Recycling Craft

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

Kids love to create things. Especially when they have a lot of random stuff to work with. One teacher brought in a bunch of recyclables (some parents had been collecting stuff for a week) and let the kids create whatever they wanted using things to be recycled. She also let the kids use googly eyes, markers, glue, etc. and limited each kid to making something that would fit in their backpack (so students could take it home). This art project was preceded by a discussion of what recycling was and how it benefited the environment. Fun fun fun!

Click here for printable word strips to help in your discussion of recycling.

Partitive/Measurement Division (Review Video)

Posted on August 31, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

Confused about partitive and measurement division? Not anymore! Here’s a quick video explaining the difference…

7 Ways You Can Help Your Child With Math

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

Here’s a simple handout to give parents and community members at back-to-school night. These are simple ways parents can teach their kids with math everyday. This printable PDF has a color version and a black and white version that may be easier to run off on the copy machine…

7 Ways to help your child with math – collection

$7 ways to help your child with math COLOR$

Food for Thought

Posted on August 25, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

It’s Not Just “Red”… It’s “Vermilion!” (Synonyms Group Activity)

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

Teaching kids to use “good words” in their writing is hard. It’s not always easy to find a good synonym for “red” but this activity should help broaden their diction horizons. Divide your class into 10 groups. Pass out one color synonym sheet and a thesaurus to each group. Instruct each group to find as many synonyms for their color as possible. Then have them draw a border around their sheet using the color they searched. Post these somewhere in the room for a few days so students can browse the synonyms.

Click here for the PDF: synonyms- color collection

This same idea can be done with common nouns and adjectives such as “big,” “said,” “like,” “fast,” etc. Here are some photos of this idea being used in a classroom…

Golfing Review Game

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

I recently saw this picture on Pinterest. I couldn’t follow the link very far, because I wasn’t a member of acvitityconnection.com, but I was inspired. Here’s my idea:

Set up: Make a box like this, with varying sized holes in the front. Smaller holes are worth more points. Then set it up in your classroom, with masking tape line on the ground, denoting where students should stand before they putt.

Game play: Group students for the review. Ask a review question, and have each team write down their answer. At the same time, have all groups reveal their answer. Any team who gets the answer right, gets to send 1 person to putt once to try to earn points. At the end of the game, the team with the most points wins!

I’ve tried numerous games like this with my 6h graders and they loved them! It disguised reviewing for the end of the year tests so the kids had a blast and we got through tons of math and science review questions!

Using Graphic Organizers to Sort Characteristics

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

I don’t know about you, but I love using graphic organizers. I’m a visual learner, so maybe that’s why. But anyway, this anchor chart I saw in an elementary school classroom seemed to be an effective way to study animals (spiders, in this case). It focuses on characteristics, sorted according to 3 verbs: are, can and have. It’s a very basic idea, but works well because students can just finish the sentence “Spiders have…” or “Spiders can…” to help them sort out and analyze characteristics. This same idea could be used for a variety of topics, simply by changing the 3 verbs used.

Blank Timeline Printables

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

I love timelines. They encourage students to focus on sequencing and summarizing. Here are 3 timelines I made that work for various grade levels. Click here to see the 3 printable PDFs: Blank Timeline Templates. Enjoy!

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