Winter Holiday Activity Fun!

Winter Holiday Fun!
and enter to win our Giveaway! (Links at the end)

      

Looking for some great winter and holiday activities for your students? We have come together to help offer you some fantastic ideas to use! We have STEM, fun math games, puzzling mysteries, sentence practice, winter reading, and more! Read on for some great ideas from 5 different shops!

Store: Mrs. Hansen’s Helpfuls

Snow Globe Adventure

Read a great original story about two children who enter into a snow globe adventure! There is a great writing activity that goes along with the story booklet. Create your own snow globe shaped storybook! Different writing templates available.

                                                     

                                                 Snow Globe Adventure Link

Polar Express

Who doesn’t love Chris Van Allsburg’s story, Polar Express? This literature unit includes fun activities and an end of the story craft where students build their own story train!

                                                  Polar Express Unit Link

Store: Kelly Malloy

I love to make math fact practice more fun for my students, because let's face it, the more fun something is, the more likely we are to do it right?  One of my favorite ways to practice math facts during the Christmas season is with this Cookies for Santa game!

I put all of the "cookie" pieces in a leftover Christmas cookie tin upside down.  The students pull the cards out and attempt to answer the fact. If they get it correct, they get to keep the card.  If they get it wrong, it goes back into the tin. If they get the dreaded KABOOM card - they have to put all of their cards back.  The winner is the student with the most cards when time is up.

You can play this game with any type of math facts or vocabulary words written on index cards, or you can check out my pre-made math facts ones here.

Store: Angie S. 

Christmas Activity for Speech Therapy Sentence Building

Forming sentences is very important for young learners. This activity uses real-life pictures for easy recognition of common objects and sight words as sentence starters. It is perfect for early readers. This is also an activity to practice identifying the attributes of what, the number, and the color of a group of items. There are 15 groups of winter and Christmas items. The student will match the corresponding picture to answer the questions - What? How Many?

Building Sentences Link

Video Link

Facebook Link

Store: Mrs. J’s Resource Creations

Math Mystery: Case of the Selfish Elf

Uh oh! Which elf is eating all of the delicious cookies made by Mrs. Claus?

Toy production and elf morale are greatly reduced in Santa’s toy factory this year. Students must help Santa figure out who the selfish elf is by using their math skills to discover important clues. Then, your math detectives will be required to apply critical thinking to eliminate elf suspects and narrow it down to one. This activity is a fun way to incorporate math into your Christmas theme and will engage even some of your most reluctant learners. This math mystery activity is available in versions for grades 1 – 6. Choose a level that suits you, or ‘clue swap’ across grades to differentiate this activity with your class (clue swapping is only available using the 2nd- 6th grade versions).

Check out the video hook that can be used to introduce this activity here: 

                                                  

                                             Math Mystery: Case of the Selfish Elf Link

(Individual grade resource links can be found within the video product description section.)

Once upon a Crime ‘Rescue Rudolph’ (Reading Mystery) 

This Christmas Reading Mystery 'Once Upon a Crime - Rescue Rudolph' is a fun way to incorporate a range of ELA skills in one.

Students will be required to read the story and complete activities to discover clues. Each clue requires students to critically think to decide which suspects they can eliminate as being Rudolph's kidnapper.  Everything that you need for this activity is in the download, including the reading passages. Just print, copy for your students and go! Find it here: 

                                   Reading Mystery: Once Upon A Crime Rescue Rudolph Link

Store: Jewel’s School Gems

It can often be a struggle to keep kids engaged during this holiday season. However, things can be easier for you with the right activities that promote learning and engagement. My ChristmasAround the World STEM Challenge Bundle provides hours of engineering fun while making sure your students learn about the Christmas traditions of various countries in the world. Countries included are Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, and Italy. Students can design and build a surfboard for Santa, a Christmas sock for Papai Noel, a foldable ladder for Baba Nöel, a catapult for throwing presents, and a broomstick for Befana. You and your students will surely enjoy these Christmas STEM challenges. Check it out today!

