I fell in love with the idea of grammatical poetry when I saw it. It turns out fun and silly poem and gives kids a painless, quick review of grammar! Here’s a free printable template for fall grammatical poetry. Click here for the Grammatical Poetry- fall. Enjoy!
Here’s a collection of some of my favorite fall crafts for kids. These would be great to do with your class or your kids at home. Happy fall!
Directions for Paper Roll Pumpkins
Directions for Hand Print Owls
Let me just say this: I’m not really into all the frilly-dilly stuff some teachers are into. In my 6th grade class, we don’t do show and tell, student of the week posters, etc. I just have more important things to worry about. Judge me if you want, but that’s the reality here.
Birthdays fall into that frilly-dilly category for me, especially with older students. So to cut to the chase, I do pretty much bare minimum (which is more than they’ll get in junior high, that’s for sure). Before school started, I printed off a bunch of birthday cards and put them in unsealed envelopes. These cards also double as a homework pass for 1 nightly homework assignment, since that’s really what my students (and parents) would prefer to a sticker or a pencil. I leave the envelopes in my desk drawer and can pull them out at a second’s notice, write the student’s name on the card/ envelope and hand it to them. I put their birthdays into a reminder on my computer, so it pops up the morning of their birthday so I can write be prepared.
Here are my birthday cards from the teacher for you to use. One version mentions the coupon, the other doesn’t. Click here: Birthday Card Coupons or here: Birthday Cards
But what do you do to celebrate the birthday in class, you ask? They stand on their chair so we can sing them happy birthday and life goes on. For students whose birthdays are during the summer, I came up with what I think is a GENIUS plan… At the beginning of the year, I told my class that all summer birthdays would be celebrated on the day we have Halloween festivities at school. This way, we combine all distractions into one day, have a huge party (where birthday kids can pass out goodies during the party) and we sing to all of them at once while they’re standing on their chairs. The kids seemed pretty jazzed about it and didn’t even seem to notice that they were sharing a day with other kids.
Click here to read about a teacher who did something similar.
I know hand print art can be messy at times, but kids love getting their hand painted and the projects turn out pretty cute. So here are my favorite projects (click on image to see original post):
This idea randomly came to me when I was working with some kindergartners a while back. Some of them turned out better than others, but the kids had fun getting to finger paint! It seems like it would be a fun summer craft too!
Here’s what you do: Paint the child’s hand brown from fingertips to a few inches below the wrist (paint their non-dominant hand).
Have the child press their hand against plain paper (construction paper works best). Then let the child use their dominant hand to finger paint leaves, apples, grass, etc. on the rest of the paper. Ta-da! You’re all done!
Kids love summer time. Parents love learning. Kids love candy. The perfect combination? Candy Experiments! If you haven’t heard about this new hit book (available January 2013), you’re totally missing out. 
Make giant gummi worms, turn M&Ms into dazzling comets, grow candy crystals, and turn cotton candy into slime! You’ll find all these experiments and more, plus simple scientific explanations, in the book Candy Experiments!
Candy Experiments, by Loralee Leavitt, shares experiments from the popular website, Candy Experiments, as well as experiments that have never been published before. Learn how to separate candy colors, make candy cane stripes in bowls of water, sink marshmallows, and float taffy. Each experiment includes color photos and scientific explanations. Your kids will love experimenting with their candy, and they’ll learn something, too!
But how do you know kids will like the experiments? Because kids planned and did them! The author writes this about how it all started: “One day when she was sorting through her Halloween candy, my daughter asked a life-changing question: “What would happen if I put these Nerds in water?” I got her a glass, and she conducted her first candy experiment.” Read more about these little scientists here.
This is such a great collection of fun activities for kids (especially in the summer or after Halloween). When I heard about it, I went on Amazon right away and bought 3 copies (I just Had to get one for my mom and sister, also teachers). When I got it in the mail, I spent an hour looking through it, reading it and planning fun summer activities.
Many teachers have to touch on the topic of recycling sometime throughout the year (most talk about it on Earth Day). A fellow teacher requested that I make some word strips of the 3 R’s of Recycling for her to use in their Earth Day discussion and then to put on their science bulletin board. I’d recommend laminating them if you’ll be using them multiple years. Here they are (formatted to fit on a regular letter-size sheet of paper):
Squarehead Teachers 