Snapshot of Spring Break (Writing/Drawing Activity)

Posted on April 13, 2015 by Squarehead Teachers

Spring Break Snapshot STICKER

Spring Break. Everyone needs the break, but it’s crazy town trying to get kids back on track afterwards. Everyone wants to tell everyone else how their break went, but there’s not really time! So try this approach: Have each kid fill out this page (writing or drawing, whichever you prefer), and then let kids go share their page with 2 or 3 other students. And move on with life! You can provide an opportunity for everyone to share while practicing some basic skills… all in 15-20 minutes!

Click here to view the free PDF: Snapshots of Spring Break

Self-Portrait Color Wheel (Collaborative Mural)

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Squarehead Teachers

My friend, Rachel, recently helped coordinate this mind-blowing art project at her school:

I. LOVE. THIS. IDEA.

It incorporates so much good stuff into one project! Collaboration, color wheel discussion, self-portrait and drawing principles, and the list goes on. It’s especially cool to see the improvement kids make in drawing as they get older (there were drawings from all grades in the mural). Although it is a fair amount of work to put together, this art project is definitely something that all the kids (and community members) will love to look at. Finally, the kids who participated can feel a sense of accomplishment knowing that they contributed and that as part of a team, they accomplished something they could never do on their own. Great job, Rachel!

Here’s some information about how you can organize this project.

Download Free Art Books from Famous Museums

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Squarehead Teachers

As teachers, we love finding free resources. So naturally, my heart leaped when I found two articles about hundreds of free art books you can download from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Click here to read the article about the Getty’s books and click here to read about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s books.

The article also contained links to articles about images being put into the public domain for free use. Hooray for open educational resources! Looking for more openly licensed (free to use!) K-12 content? Click here to check out Open Culture’s section on K-12.

Easter Bunny Application (Writing Activity)

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Squarehead Teachers

Happy Easter, everyone! As I was making this page, I couldn’t help but smile thinking of all the silly things kids would write on an application to be the Easter Bunny! This will definitely be a fun Easter writing prompt for kids!

Easter Bunny Application Sticker

Click here to download the free PDF: Easter Bunny Application

If you do this with your class, snap a photo of your favorite and I’ll post it!

Lord Of the Rings Classroom Ideas

Posted on March 31, 2015 by Squarehead Teachers

Some teachers like to have a theme for their classroom. If you’re into Lord of the Rings, or your class reads Lord of the Rings as literature, you may enjoy these ideas (that I found on Pinterest!)

Encourage your kids to become familiar with your school’s library website

(I could not find the source for any of these photos, so if they’re yours, please let me know!) Any other ideas for a Lord of the Rings classroom theme? Comment below! Thanks!

April Fool’s Day is Almost Here!

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Squarehead Teachers

April Fool's STICKER Don’t forget that April Fool’s Day 2015 is next Wednesday! Have you already figured out activities or your teacher prank to knock the socks off your students? Check out these ideas:

Shrinking Attendance Clips

Brownies … or is it Brown E’s?

No Prep April Fool’s Day Pranks for Teachers

More April Fool’s Day Pranks for Teachers

The History of April Fool’s Day (printable)

Shape Fractions (Introduction to Fractions)

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Squarehead Teachers

$Shape fractions STICKER$

There are tons of ways to introduce fractions. But no matter how you do it, you need to help students understand that you’re looking at part of a whole. Here’s a page I’ve used with my class (focusing on the numerator). I do this type of activity before I ask kids to draw both parts (numerator and denominator). Hope you’re having a fabulous school year!

Click here for the free printable PDF: Shape Fractions

Student Self-Evaluation for Parent Teacher Conferences

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Squarehead Teachers

Self Evaluation Preview

Parent teacher conferences are stressful. There are so many things that teachers want to show parents that it’s hard to remember everything! Hand each of your students one of these pages and let them tell their parents about how they’ve done! One less thing for you to do! Also, I’ve found that giving students a self-reflection page before handing out grades, helps kids be less surprised by their grades.

Get the free PDF from my recent post over at We Are Teachers!