I hope you love these activity ideas from all of us! Please enter our raffle giveaway!

                                                           Enter Giveaway Link!

Thanks,

Erin

Five Fun Thanksgiving Activities!

Five Fun Thanksgiving Activities!

Keeping kids engaged in the classroom and home can be fun with the right Thanksgiving activities. If you are looking for some fun, educational ideas to incorporate the holiday, below, you will find some fantastic resources that do just that! These activities were created by other teachers who have made their creations available to share through their Teachers Pay Teachers store (each item links back to the creator’s shop). 

Thanksgiving STEM Challenges BUNDLE

TPT STORE NAME: Jewel’s School Gems

This Thanksgiving STEM challenge bundle is a fun, creative, and engaging way to get your students designing and building during this time of year. Take your students through the engineering design process and challenge them to build a Mayflower ship, a turkey trap, and a Thanksgiving table by using simple materials, such as popsicle sticks, drinking straw, and skewers. You and your students will surely have a blast!

Link:

Thanksgiving STEM Challenge Bundle

Yes No Questions for Thanksgiving

TPT STORE NAME: Angie S

"Celebrating holidays is a lot of fun at an early age. As a teacher, you have to think of creating and managing activities that would get your students interested in the holiday and get them willing to learn about it. I`ve thought about including Yes – No Questions to improve the vocabulary on Thanksgiving topic. I used real life pictures to help students better understand the meaning of the new words. These worksheets work great for age 3-5 as well as for older students with special needs.“

Link:

 Yes No Questions for Thanksgiving

WATCH THIS VIDEO Showcasing this idea here: Video Link 

A Turkey for Thanksgiving Unit

TPT STORE NAME: Mrs Hansens Helpfuls

A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting is one of my favorite class books to read during Thanksgiving. It is a book about a moose that goes in search of a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. It is an adorable story with a cute twist at the end. The lesson from this story is one of being thankful for friends. After reading the book, I always have my students do a fun writing craftivity. I first have students color/disguise a clip art of a turkey. The next step in the craftivity is to have students write a story about a turkey that runs away and camouflages itself into something so nobody can find it for Thanksgiving. I have had some really creative writing over the years. These also make great bulletin boards!

Some examples of camouflaged turkeys: 

If you are interested in the literature unit for this book just click the link! 

I also have a link to a set of FREE Thanksgiving themed calendar numbers below!

           

Links: 

A Turkey for Thanksgiving

Calendar Numbers Free

Thanksgiving Math Quest: The Terrible Turkey Takeover

TPT STORE NAME: Mrs J’s Resource Creations

This Thanksgiving Math Quest ‘The Terrible Turkey Takeover’ is a quirky and fun way to engage your students. In this math adventure story, people are turning into turkeys! It is up to the student (the star of the quest) to save Mathhattan by solving a variety of challenges and puzzles using math as they progress reading through the chapters. Three levels of difficulty are provided for differentiation  (EASY, MEDIUM, HARD). The chapters are interchangeable to enable you to customize the math difficulty across the three sets if you need.

An optional video hook is provided to set the stage to engage and introduce your students to the story. View video hook here: VIDEO HOOK LINK 

Link:

The Terrible Turkey Takeover

Thanksgiving Celebration Fact Book

TPT STORE NAME: Beyond Imagination

This fact booklet is perfect to use for a Thanksgiving study, history lesson, or integrated into a wider social studies unit. Learn all about Thanksgiving with your lower elementary grade/ kindergarten/ special education learners using this differentiated printable booklet, which includes some fun bonus adventure passes and post cards.

 Link:

Thanksgiving Celebration Story

Enjoy the ideas!

Erin

CKLA Second Grade! What about it?

Hi !

    I have started a new year and started a new program called, CKLA for second grade. This program is interesting to say the least, and I can see the potential benefits of learning and focusing on phonics. The program is enough to provide a core in this area. However, I also think there can be something added to it, to make it more interesting, to cover additional reading standards, and to incorporate more writing.

