1-2-3 Come Read Some Dr. Seuss Books With Me!

I totally agree with Dr. Seuss when he said: "You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child!" 

Reading to my young 5 students was my favorite part of our day. A time to relax and travel the world on all sorts of "ed-ventures" right there in our room, fueled by a splash of imagination. 

March was an especially fun reading month for us.  Our school celebrated March is Reading Month, took part in Read Across America, and had a Celebration of Seuss Week as well. 

I personally have a collection of over 40 Dr. Seuss books.  It was amidst this pile of fun, that I wondered just how many children's books Dr. Seuss had actually written. 

I thought the answer would be a no-brainer.  Simply Google my question and a number would pop up right?  Wrong! 

To my surprise, no one really quite agreed.  I found guess-timates from 40 to 60.  I couldn't even find a complete bibliography!  How could this be?  Hmmm...did I want to make the time to take up this challenge and figure it out for myself? 

My curiosity got the best of me.  Zillions of hours of research later, I'm proud to present to you, an alphabetical list of Seuss's books.

Finding and getting all of the covers on one page, was no small feat.

Since I was on a roll, I also wrote a synopsis of all of them and even included all of the stories that were published as collections. Synopsis of 79 Seuss books/stories. 

(While doing research and discovering books and stories I had never heard of, I had to find and read them of course! Thus the "zillions" of hours, which was definitely time well-spent!)  I hope you think so too, and find it helpful.

So why the variety of answers? I think some of the discrepancies happen, because certain "counters" only include the books written under Theodore's pseudonym: "Dr. Seuss" and not those he wrote (but did not illustrate) under his pen name, Theo. LeSieg (Geisel, his real name, spelled backwards.)

A lot of lists also don't include the 2 books (The Seven Lady Godivas & You're Only Old Once) that he wrote for adults. (Most people don't even know that Seuss drew cartoons and wrote for an adult audience prior to writing children's books.)

Another, often "uncounted" Seuss, is the adorable little book "A Little Bug Went Ka-Choo", which he wrote under the pen name Rosetta Stone. What? Why on earth would he add yet another pen name?

It seems that Dr. Seuss was writing a book with Michael Frith. He didn't want to use his name on the book, so Mike suggested he use his wife's name instead. Audrey's maiden name was Stone.  Frith thought of Rosetta and the rest is history or not...

The rather expensive, The Many Mice of Mr. Brice, which was made into a 1989 pop up book: The Pop-Up Mice of Mr. Brice (Theo LeSeig) often escapes counting as well, perhaps because of the price.  If you're lucky enough to find a "new" one, you'll likely be shelling out over $300.

Counting confusion can also be attributed to the fact that Dr. Seuss wrote several books that were collections of stories.  Some of these stories were later made into separate books, like What Was I Afraid Of? which first appeared in The Sneeches.

Books like Daisy-Head Mayzie and My Many Colored Days, which were published after his death, also allude many lists. As with the other LeSeig books, he did not illustrate these.

Does the "to illustrate or not to illustrate?" add to the confusion? Perhaps; who knows what factors people use to make up a list of Dr. Seuss books. 

However, my research included them all, which resulted in 64 books!  So why does my cover page say 65?

Although Seuss did not write Horray For Diffendoofer Day, Jack Prelutsky, expanded and completed Seuss's original work, so I thought it only fair to include it in my count. After all, it features Miss Bonkers. a teacher.

Alas, just when I thought my counting was done...Oh no! Along comes another one! 

Random house announced that they will be releasing What Pet Should I Get? on July 28th, saying: "...it was likely written between 1958 & 1962." 

OK already! One book is fine, but that is not all! Oh no, that is not all...   

It seems that the publisher plans on at least two more books, based on mysterious manuscripts found in Seuss's home in La Jolla, California, by his widow and secretary. 

I wonder if one of those will be from Seuss’ unfinished manuscript “All Sorts of Sports,” which  sold at an auction in 2010 for $34,000?

Could this be a "too good to be true" thing, or did Dr. Seuss, like most prolific writers, actually have the proverbial piles of paper, stuck like a book in every "cramped cranny and little nook?"

Be that as it may, I will not be up-dating my current lists anytime soon, at least not until they stop finding things “every-which-where".

