April Fool’s Day Prank: Brown E’s

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

(Submitted by a fellow teacher. I love that she even had napkins!)

Ms. L teaches first grade. She told the kids she had a tasty surprise for them. Then she had them close their eyes and see if they could smell the brownies. They could she put a napkin on each desk then put a brown construction paper “E” (Brown E’s) on each desk. One kid even took a bite. They didn’t quite get it at first. She told this in faculty meeting, and another teacher had heard that someone else at another school had done this too.

Click here for more April Fool’s Day ideas.

Dice Games: Math Turtles Collection

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

I’m a huge fan of games. They disguise potentially unpleasant practice! Here’s my collection of math turtles to help your kids practice basic math skills (including simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). Happy spring!

Click here for the 4 printable PDFs: Turtle Dice Games

Don’t forget about the Fancy Turtles editions!

Paper Airplane Targets

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

I recently worked with an after-school program full of kindergarten boys who loved paper airplanes. the only problem is that they weren’t super great at making airplanes that flew far. They got discouraged with their airplane after throwing it a few times and seeing it land only a few feet away. So, they’d grab more paper and try again (folding it the exact same way). So the cycle would repeat itself until all the paper was gone. This seemed like a waste of paper to only use the airplane for 3 throws, so I decided to see what I could do to help these little guys appreciate their little planes, even though they didn’t fly very far. I used chalk to draw a line from which to throw the planes, and shapes on the ground with point values written inside. I taught the boys how to take turns throwing their planes from the line to see if they could hit a specific target. Since they were little, they didn’t care about the total points they earned, but had a blast seeing who could land on the targets with 100 points.

I made sure to have plenty of targets and many that were only a few feet away so the kids with wacky-folded planes would be able to participate. The boys were much more entertained. Mission accomplished!

Color By Number (simple addition & subtraction)

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

color by number add sub fish

Who doesn’t like to color? I mean really… there’s something calming about coloring. But why not exercise that brain while you color! Here’s a color by number with an addition/subtraction facts twist. Enjoy!

Here’s the free printable PDF: Add-sub color by number fish

Spiral Paper Art

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

This is probably one of the coolest art projects I’ve ever seen.

The idea is this: roll strips of construction paper into spirals and glue them onto foam board. This particular project was done as a whole class project where students wrote a wishes for the future of the school on the strips of paper before rolling and gluing them with tacky glue (gold bottle, white lid… it works the best). They called it “Wish Upon a Starry Night.” This would be a great activity after studying famous artists. You could use a smaller piece of foam board and use smaller strips of paper to make an individual art piece. It takes a while to complete, so plan more than 1 period for the project. If you have your class try this, I’d love to see how it turns out!

How to Have a Great Summer Break

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

My kids can’t stop talking about summer break (even though we’re pretty far away from it). So I decided to put this energy to good use in a writing project, which I did as a warm up one day. Enjoy!

Dry, Dry, Wet! (Outside Water Game)

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

This game is a fun twist on the classic game, “duck, duck, goose!” Here’s the twist: instead of tapping other player’s heads, the person walking around the circle holds a wet sponge over each player’s head and says “dry, dry, dry…” until they come to the person they would normally call “goose.” Instead, however, the person holding the sponge wrings out the sponge over the person’s head, and thus the chasing begins. Players get pretty wet, which is nice for a hot say. For the sake of good health, don’t let the sponge touch anyone’s head or the ground. Using a big sponge is usually best, so the person walking around the circle with the sponge will still have water to wring out on someone’s head, even if they go around the circle more than once. Enjoy!

Cereal Octopus Craft

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

Here’s another fun craft my friend Carol showed us at our after school program. Even the big kids liked it (the girls thought it was cute and the boys wanted the cereal). We used the cereal Apple Jacks, but any O shaped cereal would work for the octopus tentacles. We found white glue works better than glue stick, and doing this on card stock is better than regular printer paper (since the glue makes printer paper too soggy). Enjoy!