   So I have created a product that can be used to add a “little something” to help focus each unit for CKLA Second Grade. As of today, I have Unit 1 Cat Bandit and Unit 2 Bedtime Tales complete. I will be adding more throughout this year. Currently, my class is on Unit 2 because we have been in school since the beginning of August. Since I started using these products, I feel the students are more motivated and focused.  They feel more invested in each reader. 

If interested feel free to check them out in my store. Links below.

                                            Cat Bandit Unit 1

                                          Bedtime Tales Unit 2

I hope this helps! I know it helped in my class!

Erin Hansen

Beginning of the Year with Place Value!

I was lucky enough to partner up with Mrs. J's Resources and Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the teacher) to help bring you some great place value ideas!

Place Value Ideas to Start Your Year!

As the beginning of the year approaches (or has started for some), we look at lessons and units to help start off the year. One of the units is place value. Why? It helps students understand the meaning of the numbers they are writing and using. Without this foundational knowledge students can struggle in regrouping, understanding expanded notation, speaking, and writing the word form of standard numbers. Included below are some collected ideas and units to help strengthen students place value understanding.

Place Value Houses Project Idea – Mrs. Hansen’s Helpfuls

One strategy I use to help build the skills for a strong place value foundation is to create Place Value Houses. This project allows students to visually see how numbers are grouped into “threes” and allows students to practice number formation, speaking, and writing. They are simple to make. Just draw houses with three bedrooms a piece. Label the house bedrooms ones, tens, and hundreds. Then name the houses hundreds, thousands, millions, etc. Students even love to make it look like a neighborhood. Students can also make number cards to fit into the houses.

Other practice is also available through self-checking task cards. Students can decipher expanded notation and word form to make the standard numbers. Students look at the task card and then build the number on the Place Value Houses. To check students simply flip over the card. Once the Place Value Houses are built, these task cards can make a great center!

Interested but don’t want to make them from scratch? No problem, try these products:​

Place Value Houses Project

Place Value Task Cards – Self-Checking

Math Mysteries – Mrs. J’s Resources

Revisiting and building on place value knowledge is a necessary task to set up students for success to learn new math concepts later on in the year. The place value math mystery “Case of The Puzzled Pirate” has been built as a fun activity to practice and consolidate a variety of place value skills in one. Its design for different levels allows for you to choose the best option for your students. Choose an earlier (or easier) grade level to refresh students before starting a new Place value unit, or choose the level that meets your standards to review content learned at the end of a unit. The added factor of the mystery will help students try and persevere with challenging sections, and will help you gauge just how much your students know (or don’t!)

Click the link to view the bonus free video hook that comes with "Case of The Puzzled Pirate":

Video Hook Link

Place Value Mysteries

Practice Makes Perfect! – Kelly Malloy

Once your students have mastered the place value skills required for your grade level, you will want to make sure to practice and review them so that they don’t lose them! I Have, Who Has games are a great way to practice skills in the classroom. They are a great whole group activity that can be used for review, test prep, fluency, listening skills, and mental math. My students and I love using these games to review our skills and place value is no exception.

I have a special freebie Place Value I Have Who has game that you can download here.

I Have, Who Has Game

I also have Daily Math Review Resources for 1^st through 5^th grade that not only review place value, but other skills as well!  You can find them here:

Daily Math Review Grades 1 - 5

Geometric Shapes

This week we have been working on 2D and 3D shapes. I think the biggest challenge was getting students to understand the different attributes for each shape. Between understanding that a polygon can also be a quadrilateral and that quadrilaterals can also have pairs of parallel lines, I was tired of looking at starry eyed students.  Students had to apply this information if I was going to get true understanding.

So this last week we built many different shapes. Materials needed are wood sticks or toothpicks (I chose wood sticks because they were $1 at Walmart) and gum drops (I chose these over marshmallows because they are a little stronger).

Each student was in a partner group and could build 4 different shapes of their choice. The students then took pictures of their shapes and created a Power Point to present about their shapes and attributes.  This lesson really helped students have a better understanding of attributes and geometry as a whole. Below are some pics of my students during the process.

Geometric Success!
Erin Hansen