Thanks for visiting.  I'm off to take some aspirin and curl up with a good book. 

My brain feels as fried as Sam's green eggs and ham.  Wishing you a stress-free day.

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Are you taking part in Read Across America? Challenge your students to "Read to succeed!" and see who can read the most books during March is Reading Month.  This free Seuss-themed reading log can also be used any time.

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Practice rhyming words with Dr. Seuss. You assign a word, or give students a choice.  Children write the word on the brim of their Seuss hat and then think of as many words as they can that rhyme with it.  Students jot their words on a sheet of scratch paper, then write them in aphabetical order on their hat. 

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

Dr. Seuss's iconic hat that he created for his Cat in the Hat character, is the perfect vehicle to make some quick, easy and fun activities that help practice a variety of standards.  Today's blog features some popular Seuss-hat downloads, as well as "Rhyme Time", which I just finished creating today!

Teachers assign a word, or give students a choice.  Children write the word on the brim of their Seuss hat and then think of as many words as they can that rhyme. They jot them down on a sheet of scratch paper, then write the rhyming words in aphabetical order on their hat. 

As is often the case with Seuss, have students dream up one nonsense word, which they define on the back of their bookmark.  Completed projects make a sweet Read Across America bulletin board. Caption: "Hats Off to Wonderful Word Work!" or "Rhyme Time With the Cat in the Hat."

I do this Cat Hat Place Value Mat  activity, as a whole group. Students take turns calling out 3-digit numbers.  Using a dry erase marker, children write that number on the hat brim and then put the correct number of tiles in the appropriate columns. 

This is a quick, easy and fun way to practice, as well as whole group assess place value.  

Another way to practice place value is with this Cat in the Hat place value game.

The 3 red rings show the 1s, 10s, and 100s columns.  Children "spin" them to make whatever 3-digit number is called out. 

Are your kiddos learning to identify coins?  Then I think they'll enjoy this "Cent-sational" Seuss hat craftivity, which reviews the penny, nickel, dime, quarter and half dollar coins.    

For more math fun with the cat's hat, I designed a How many ways can you show a number, Popsicle stick game, which includes a variety of ways to play. 

Students choose a  "How many ways can I show the number ______." hat brim strip, and then place all of the Popsicle stick equations that make that number on their Seuss-hat mat.  (Reinforce addition OR subtraction, or combine both).

This is an easy and fun way to practice and whole group assess a variety of concepts, including fact families. I've included number tiles from 0-120 with a blank sheet for you to program with even higher numbers. 

Time to the hour was another math standard that we practiced via Seuss's hat.  Students add digital time stripes to their hat by rolling dice.

They trace the stripe, place it on their hat and then manipulate the paperclip hands to show the analog time.

Besides using the hat for math, I made a few hat activities for language arts.  The Cat Hat AT slider, was my 1st hat "craftivity", which was made years ago before I had all of the graphic programs I now use, but it's still a popular download. The packet includes a variety of worksheets too.

I will read... is a hat bookmark that can be used as a writing prompt.  Share my example with your students and challenge them to write verses of their own. 

I've alluded to a variety of Seuss books in my poem. "I will read with Mr. Brown; I will read upside down.  I will read with duck feet; I will read because it's neat."

Challenge your students to figure out which books I've used.  

After reading The Cat in the Hat, review story elements with this Cat in the Hat language arts packet.

The packet includes pocket chart cards, a beginning-middle-end graphic organzizer, plus sentence strips to sequence the Cat in the Hat story.  This can be done independently, or as a whole group activity. 

Finally, because the punctuation pocket chart cards have been so popular, I decided to tweak this idea, and make the "cards" into stripes for the cat's hat. Cat's Hat Grammar "craftivity" packet.

Students underline the letters that need to be capitalized and add punctuation. 

They cut their stripes and glue them to their hat in an ABAB pattern, leaving a space, so that the hat will look like it has alternating red and white stripes. 

If you want, have students re-write the corrected sentences on the red stripes. I made up 108 sentence choices, from a variety of Dr. Seuss stories, so  each students' hat will be different.  Completed projects make a nice bulletin board. 

Thanks for visiting today.  If you're looking for more Dr. Seuss FREEBIES click on the link to pop on over to that section of TeachWithMe.  I also have an entire board of Seuss-themed activities on Pinterest, with lots more ideas and freebies.   

