Winter / Christmas Reindeer Shape Puzzle

Are you still in the classroom this week? Here is a quick & fun project that encourages visualization of shapes, cutting skills, and eye-hand coordination.

CLICK HERE to download this project from Teachers Pay Teachers

CLICK HERE to download this project from Teacher's Notebook

Thank You for all your support this year and

Best Wishes for a Wonderful Holiday Season!!

Book Highlight - “The Mitten Tree”

Many of us are familiar with the storybook "The Mitten" and there is another wonderful story to share called "The Mitten Tree" by Candace Christiansen.

The story is about Sarah whose children have all grown up and new children in her neighborhood. It is about an act of kindness that sparked another kindness in return that brought happiness to the whole neighborhood.

I hope you enjoy sharing this story as much as I have over the years.

Santa Countdown!

Kids love to count down to special days. The activity of a countdown provides practice counting forward each day as well as counting back to determine how many days are left before the special day.

This special Santa has 25 presents in his beard.  Each day the child covers one of the presents with a cotton ball. By Christmas, he has grown a fluffy white beard!

CLICK HERE to download from Teachers Pay Teachers

CLICK HERE to download from Teacher's Notebook

Happy Thanksgiving & SALE Announcement!

Have a Wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday

with Friends and Family

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5-day SALE for Black Friday & Cyber Monday!!

Visit our online stores

Friday 11/25 - Tuesday 11/29

to check out all the great deals!

CLICK HERE to visit our Teachers Pay Teachers store

CLICK HERE to visit our Teachers Notebook store

Books to Read for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a special time to look back on our history and marvel at how things have changed. With our children so engrossed in electronics and modern convenience, there is little thought as to where things come from or even how they came to be. I like to read aloud and share these books and other similar books at this time of year. While I am reading, I stop and ask questions and start discussions comparing then and now. 

These books are all from Scholastic and there are some other similar books from National Geographic.

The three pictured here are:

"Sarah Morton's Day”

by Kate Waters

(there are also books for a Pilgrim boy and a Wampanoag boy)

"If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620"

by Ann McGovern

"Chronicle of America: Colonial Times"

by Joy Masoff

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Also, our VIDEOS are coming to Teachers Pay Teachers!! TPT is making video instruction and fun available directly on their site.

CLICK HERE to check out our first post on all the ways to use Alphabet Art to teach beginning sounds!!

Veterans Day Sale!

Thank you to our Veterans and Active Military

who have protected and continue to protect us everyday.

In celebration, we are having a

STORE-WIDE SALE

20% OFF at Teachers Pay Teachers (Click Here)

and

5% OFF at Teachers Notebook (Click Here)

This Weekend: Friday, 11/11 - Sunday, 11/13

Alphabet Fun For Thanksgiving

If it is November, it must be time for thinking about home, family, and food. We have 2 freebies from the Alphabet Art books to get you started.

"H is for Home" uses the Upper Case H to make a house.  The doors and windows open so you can see family and friends. For the little ones, practice writing their address and phone number on the roof.  (Click Here for freebie)

The lowercase "c is for cooking" features an excited chef ready to make Thanksgiving dinner. A circle time poem and writing prompts for older kids are included.  (Click Here for freebie)

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The perfect read aloud is "Alligator Arrived With Apples - A Potluck Alphabet Feast" by Crescent Dragonwagon. 

Using fun illustrations and wonderful alliteration, the animals all arrive with edibles via wacky modes of transportation. 

There are great writing spin off opportunities for older kids; asking them to use nouns, verbs, and adverbs to create their own animal feast. An example: "Llama lugged lemons, limes, and lingonberries.”

So keep the brain engaged and build some fun holiday memories with these projects!

A Few More Treats for Halloween

One of my favorite read-aloud books is One Witch by Laura Leuk.  The rhymes count forward from one to ten and then back from ten to one and the art is wonderful. The art appeals to the older kids as well as the younger ones and offers great opportunities for story starters and rhyme rewrites.

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In keeping with the theme of our last several new products, I am adding 2 more File Folder Games to our product line reinforcing the concepts of the skeleton. 

The first one shows a girl running and the child can overlay the skeleton parts in the correct places. It can be reversed by gluing the skeleton to the file folder then letting the child place the parts of the girl over the correct skeleton pieces. 

