One important thing kids need to learn in kindergarten is their own personal information (name, phone number, address and birthday). Here’s a pretest you can give your kindergartners at the beginning of school to see what personal information they know about themselves.
Click here to download the free printable PDF: About Me – Name Test
I’m not a super-awesome artist. And I’m not the world’s best art teacher either. But I try my best to give my kids exposure to a variety of art experiences. I recently came across the art concept called Tangles. These cool pattern drawings blow my mind! But when you see how they’re broken down into steps, they’re totally (awesomely!) doable. You can find of Tangle pattern ideas, by searching “Tangle Pattern” on Pinterest! I can’t wait to try these with my class! Here are some of my favorites:
Also check out my post on cool geometric coloring pages for upper grades!
You can find all kinds of cool pages like the one below!
**This giveaway has closed. Keep checking back for more giveaways!**
Another giveaway coming at ya! 🙂
The Prize: The prize is a collection of four Scholastic Little Leveled Readers. They’re perfect for PreK-2nd grade. The prize includes one of each book pictured above. They are each a different level (A, B, C, D) and increase slightly in difficulty as the reader progresses through the levels. Books are new and unused. Participating in this giveaway is easy-peasy, lemon squeezy!
All you have to do is comment on this post (scroll ALL THE WAY down to the bottom). Please tell me one thing you like about teaching kids! If you’re not a WordPress member, please list an email address (I’m the only one who can see it) so I can contact you if you win.
This giveaway ends 1 week from now, at midnight (PST) on Thursday, July 24, 2014. **This giveaway has closed. Keep checking back for more giveaways!**
The Fine Print: Participation is optional. Void where prohibited by law. No purchase is necessary to participate. Available to US participants only. There will be one winner. Winner will be randomly selected. I will email the winner between Friday, July 25 – Saturday, July 26. The winner will have 72 hours to respond and provide me with shipping information so I can mail them their prize! If the winner does not respond within 72 hours, the winner forfeits the prize and another winner will randomly be selected (in which case the new winner will be notified and the same terms apply). The winner will be announced on this blog once eligibility has been confirmed. This giveaway is solely sponsored by Squarehead Teachers and is not affiliated with WordPress or any other sponsor. If you have additional questions, please contact me!
I saw some of these for sale on Pinterest recently. And I thought, “Shoot! I can make those easily and give them away for free!” So here they are, chevron print supply labels. I intentionally left them blank so you can use them for whatever you’d like. There are 8 on a sheet. Enjoy!
But why only use them in a classroom? Use them to organize things in your house too!
I know we’re not anywhere near Mother’s Day, but I wanted to share it with you while I had some time. I love those pages where kids write about their parents! They’re so sweet (and often hysterical!). I researched questions often found on these forms and made one with my favorite questions. Here you go:
Click here to download the free printable: All About Mom
One of the hardest skills for kids to learn is to keep track of many tasks on various time schedules. Providing students a weekly homework assignment sheet or planner. I’ve made two versions for you to use in your own classroom, or with your own children. I recommend that if you don’t use a planner in your classroom you provide one to your students’ parents for them to use with their families if they’d like. Here they are!
Click here for the free printables:
Weekly Homework Tracker – Horizontal
Weekly Homework Tracker – Vertical
At the beginning of the school year, the teacher and the students all want to get to know each other. Here’s a fun project that will also show you your students’ writing levels. Fill out the boxes on the planning page and then put them together on the second page into a cohesive paragraph. Then have students draw a picture of themselves. Put this up on a bulletin board for back-to-school open house, etc. Have a great school year!
Click here for the printable PDF: Back-to-School About Me Character Sketch
Giveaway coming later this week!
With summertime fun and sugary snacks providing so many distractions, can your children actually learn anything over the summer? Yes, they can, if you sneak in some science with fun activities like candy experiments.
Our family created candy experiments when my oldest daughter was four, and wanted to put Nerds in water. Since her first experiment, we have destroyed candy in dozens of ways and learned about chemistry, physics, and nutrition along the way. Here are a few of our favorites.
Melting: If summertime heat makes your kids complain that they’re going to melt, try melting candy to see what’s inside. If you microwave Starbursts, you’ll see shiny spots of oil that separate out from the candy. If you microwave chocolate, you might start the blooming process, in which unstable chocolate crystals start to move and separate, causing white cocoa butter “bloom” to form on the outside of the bar.
Cotton Candy Experiments: Some candy experiments use cotton candy, a summertime staple. To make cotton candy vanish, dip a puff of cotton candy in water. As capillary action carries water up the network of tiny candy strands, the water dissolves the candy from the bottom up. You can also weigh cotton candy to see how much sugar it really contains–you might be surprised to see that cotton candy is mostly air!
Find Hidden Candy: You’ll find hidden sugar in all sorts of summer snacks, from popsicles and ice cream bars to “healthy” power bars and sports drinks. To help your kids see how much “hidden candy” they’re eating, read the snack’s nutrition label to see how much sugar it contains. Then weigh candy on a kitchen scale until it matches the weight of the sugar on the label. Eating the snack would be like eating that amount of candy.
You’ll find more summer learning experiments in our book, Candy Experiments, or at www.candyexperiments.com. Enjoy summer learning!
Loralee Leavitt is the author of Candy Experiments, Road Tripping, and Candy Experiments 2 (coming in January 2015). Follow her candy adventures at www.candyexperiments.com
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