"From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere!" -Dr. Seuss

 1-2-3 Come Do Some Chinese New Year Activities With Me.

Chinese New Year starts February 19th this year, and runs for 15 days.  I know some of you will quickly dismiss Chinese New Year, as something you want to make time for this February, because you feel you don't have any time to plug in one more thing to an already overloaded schedule.  

However, even if you don't have time for an entire theme day, many of the following activities can quickly and easily be added to what you're already doing.   If nothing else, simply read several books about Chinese New Year during your story time, and have children locate Asia and China on a map.  My Y5's were absolutely fascinated.

If you need some help finding a story, click on the link for a list of 53 of my all-time favorite Chinese books.  I think you'll find it quite helpful, as it's a comprehensive annotated bibliography, where I explain and comment on each book. 

You could also wish children a "Gong Hey Fat Choy!"  (pronounced gung-she-fah-tie) Happy Chinese New Year, instead of greeting them with "Good morning" as they walk in the door.

One of the  4 Chinese bookmarks I've designed, has this greeting written on it.  These could be left as a little surprise in their desks, or passed out to on-task students during reading. 

One of our favorite Chinese stories was  Tikki Tikki Tembo.  My Y5’s were delighted when I repeated Tikki’s very long "full" name, and wanted to learn it themselves.  Click on the link for an excellent animated version of this popular folktale.

Another wonderful YouTube video fairytale, is The Story of Nian a mythological, half lion-half dragon creature.  It’s just 3 minutes long and explains the meaning behind many of the Chinese New Year beliefs.

Another simple way to add a splash of China to your day, is by playing some  soothing Chinese music while your students work.  There's something very calming in the melodic music that chinese instruments create. 

I'm listening to "Music From The Tea Lands" as I blog.  It's especially meaningful because 2 of our sons were born in Korea.  If you don't have a CD, click on the link to hear 25 minutes of tranquil sounds from China.

Chinese New Year (2015) is the year of the sheep.  My students wanted to know what animal was featured the year that they were born, so I included a list in the Chinese New Year Animal Game Card packet. 

Finding the answer, is another quick, easy and fun way to add a sprinkle of Chinese New Year to your day.  You can also have students play Memory Match or I Have; Who Has? games with the cards. 

There are 11 sets of cards.  Children can match animals to animals, animals to their symbols, or animal cards to word cards. 

The packet includes background information about Chinese New Year, a list of what the animal traits are, along with the years that they were the special animal + a spinner game.  For a discussion or writing prompt, students could share if those animal traits fit their personalities or not. 

Are your kiddos working on counting and number identification? Why not take a few minutes to teach them how to count to 10 in Chinese? To help you, I designed some Chinese and English number cards, so children can play a variety of games. 

The packet also includes an anchor chart that shows the order of "brush" strokes, as well as helpful links, so students can see, hear, and learn how to write the numbers. 

It's quick, easy and fun; my Y5's were amazed.  I think they just assumed everyone wrote numbers like they did.

One of the sites tells you how to ask a person their phone number in Chinese.

Since my Y5s were working on learning their phone number, I thought that would be a really fun activity for students, so I made a recording sheet.  There's also one for students to write their age on. 

You can introduce these lessons by reading a Chinese counting book.  I've included 3 suggestions. 

Click on the link to view/download the Let's Count In Chinese,Number Card Packet. 

 Also math related, are these 9 Chinese puzzles that will help your students practice counting forwards, backwards, as well as skip counting by 10s to 100.  Set them up as an independent center for early finishers. 

Another fun way to add a bit of Asian flavor to your day, is with these Chinese dragon alphabet cards.  Use them as flashcards, an independent center or for some group games. 

I've included a 3-page tip list of things you can do with the cards.  After laminating, cut up an extra set and make puzzles. Click on the link to view/download the Chinese dragon alphabet cards.

Finally, if you have snack time, add a Chinese fortune cookie to the mix. What does the word fortune mean? Who can read theirs?  What do they think of the fortune?  If you have time, have them write a fortune they'd like to have and share it with a friend.  