The second File Folder Game shows skeletons from various animals (including human) and the child places the "animal cards" in the correct pocket.

These File Folder Games are available on Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook.  Click here to find these titles on our Science page.

One last treat!

All of our science products

will be on sale from

Friday (10/28) through Sunday (10/30)

Have a happy, healthy, and safe Halloween!!

Interactive Brain Hat: Wear It - Label It - Display It

  

Everyone likes more brain power and learning about your brain and nervous system will do just that! As the students make their brain cap and attach different colors of yarn for each area of the brain, they get concrete knowledge about how the different parts of the brain interact. When they gather the ends of the yarn, bring them together and run them through the spinal column, they get concrete knowledge about how the brain communicates with the body.

Includes patterns for:  

• Brain Hat

• Spinal Column

• Front and Back Rib Poncho

Hands-On, Brain-Engaged

Sale on Brain Hat 

Thursday 10/20/16 - Saturday 10/22/16

Click Here to visit Teachers Pay Teachers

Interactive Muscles: Wear It - Label It - Display It

Which muscle makes us smile or raise an eyebrow?  Which muscles do we need to kick a ball or play a piano?  When kids make and wear muscle mittens, the muscle sleeves and leggings and the muscle poncho, they can find and label those muscles to help them understand how the body moves. The muscle face mask is especially spooky. This is how we look without skin! Hands-On, Brain-Engaged.

CLICK HERE to get a free sample of the muscle mittens.

Sale on Interactive Muscles 

Thursday 10/13/16 - Saturday 10/15/16

Click Here to visit Teachers Pay Teachers

Interactive Skeleton: Wear It - Label It - Display It

Kids love to make and wear the bone mittens, bone sleeves and leggings, rib ponchos, and especially the skull mask! When they wear them, they get a real insight into how their bodies are constructed. One of my favorite comments was "This is so cool! It's like I'm inside out!"

Labeling and constructing a display skeleton with brads helps the students understand how their joints move and how the bones support and protect their bodies. "What If?" questions give the teacher an opportunity for some critical thinking activities.

Sale today through Saturday (10/6-10/8) on this workbook on Teachers Pay Teachers - CLICK HERE to download!

Try it now with the freebie bone mitten available CLICK HERE!

Time to Get Ready for Halloween!

Just a reminder that we have a great free Halloween Zip Strip writing and language center at Teachers Pay Teachers.  We used the October vocabulary Zip Strip to give you a quick and easy writing center. 

It includes:

• revised Zip Strip for Halloween reading and spelling practice
• a Halloween picture word bank
• a spooky character adjective page
• a mixed up Halloween spelling page

Click Here to download this FREE product from Teachers Pay Teachers

Reading Aloud to Your Children

Reading aloud is a wonderful teaching tool.  Children learn the basic concept that letters make words, words make sentences, and these combinations impart factual information and imaginative stories.  Reading aloud often introduces new vocabulary, new ideas, and opens minds to new possibilities.

These are 3 of my favorite books for the beginning of the year:

"I Like Myself" by Karen Beaumont

Full of fun illustrations, this little girl likes herself in all possible ways and delivers the message that she cannot be bullied or teased because she appreciates herself.  An extension to this story is to use the Number One from Number Art (free sample on website) and let the students make themselves on the number one.

"Jeepers Creepers - A Monstrous ABC" by Laura Luck

This book uses rhyme and wonderful pictures to go through the alphabet with names and a description of each of the monster kids in this monstrous class. The rhymes cause lots of giggles and then they have to guess who the creepiest monster might be by their standards! For a fun extension to this story use the letters from Alphabet Art Upper Case to give each child the beginning letter of their name. Provide crafty items like glitter, small fabric pieces, beads, etc. and let them create and name their own monster. First graders may be able to create their own rhyme as well.

"The Z Was Zapped" by Chris Van Allsburg

This is a great introduction to using adjectives, adverbs and alliteration for older kids. Wonderfull graphics illustrate the statement about each letter. As an extension, provide a letter for each student from "Alphabet Art Upper Case" and let them make their own version of the letter using adjectives, adverbs and alliteration. 

Have a wonderful year!!