Here’s a fun paper box for Easter. You can fill it with Easter candy, grass/jelly beans, or anything else fun. My friend sent this to me and said her 2nd graders just LOVE it. Thanks!
Cute Bunny Box (printable template)
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Tag Archives: Elementary School
Eggbert the Easter Egg
Before my siblings and I were born, my mom taught elementary school. So all growing up, we did all the crafts, songs, games, etc. that elementary school teachers do with their classes. Here’s one of the Easter songs from my childhood: Eggbert the Easter Egg.
Click here for a video with the song. Click here to hear the song and read the lyrics.
Here’s an activity that goes with the song (or as a generic Easter craft):
Sorry, the sample didn’t scan well!
Depending on what you’re doing with this pattern, choose different egg parts.
Directions
Submitted by a fellow teacher. Thank you!
April Fool’s Day Pranks For Teachers
Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what kinds of jokes to play on your students on April Fool’s Day. As always, make sure to use your best judgement when playing pranks. And make sure your pranks don’t conflict with school/district policies. Here are some suggestions I’ve gathered:
1. Switch classrooms for the day. When kids come in the door, it’s not their regular teacher they’ll see.
2. Kids in elementary schools have their names written on their tables/desks. Switch everybody’s last names around so they have their first name but some other kid’s last name.
3. A funny prank for little kids is to begin your lesson of the day with your mouth moving but no sound coming out. This REALLY freaks kids out.
4. April Fool’s day is near Easter and many classrooms dye eggs. Glue the eggs into the egg cartons and when kids try to pull them out…they won’t be able to. If you don’t hard boil the eggs, it’s even funnier.
5. When the first kid of the day calls out your name, tell the class, “that’s not my name children”. Make up a name for yourself and totally pretend like that’s been your name the entire year.
6. Glue a few pencils to the floor under your kid’s desks and then demand that they clean up their mess!
7. Re-arrange every kid’s desk or table in the room.
8. Announce that the fabulous field trip planned for today was cancelled because nobody brought in their permission slips on time.
9. Ask everyone to turn in their homework that was due TODAY and is worth 90% of their grade for this 9 weeks.
10. Take your best and brightest student aside and tell them they’re in danger of failing their grade for the year.
11. Tell your class that lunch is cancelled because the cafeteria ran out of food but everyone else at the school got to eat.
12. Send several kids to the principals office for no reason. (Maybe warn the principal ahead of time.)
13. Tell your students that, because it’s a leap year, they have to stay in class 2 hours longer every day this month.
14. Assign the kids new seats and then re-assign again several times during the day.
15. Wear a Halloween costume and tell all the children they won’t get any candy this year because they didn’t dress up.
16. Call out ‘sick’ on Friday or Monday – Think your students want a longer weekend or to not have class on Monday? Have a fellow teacher come in, tell them you’re out sick but that you didn’t have time to find a substitute. Then have that teacher say something like ‘we trust you to be on your own for the rest of the day’ and then have them exit. See what happens. I wonder how long you can last watching them squirm and figure out what to do?
17. Tell your students you’re all going on a field trip to someplace fun at the end of the day – When it gets to be almost the end of the day, tell them that the ‘fun’ place is actually their homes! Zing!
18. Create an entirely new grading system – Tired of the ol’ A, B, and Cs (okay and sometimes Ds and Fs)? Then make up a completely arbitrary and confusing new grading system! For example, students who do well can get a ‘Frog’ and students who don’t do as well can get ‘Blue’ and others can be graded with a gold star. Something that totally confounds the human mind would be the best route to go here.
19. Tell your students the entire day’s class will be conducted via Twitter – Are you a tweacher? Why not just talk about teaching on Twitter and actually do all your teaching on the addictive social media tool? You can instruct students to follow a particular hashtag and then just start typing on your mobile phone in the front of class. Watch ‘em scramble and protest! (Not the best prank if there are not enough computers or other devices around, obviously.)
20. In the spirit of flipped classrooms, have one student chosen at random teach for the entire day – Or at least tell them that’s what they’re going to do. They obviously won’t have to but see how long you can go before the students runs out of things to say.
Click here for more April Fool’s Day ideas. (Sources: here and here.)
I’m dying to hear about your April Fool’s Day pranks! Please comment below!
Sneaking Graphs into Your Classroom
The ability to interpret graphs is a crucial skill in today’s world of standardized testing. Here are some creative ways elementary school teachers have brought graphing into their classroom:
How have you brought graphing into your classroom?
Click here for more free math stuff!
Giant Easter Bunny Craft
A second grade teacher just submitted this fun craft! It can be made with any color paper, and turns out to be about 3 1/2 feet tall! Thank you!
Easter Bunny pattern 3 1-2 feet tall
Awesome Field Day Ideas!
These fabulous ideas were submitted by a fellow elementary school teacher. Love this idea! Thanks!
“Thursday was our field day. It was unlike any other I had been to. These games would be fun with youth at church groups and camps as well. There were 18 stations we rotated through during the day. Each teacher stayed with her own class and the classes rotated. Most of the stations were relays or races with our kids divided into 6 teams. The theme was Dr. Seuss books. Each station was named after a book. Here are some examples:
Horton Hears A Who– had kids run to pick up cotton balls (representing the dust speck of Whoville) with chop sticks (2 pencils) and run back.
Yertle the Turtle– where kids sat on scooters and raced over to a pool that had green paper plate “turtles” in it. They grabbed a turtle and scooted back to their own “pond” to stack the turtle. Tallest pile of turtles won.
Go Dog Go– 50 yard dash.
Star Bellied Sneetches– tug of war.
The Lorax – had two teams, one was the oncelers who were cutting down trees (knocking down plastic cones with their elbows) and the other team, the Loraxes who were putting them back up.
If I Ran The Circus– had kids juggling scarves running 15 feet to little balance beam things to stand on and juggle while we applauded.
Two of the favorites were water activities. Both were to try to fill up a big can with water. One of them had each team had a 2 inch PVC pipe that was 2 feet long. There had been 6 holes drilled in it. The object was for the 4 kids to run with the pipe to a tub of water, submerge the pipe, then carry it back and pour the water in the can. They had to cover the ends and the holes with their hands. Fun game. The next water game was with a bucket of water at the front of the line. The first kid had a big sponge and submersed it in the water. Then he had to carry it over his head to the next kid, and then the 2nd kid carried it over his head to the 3rd kid etc. The last kid had to wring out the sponge in the can. “
Starch Painting Easter Eggs
Here’s another fun craft we did this week: we painted tissue paper squares on to paper Easter eggs. Just mix starch with water and apply it over the pieces of tissue paper. Then hang them up to dry. Easy as that! Happy Easter!
Flying Bunny Craft
My friend Carol tried this with our kinders today and they loved it! We went to the top of the play structure and tried to get our bunnies to fly to different spots on the ground. Super easy craft for kindergarten or preschool… probably would also be fun for first or second grade as well. I mean, come on… who wouldn’t enjoy making a flying bunny rabbit!? Happy Easter!
Click here for the free printable PDF: Flying Bunny pdf
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