Still looking for more ideas? Click on the link, if you'd like to see all of the Chinese New Year FREEBIES on TeachWithMe.   I also have an entire board for Chinese New Year on Pinterest.  For a fun, Chinese riddle lantern craftivity, scroll down to take a look at the next blog article.

 Well that's it for today.  Thanks for visiting.  I hope you're able to add a splash of Chinese New Year to your daily activities to spice things up. Wishing you a relaxing day, filled with memorable moments. 

"A nation's treasure is in its scholars." - Chinese proverbs

1-2-3 Come Do Some More Dental Hygiene Activities With Me

Yesterday I posted a few of my most popular dental hygiene-themed activities, which focussed on a variety of standards.  (Scroll down if you missed it.) Today, I've got a few more on the craftier side.

 I like to cover a variety of standards in all of my subject areas whenever I do a unit, and Dental hygiene is no exception.  We had scissor practice daily, as my Y5's really needed to work on their cutting skills, and it was also a way for them to strengthen their finger muscles, so writing became easier for them.

With that in mind, I designed the "secret triangle"  where children get in that cutting practice, while reviewing shapes, and learning some basic facts about dental hygiene. 

Introducing it as a "secret message" writing prompt, got their attention, and kept interest high.  They really enjoyed this activity, and were excited to take it home to share. 

Print off the circle template on white paper.  Students trim, fold the "flaps" on the dashed lines, and then write at least 3 things they do to help take care of their teeth. 

I've included a triangle, with a rhyming poem, that they can cut and then glue to the back.  I found it in a dozen places Online and no one seems to know who wrote it.  

"Got my toothpaste, got my brush.  I won't hurry; I won't rush.  Making sure my teeth are clean, front and back and in between.  When I brush for quite a while, I will have a happy smile!"

Hold the folds shut with a sticker.  Click on the link to view/download the Dental Hygiene Secret Triangle Writing Prompt.

Because I always had "early finishers" I liked to have some independent centers that my Y5s could transition to, when they completed their work.  Because of the dental hygiene theme we were doing, I designed this interesting toothbrush center game, which reinforces color words. 

Click on the link to view/download the Toothbrush Color Word Center Activity packet.

Run off the master toothbrush on white construction paper; laminate and trim. 

Using dry erase markers, students trace and write the color words in matching colors and then place the appropriate colored handle over the top. 

While I was diddling around making the toothbrush templates, I thought they would also work for a cute writing prompt craftivity, which would again give them some more cutting practice, as well as a review of how students can take care of their teeth.

So I designed the "Snip and Flip" Toothbrush writing prompt" Click on the link to view/download it.  

For this activity, run off the handles on popular colors of construction paper and give students a choice.  (I have a handle for boys (his) and one for girls (hers) so you can have a teachable pronoun moment too.)

Run the "bristle boxes" off on white paper.  Students cut on the lines to make "bristle tabs" that they can flip over to reveal the other bristle box, where they've written how they take care of their teeth. 

I also included a traceable bristle box for PK children (pictured). Click on the link to view/download the Snip and Flip Toothbrush Writing Prompt Craftivity.

Finally, these tooth-themed alphabet cards are great for all sorts of activities: sequencing, sorting, patterning, and playing games like Memory Match and I Have; Who Has?  As with all of the alphabet card packets, they include an upper and lowercase set for more options.

There are several pages of tips and ideas for what else to use them for too.  Click on the link to view/download the Dental Hygiene Alphabet Cards.

That's it for today.  Thanks for visiting.  If you'd like to see all of my dental hygiene FREEBIES, click on the link to zip on over to that section of TeachWithMe. 

Winter weather continues to rear it's frigid face here in Michigan, so it's time to throw another log on the fire and snuggle in.  Wishing you a warm and cozy day.

"Use your smile to change the world; but don't let the world change your smile." -Unknown

 1-2-3 Come Do Some Tooth Activities With Me!

I never know when to start posting dental hygiene activities.  I always did our tooth unit the last week of February, simply because there was so much else to cover at the beginning of the month: Groundhog Day, 100 Day, Valentine's Day, (We also visited a post office), as well as  President's Day.  Anyone else's brain out there spinning?

"Everybody in this place, please put a smile on your face!"  is a just-for-fun poster that I designed.  I share it with my kiddos when I launch our dental hygiene activities.  Click on the link to grab the Smile Awhile FREEBIE.

