Halloween Classroom Attention Getters

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Squarehead Teachers

It’s Halloween time, so it’s time to change things up! No more “Get it? Got it! Good!” when you need to get your students’ attention! We’ve come up with a list of fun, Halloween attention getters for the classroom!

Teacher: “Who you gonna call?”
Students: “Ghostbusters!”

Teacher: “Monster!”
Students: “Mash!”

Teacher: “Knock, knock!”
Students: “Trick or Treat!!”

Teacher: “Skeleton!”
Students: “Bones!”

Teacher: “Scare me!”
Students: “Boo!”

Teacher: “Pumpkin, pumpkin shining bright!”
Students: “Halloween’s a scary night!”

Teacher: “It’s not Santa Claus!”
Students: “It’s the Great Pumpkin!”

Teacher: “Vegan Zombie!”
Students: “Graaaaaaiiiiinnnnss!” (like how zombies say “brains”)

Teacher: “If you’ve got it…”
Students: “…haunt it!”

Teacher: “Boil, boil…!”
Students: “Toil and trouble!”

Teacher: “I feel cold!”
Students: “Goosebumps!”

If you’ve taught your class any fun Halloween poems, you might consider using lines from those also. For example, if you taught your class the popular “Five little pumpkins” poem, you could use a line and have the students respond with the following line. If you’re not familiar with that poem, you’re missing out! Here it is:

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate.
The first one said, “Oh, my, it’s getting late!”
The second one said, “There are witches in the air!”
The third one said, “But we don’t care!”
The fourth one said, “Let’s run and run and run!”
The fifth one said, “It’s Halloween fun!”
Then woooooo, went the wind
And out went the light
And the five little pumpkins
Rolled out of sight!

Click here for more fun Halloween stuff!

Halloween Coin Counting Practice

Posted on October 11, 2019 by Squarehead Teachers

Happy Halloween!! Do you have your costume figured out yet? I don’t, but I’m working on it! Anyway, use the excitement for Halloween to sneak in some coin counting practice. Enjoy another freebie!

Click here to download the free PDF: Coin Counting Practice – Halloween Costumes
Click here to download the free PDF: Coin Counting Practice – Halloween Costumes – Answer Key

Line Plot Practice Page

Posted on October 10, 2019 by Squarehead Teachers

Line plot practice worksheet! Free! Hot off the press! I made this (and the other line plot practice pages yet I’ll be posting in the future) for a friend who teaches second grade. If your classroom is already be buzzing with Halloween excitement, good luck! 🙂

Click here to download the free PDF: Line Plot practice pages -Toy Cars
Click here to download the free answer key: Line Plot – Toy Cars Answer Key

More free math worksheets! Click here.

Fall Fractions – Beginning Fractions Practice

Posted on September 16, 2019 by Squarehead Teachers

Want to add some fall fun to your math curriculum? Here’s a super self-explanatory beginning fractions worksheet for kids. Younger kids may need you to read the directions, but the basic idea is to color the numerator to depict the fraction. I’ve also uploaded an answer key. Happy fall!

Click here to download the PDFs:
Fall Fractions
Fall Fractions – Answer Key

Check out more of my fall freebies!

Skip Counting with Pictures

Posted on August 15, 2019 by Squarehead Teachers

Check out this awesome idea for practicing skip counting or number sequencing. Put the picture together by putting the sequence in the right order. You can do this with any picture, but the ones we used were from a calendar. Here are the steps (steps 1 and 2 can be done in either order, but this is probably the best):

Step 1: Put numbers on the bottom of your picture. We put them on dot stickers first so we could easily tell which belonged to each set (example – yellow dots all belong to the same set). You could just write them on the bottom with a permanent marker if you wanted to be faster. Just make sure they’re easy to see against your picture.

Step 2: Laminate your picture. This step is sometimes so annoying, but it will definitely help your project will last longer!

Step 3: Cut your picture into strips, making sure there’s only one number on each strip.

Step 4: Enjoy! This makes a good “fast-finisher” activity, since it is still kind of fun. Depending on the size of your finished picture, you can store them in baggies or envelopes. I recommend writing the number of pieces on the outside of your container.

Here are some skip counting ones we made:

Then we got tricky and did a few with fractions. Here’s one of them:

Click here to check out some other number sequencing stuff:
Before, Between, After – Numbers Worksheet
Holiday Number Sequences Worksheet

Summary Graphic Organizer

Posted on August 10, 2019 by Squarehead Teachers

Welcome back, teachers! How is it the 2019-2020 school year already?! Mind. Blown.

Anyway, here’s your first freebie of the year: a summarizing graphic organizer! This is often referred to as the “somebody wanted but so then” style of summarizing a story. Enjoy!

Click here to download the PDF: Summary graphic organizer PDF

Connor the Cutter – Character Building (Book Discussion Guide)

Posted on May 24, 2019 by Squarehead Teachers

This post contains affiliate links.

I’ve been working on this for a while and I’m SUPER excited to share it with you!

I’ve discovered a new book series that is focused on character building. It’s called, Connor the Courageous Cutter. So far, there are 3 books in the series, but I’m hoping they’ll make more!

The first book is called Saving Sarah. I’ve recently become friends with one of the authors. Here’s his summary of the book:

Join Connor the Courageous Cutter in his first adventure in beautiful Serendipity Sound. When Sarah the Schooner gets caught in a storm, panic riddles the sound. Who will heed the Harbor Master’s call and save her?

This book is just exploding with character building/morality topics! I just HAD to make a discussion guide for you. Here are some of the topics I found in the story:

courage (DUH!)
pride
acceptance of others/diversity
obeying the rules
what makes someone valuable

…and the list goes on (I even found ideas for a more inspirational discussion if you want!)

Click here to download the discussion guide: Connor the Courageous Cutter – Book 1 Discussion Guide

Grab a copy of the books for yourself by clicking the pictures below:

There’s also a free coloring page (CLICK HERE!) you can grab from the author’s website. I’ve also started following the Courageous Crew on Facebook and Twitter.

P.S. If you’re wondering what a “cutter” is, here’s your answer: United States Coast Guard Cutter is the term used by the U.S. Coast Guard for its commissioned vessels that are longer than 65 feet and have a permanently assigned crew with accommodations aboard. For more kid-friendly info about the Coast Guard, check out this free downloadable coloring book I found a few months ago!

Best Vocab-Building Book: Fancy Nancy

Posted on May 14, 2019 by Squarehead Teachers

I’m obsessed with kids books… especially picture books. I have heard about Fancy Nancy (by Jane O’Connor) for a few years now, but I recently “tested them out” and read through a few of them.

OH. MY. WORD.

They’re awesome! Not only are the illustrations adorable, but the voice in them is full of fun personality, AAAAAND she uses awesome vocabulary! So, now my toddler has been going around calling purple “fuchsia” and cupcakes “delectable”. (Yeah, what kid under 3 has THAT kind of vocabulary?! Thank you, Fancy Nancy!) Here’s an example:

Most of the beginning reader books have a page of “fancy words” in them. My toddler insists on reading this page too (because it has a cute illustration?) so we get a vocab review at the end of the story and I don’t even have to ask for it! WIN WIN!