everyone else has to leap and hop to a corner before you get to 0.

Anyone not in a corner and standing frozen is out and joins you and “It” in the middle of the carpet.“It” (eyes still covered) calls out a shape.  Everyone in the corner with that shape is out.

Play continues ‘til only one child is left.  My Y5’s absolutely LOVE this game and the constant repetition of the shapes, helps them with identification.

Play “Mystery Shape”. Glue the shapes to old file folders and trim so they are that shape.

Toss them in a large paper grocery bag.  Students sit in a circle.

Pass the bag to the first child; without peeking they pick up a shape and keeping it in the bag they feel around it with one hand and try and guess which shape it is.

After 30 seconds they pull it out to see if they are correct and identify the shape that they are holding.

These shapes will also help your students get the wiggles out.

Add some music and movement to your Leap Day by gathering your little ones in a circle.

Pass out the shapes to 6 children and choose a 7^th to play the teacher.

Sing The Kids And Their Shapes to the tune of Farmer In The Dell.

When their part in the song is sung, the child with that animal shape goes into the middle of the circle and jumps and leaps around.

The song ends with the child-teacher standing alone, because she took all the shapes, finally everyone falls down!

You might know from past articles that I’m crazy over recycling and plan at least one project a month involving recycled items.

I also love melting broken crayons in muffin tins or using candy molds.  Leap Day was the perfect day to make a variety of colored frogs so that my students could make a cool Leap Day Shape Collage to go with the above booklet.

Make just enough for a center, or one for each child.

I also recycled old file folders to cut into the shape templates.  Students arranged them on the “Who Leaped Away With The Shapes Today” paper  (included with booklet) and then colored around the edges.

Click on the link to view/download Who Leaped Away Leap Day SHAPE booklet.

This ending is similar to my booklet There Was An Old Lady that reviews the months and would be a nice “go along” to read with this booklet.  Children enjoy “feeding” her the monthly-words and their matching pictures.

Click on the link to view/download this extra Leap Day booklet.

Another companion booklet that my Y5’s really enjoy is Who Took The Cookies From The Classroom Cookie Jar? The cookie manipulatives have letters, numbers as well as shapes on them.

As with the above story, I’ve designed manipulatives to pass out to your students who fill the classroom cookie jar with them, when that part of the story is read.

Click on the link to view/download this fun booklet, great for Leap Day

Want more animal shapes?

Since Teaching With Angry Birds was such a huge hit, I just finished Angry Bird Shapes.

Save them for another day, or toss them into the Leap Day craziness.

Click on the link to view/download Angry Bird Shapes.

Whatever you and yours are leaping into on Leap Day I hope it’s simply grand!  

Leaping Through Letters And Numbers On Leap Day!

Although I made these sliders specifically for Leap Day (These are animals that are fairly good at leaping/hopping) they also fit in nicely with your other monthly themes.

I’ve designed a slider for all of my units and had my Y5’s make one every month to review a variety of report card standards.

They enjoyed making and collecting them.  Sliders were especially helpful for my ESL students and strugglers.

The Leapin' Animals have strips for skip counting by 2's, 3's, 5's, and 10's.  Students can also make an upper and lowercase "Letter Leaper" and younger students can count by 1's.

Here’s How To Make A Leap Day Slider:

Run off the animal templates on construction paper.

Decide which letter or number strip you want to review and make copies.

Cut them on a paper cutter. Pre-cut slits with an Exacto knife.

Give children a choice of which animal they want to make.

Students cut out their Leap Day critter and add some colorful details with crayons or markers.

Give students glue dots and wiggle eyes to add a bit of pizzazz.

Children trace the letters and numbers with a highlighter, marker or crayon.

Add a math extension to the process by having them choose 2 or 3 colors and trace in an ABAB or ABC pattern.

Demonstrate how to insert their strip into the slits.

I've made a template for some "Hoppy" Leap Day! sticker labels, if you want students to be able to add one to their creations.

When everyone is done assemble them on the carpet area and skip count together, start leaping from one number or letter to the next, sing the ABC song, spell words, names, etc.

To help get the wiggles out, children can take out their strip and you can do the Leap Day Animal Pokey with them.  I've included the song in the packet.

Students can also use their Leap Day Pal for a spatial direction review.

The teacher tells students to put the kangaroo beside, under, above, behind etc.

Teachers can also review body parts with students by having children place their squirrel on their knee, hip, thigh, wrist etc.

Click on the link to view/download Leapin' Animal Sliders for Leap Day

I hope you have a “Hoppy” Day learning and leaping as you go!

Scroll down for more Leap Day Articles

Be sure and pop in tomorrow for some more fun teaching tips!