My Y5's enjoyed our "Terrific Teeth" unit; I was always amazed that there was at least one child every year that had never visited a dentist!  Today's blog will feature some of my most popular dental hygiene activities.  Most of them are "print & go" to make it easy for you to toss a few tooth-themed activities into your busy day. 

For those of you who like to start your themed-units with a KWL, click on the link for a dental hygiene one you can do as a whole group, as well as a template your students can do in their writing journals.  Dental Hygiene KWL

Another great way to learn where your students stand on dental hygiene is to do some graphing activities. 

Have they lost a tooth?  Do they have a cavity?  Have they ever been to the dentist?  Would they like to be a dentist? What color is their  toothbrush and how many times do they brush a day? 

These are some of the eight tooth-related graphing questions you can ask your kiddos.   Click on the link to view/download the 8 Dental Hygiene Graphs.

Sending a brushing chart home with your students, is also a fun way for them to let you know that they are practicing good dental hygiene.  I've designed 4 toothbrushing charts that children can choose from. 

They can X off the chart, cover with stickers or color the various icons as they brush.  Click on the link to view/download the 4 Brushing Charts.

Studying dental hygiene provides a wonderful way to build vocabulary.  To help you, I made an alphabetical list of 101 words that are associated with dental hygiene. 

To reinforce these new words, I've included several word searches plus a dental hygiene word journal, where students can record vocabulary as well as definitions.

Click on the link to view/download the Dental Hygiene Word packet, which is great for your Daily 5 word work activities too.

After you've watched some dental hygiene videos and perhaps had a dentist visit your classroom, choose several of these graphic organizers to help reinforce the information that your students learned and practice their writing skills in a visual way.  Click on the link to view/download the dental hygiene graphic organizer packet. 

Another way for students to gain more dental hygiene knowledge, is by doing a Flip For Facts File Folder activity. 

Take your students to the computer lab, so they can look for information on teeth and how to take care of them. 

Students jot down their favorite dental hygiene facts and then write them on the template.  I've included tips and links of how to make citations for information found Online. 

This activity is a great precursor for writing a report, which even a kindergartener can do.  Click on the link to view/download the Dental Hygiene Flip For Facts File Folder packet. 

To incorporate some math skills with your dental hygiene activities, I also designed a Timothy Tooth Counting booklet with a matching center activity. 

Students trace and write the numbers and number words, and then draw the appropriate number of teeth in Timothy's mouth.  Click on the link to view/download Timothy Tooth's Counting Booklet.

The center activity has large tooth posters.  Using dry erase markers, children trace and write the numbers and number words and place that many tooth tiles inside the mouth. 

There's also templates for doing some subtraction activities as well.   Click on the link to view/download the Counting Teeth Center Packet.

Finally, the Dental Hygiene Number Puzzles are another way to integrate math, and help practice counting to ten, counting backwards, and skip counting by 10s to 100. Click on the link to grab these FREEBIES.

Thanks for visiting.  If you're still looking for more tooth-themed FREEBIES to round out your week, click on the link to check out my dental hygiene Pinterest board.

Since it's a wind-chill snow day, I have lots of time to play with my "to do" pile.  Hopefully besides sorting through my desk, I'll get to actually design a few things.  Wishing you an energy-filled day. 

 "I want to get close to you, like shoes with laces, teeth with braces, and words in sentences without spaces." -Unknown

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I found this idea in various print forms on a variety of sites, so I'm not sure where the original idea came from.  However, instead of making an 8x10 print to frame, I thought it would be perfect to design some cards, bookmarks and magnets, which children could make in school for various holidays: Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, or Grandparent's Day. 

 1-2-3 Come Do Some Coin Activities With Me!

Since President's Day is in February, I did a lot of coin related activities with my students during that month.  We learned a bit about our US presidents at the same time practicing coin identification.

I made up a set of coin anchor chart posters that you may find helpful. Print them off; mount on a variety of colors of construction paper; laminate and then affix a real coin using a glue dot.  They make a nice bulletin board, as well as giant flashcards.

The packet also includes entire sheets of each coin, so that you can make manipulatives, games, and math centers. 

There are also separate templates for each coin featuring the head and tail side. Simply fold, cut, glue and laminate.  Punch a hole at the top and suspend them from the ceiling. 

