I take any opportunity to make Halloween crafts with kids. It’s the best time of the year, to do crazy, spooky, silly stuff! These are pretty easy crafts and are great for a wide range of ages (preschool through 6th grade), so check em’ out!
Directions for paper plate ghosts
Directions for Paper strip pumpkin
Directions for Halloween pumpkin mobile
Directions for Halloween hand and foot print ghosts craft
Click here to learn about the Halloween puppets
I had a request to make this biography template. I made one for lower grades (includes spaces for name, life information, contributions and picture) and one for upper grades (includes spaces for name, birth/death, early life, adult life, contributions, picture). Click here for the free printable PDFs:
When I first started teaching, I didn’t know what to call each reading group. Although students are grouped by reading level, you can’t name them with numbers or letters (or anything that indicates one’s higher or lower than another, even though students will figure it out eventually). So I chose animals our school had die-cuts for. But I wish I had heard of this idea before I named the groups!
One Arizona teacher names her groups after the various desert cactus plants in her region. She teaches the kids how to pronounce them and has a picture on the wall next to the name, so the kids will become more educated about their region! So smart!! Here are her posters of the cactus reading group pictures. This is a great way to sneak a little extra learning into your classroom.
One of my teacher friends recently told me that their district just changed their policies to outlaw traditional spelling tests. Instead they do “dictation” with a small set of spelling words (8-10 for second grade). The set of words all focus on specific sounds. For example, they might choose “kn” or “sh” or “eigh” that week. Every day the teacher hands out a sheet (similar to the one below) and says the sounds and the students have to write the sound. Then the teacher says a sentence that includes one or more of the words for the week and the kids have to write it. The sentences are the same on Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday. Then on Friday, the teacher chooses one sentence from Monday and one sentence from Tuesday. It’ll be interesting to see how much better/worse the students are at spelling because of this new system.
Grammar dictation sheet (16 lines)- PDF
Dictation sheet PDF- 10 lines
I fell in love with the idea of grammatical poetry when I saw it. It turns out fun and silly poem and gives kids a painless, quick review of grammar! Here’s a free printable template for fall grammatical poetry. Click here for the Grammatical Poetry- fall. Enjoy!
Anchor charts are a staple in any elementary school classroom. Here are some truly inspired ones:
Group work expectations anchor chart
Ways to compare fractions anchor chart
I never get tired of Pinterest. There are so many great ideas, and it’s just fun! Here are some of my favorite finds as of late…
Use clips to connect the letter cards to make words. Also helps develop fine motor skills… and it’s just a fun way to activity to use with spelling words! (source)
Make a salt tray and grab some alphabet cards. Easy to make and kids have fun smoothing out the salt after correctly making the letter. (source)
Craft a kite that displays contractions! Super simple, and it would make a great classroom bulletin board! (source). Click here for more activities using contractions.
Converting within the metric system (from km to mm, for example) is easy, but sometimes it’s still nice to review… since it’s been forever since you had to (America doesn’t use the Metric system very often)! This short video should help refresh your memory!
Squarehead Teachers 