Several coin conversion posters are included as well.  i.e. How many pennies make up each coin?  This anchor chart is a fun way to practice skip counting by 10s, as I made lots of groups of ten pennies.

Another visual that I use is a coin Venn diagram.  I believe that if a child has to compare and contrast the coins, it will help them identify them as separate units. 

You can do these as a whole group, as an independent worksheet or partner activity.  I pass out real coins for children to examine.  Completed projects make a nice bulletin board.  Making a coin Venn diagram also helps reinforce descriptive writing, as children use lots of adjectives while comparing.

Since putting a puzzle together, was one of our Y5's standards, as well as counting backwards from 10 to 1 and skip counting by 10s, I designed these coin-themed number puzzles. 

Print and laminate for an independent center, or run them off and give children a choice.  They color, trim, mix up their pieces and then put their puzzle together.  For an interesting mosaic craftivity, have students glue their pieces to a sheet of construction paper, leaving a small space in-between each piece.

Ten frames are also wonderful for visual learners.  With that in mind, I designed a set of 10 frames for pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, plus extra tiles of each, so you can run them off and use them as manipulatives. Click on the link to view/download the 10 Frames Coin Packet.

There's nothing like saying "Would you like to play a game?" to grab your students' attention.  I used dice to help my Y5's  subitize, (Quickly identify how many in a group, without having to count.) so I designed the Coins On A Roll dice game. 

Simply run off the coin bookmarks.  Students pick a partner and take turns rolling the dice.  If they roll a one they color in the penny.  If they roll a two, they color in the second coin, which is a nickel and so on.   However, if someone rolls a six, they lose their turn. 

The first child who colors in all of the coins on ther bookmark is the winner.  The game is also a nice opportunity to review ordinal numbers as well. Before the game starts, ask children what the first coin is, the last coin, third coin etc. is.  Later, when children are done playing the game, for a quick whole-group assessment, have them cover the names of the coins and ask them to: "Point to the penny."  "Now point to the quarter." and so on.  Click on the link to view/download the Coins On A Roll dice game.

If your school requires you to send homework home, or if you need some coin-themed worksheets for early finishers to do, click on the link to view/download the 10-page Coin Worksheet packet. These are also great for Daily 5 word work or a sub folder.  

For a more advanced activity, students can make a Flip For Facts File Folder. They are a simple and effective way to introduce research to early elementary students.  Children search for interesting facts Online, choose their favorites, and then put them into their own words. 

As with my other flip for facts file folders, I've included several pages of how to explain citations to your kiddos. Helpful links are also provided.  The Flip For Facts File Folders are a nice pre-cursor to writing a report. 

Finally, to help review coin facts as well as grammar, I designed 30 coin-themed grammar cards. Students circle letters that should be capitalized and add end punctuation. 

You can do this with a pocket chart and call on students, or pass one card out to each child, to correct with a dry erase marker. 

After eveyone has shared their card, have students choose 3-6 cards and rewrite the sentences correctly.  This is a great Daily 5 word work activity.

That's it for today.  Thanks for visiting. I hope you found a few things to help make learning about coins a bit more fun. 

For all of my FREE coin activities, click on the link to zip on over to the money section of TeachWithMe.com

The wind is howling outside my window, so it's time for a well-deserved hot cocoa break.  Wishing you a warm and snuggly day.

"Money isn't the most important thing in life, but it's reasonably close to oxygen, on the 'gotta have it' scale." -Zig Ziglar

 1-2-3 Come Do Some Candy Heart Activities With Me

One of the things I do during February, is use NECCO's candy conversation hearts in all sorts of fun activities.  NECCO stands for the New England Confectionary Company. I really enjoy doing research to find out the background of things I use in the classroom, and while working on this blog article, I found some truly interesting information on a candy that's been around since Lincoln's time, when it was popular during the Civil War!

Back then, they were a crisp candy with a paper note tucked inside a cockle shell, much like a fortune cookie.  In 1866 the candy evolved into a heart shape when Daniel Chase, the brother of NECCO’s founder, Oliver Chase, invented the process of printing words on the candies.  They were written in red dye and were an instant success, (particularly as a wedding party favor) becoming known as  "Motto Hearts".

Until I started doing research, I was not aware that each year the company makes up new messages. However, some sentiments like "Kiss Me" and "Be Mine" added in 1902, continue to be favorites. To keep things current, they've invited the public to join an online survey to decide what they want these sweet little messages to say. Recent favorites: "Tweet Me", Text Me", "Love Bug" and "You + Me".

I also learned that they have themes such as food, resulting in "Recipe 4 Love", "Table 4 Two" and “Yum-Yum” messages.  In 2003 they had a “school” theme with the messages: “Teach me” “Let’s read.” “Write me.” and “Whiz Kid” . To see an archive of the sayings from past years click on the link. 

According to the National Confectioners Association, “About 8 billion hearts will be produced this year!” The company has to produce 100,000 pounds of hearts a day to meet that demand, as they sell that amount in 6 weeks during their peak Valentine’s Day season.  So how do I use them in the classroom?

So we can do a variety of math activities, I give each student 10 hearts.  We count them forwards and backwards; sort them by color, do some patterning with them, and measure how many hearts tall and long different things are.  We also practice addition and subtraction skills.  I call out various equations, writing them on the board and have my kiddos make the "equations" on their desk, using the hearts as manipulatives.

We also graph their favorite color and flavor as a whole group. These graphs are in my first candy heart packet, which I made before I had all of the graphic programs I now use. I wish I had the time to revamp a few of these older packets.

It's 32-pages long and includes reading, writing and math activities, plus some candy heart puzzles.

More Fun With Candy Hearts is another older packet, which includes a variety of skip counting by 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s activities.  There's patterning practice as well as "guess-timation" activities. 

This 33-page packet also includes 44 candy heart CVC word squares that you can use to play games or create sentences with.  

I designed these using the Acme Heart Maker site where you can type in 4-letter words on a candy heart template.  Even tho' they look exactly like real candy hearts, being a teacher, I'd rather have had them printed in lowercase letters.

A year later, I found a new site: cryptogram.com where you can type in up to 11 upper or lowercase letters! Woo hoo!  I had so much fun thinking of things to make. 

 Oh the possibilities! Type in your students' names to make them a bookmark or magnet; or set this up as an independent computer-center activity and allow them time to make a few of their own.  I even made one for my husband and tucked it in his lunch.

Some school's 100 Day lands on or close to Valentine's Day, so I made up a Happy 100 Day candy heart note for your kiddos.  To make this an extra special gift, attach a box of the conversation hearts. 

The Dollar sells them 4 in a pack.  There's also smaller candy heart cards in the packet.  Use them for Memory Match or "I Have; Who Has?" color games.  Click on the link to view/download the 100 Day With Candy Hearts activities.

Of course my brain was working over time trying to think of the zillion ways I could use this. I got out my Dolch word list and made a complete set of conversational hearts from all of the lists Pre-Primer through 3^rd grade.

You can do several things with these.  Simply use them as anchor charts, or print them off, laminate, and then cut them apart to make Memory Match games.

You can also put the posters up on your word wall for February; have students put the hearts in alphabetical order, or cut them up to make mini puzzles. Students can also choose several hearts and make sentences using those words.

Play a whole-group game and put the laminated hearts in a box, have students take one out identify the word(s). If they cannot they are out of the game.   Click on the link to view/print the Dolch Word Candy Hearts.  

Since we were also working on colors, I designed a set of candy heart color cards.  Print; laminate and trim the cards to make Memory Match or "I Have; Who Has" games.  I've also included a cover, if you want your students to make an Itty Bitty Candy Heart Color booklet. 

Finally, Contraction activities are often requested, so I thought I'd make a set of those, using 61 contractions.

Students match the word cards to their contraction cards.  You could also have children choose several cards and write sentences.  Click on the link to view/download the Conversation Heart Contraction Cards. 

Whew!  That's a lot of candy heart themed activities.  I hope you found a few to help round out your Valentine's Day activities, or use for the rest of February. 

Thanks for visiting.  It's a cold and overcast day here in Michigan' perfect for snuggling up with a cup of hot cocoa and make some valentines for those near and dear to my heart.  Wishing you a warm and cozy day.

"I believe we must give more than we get; and leave more than we take." - Foster G. McGaw