Halloween Creatures Crafts & Writing Project for Kids

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

I was browsing some teacher blogs recently and came across these adorable pictures of Bride of Frankenstein and Frankenstein (source), paper plate monster and witch:

(Students used green construction paper to make the head and legs (folded strips). They added black construction paper for hair (big hair with a white stripe for Bride), then added googley eyes, white for the screws coming out and some scars with markers/crayons. (Click the images below for the original post.)

And I started thinking of how you could use these crafts (or any Halloween creatures crafts) as a base for a writing project (not just the page in some of the picture)! How fun would it be to do a character “sketch” (description) for your spooky new friend?! So here’s the planning sheet I made to do after you finish making the craft. Have your students put at least 1 thing in each box. Click here for the PDF: Halloween Character Sketch graphic organizer

Once you’ve got it all planned out on the graphic organizer, put it into a paragraph. For older kids, challenge them to do multiple paragraphs. Maybe assign a 5 paragraph essay (choose 3 boxes to turn into body paragraphs). Then post the finished crafts and writing on a super spooky bulletin board to showcase your students’ work! Happy Halloween!

Fall Break Report (Easy writing project!)

Posted on October 12, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

When kids come back from a week off, they’re dying to tell their friends all about it! And they probably want to tell you, the teacher, all about it too! So here’s a simple writing activity to do the first day back from fall break that will let everyone share their adventures!

Click here for the free printable PDF: Fall Break Write Up

Practice Writing Dialogue with Funny Animal Pictures

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

Kids sometimes struggle with knowing how to punctuate dialogue in their writings. So here’s a way fun activity for you to practice this as a whole class. Print out a copy of these pictures of animals in Halloween costumes and put them under your document camera. If you’ve got a way to connect your computer to your projector, then you don’t have to print the pages. But either way, show the class the picture and decide on a sentence to write as a class. Point out where quotation marks go and how the fit with whatever punctuation mark is at the end. If you want some independent practice, have your kids write their sentences on personal whiteboards so they can hold it up to show you. Happy (grammatically correct) Halloween!

Click here for the free printable PDFs: Halloween Costume Animals – dialogue practice

Make Your Own Visual Creative Writing Prompts

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

I was helping a fellow teacher go through her classroom and we found tons of interesting posters and pictures she’d collected over the years. It had been hard for her to incorporate everything into lessons, but she didn’t want to part with them. Here was our solution: use them as writing prompts! It took about 10 seconds per poster and we paper clipped each prompt to the poster so she could slap them on the board really quickly. We wrote each prompt by hand, but we could have easily just typed them. We wrote potentially new vocabulary words in a different color, so she could point it out to students if they needed help spelling, etc. These were a few of the many prompts we made:

This same idea could be easily applied to a variety of ways. Use pictures of historical people, events and places to review social studies. Give a strange picture from a magazine to your child when they begin a car ride, and have them write down a certain number of nouns, verbs, or adjectives before the ride is over in order to earn a special something. But whatever you do, have fun with it!

Bio Poetry For Kids

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

Bio Poems can be written by students to describe the lives of real people as creative writing exercise, or fictional characters to demonstrate reading comprehension. Bio Poems could even be written about inanimate objects. There are a variety of formulas for writing a bio poem. Here are 2 of the most common formulas:

Your name

Child of…

Who loves…

Who hates…

Who wants to go to…

Who wishes he/she could’ve met…

Who is scared of…

Who dreams of…

Who is determined to…

Who values…

Who is proud of…

Who graduated from…

Who lives…

Your name again

Source

First name

Three or four adjectives that describe the person

Important relationship (daughter of . . . , mother of . . . , etc)

Two or three things, people, or ideas that the person loved

Three feelings the person experienced

Three fears the person experienced

Accomplishments (who composed . . . , who discovered . . . , etc.)

Two or three things the person wanted to see happen or wanted to experience

His or her residence

Last name

Source

It’s always fun to share or display the bio poems. One teacher had her students tear pieces of construction paper to create artwork of their face to put up next to the student’s bio poem. You could easily adapt this project to describe historical figures, events, etc. by changing the formula.

Kindergarten Sight Words List (Updated)

Posted on August 24, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

Here’s my list of kindergarten sight words. They’re organized by month of the school year, and each month includes a color word to focus on. This would also be a great list of words to start working on with your preschooler if you’re looking to get a jump on literacy!

Click here for the free printable PDF: Kinder Sight Words by Month

kindergarten sight words by month

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It’s Not Just “Red”… It’s “Vermilion!” (Synonyms Group Activity)

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

Teaching kids to use “good words” in their writing is hard. It’s not always easy to find a good synonym for “red” but this activity should help broaden their diction horizons. Divide your class into 10 groups. Pass out one color synonym sheet and a thesaurus to each group. Instruct each group to find as many synonyms for their color as possible. Then have them draw a border around their sheet using the color they searched. Post these somewhere in the room for a few days so students can browse the synonyms.

Click here for the PDF: synonyms- color collection

This same idea can be done with common nouns and adjectives such as “big,” “said,” “like,” “fast,” etc. Here are some photos of this idea being used in a classroom…

Monster List of Random Questions

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Squarehead Teachers

monster list of random questions sticker

While teaching English conversation in China, I always started the class with a warm up question(s) or conversation starter(s). My students could talk *IN ENGLISH* to any class member near them. Then we would have 2 students tell the whole class their answer to the warm up question(s). The students knew that once in the semester they had to answer in front of the whole class, so they could volunteer or take the point deduction if they didn’t volunteer sometime during the semester. Here are some questions I brainstormed while planning for the semester (Some of these conversation starters make good writing prompts too):

My idea of hard work is…
My worst fear is…
A miserable feeling is when…
What I did last night (or last weekend)…
What I am doing tonight (or next weekend)…
What really bothers me…
What really excites me…
What really scares me…
What really surprises me…
The funniest thing I ever saw was…
The scariest thing I ever saw was…
I really hate it when…
I really wonder about…
What food have you tried (thinking you’d hate it) and you liked it?
If I could fly I would…
When I’m old…
Fifteen things I want to do in my lifetime:
Love is…
Friendship is…
Being happy is…
When I graduate from college…
My best birthday…
In 20 years, I will be…
I was most angry when…
My safe place is…
Three items I would place in a time capsule. Why?
I don’t leave home without ______ because…
If I could move anywhere (on earth)…
If I could apologize to one person…
If I could make all the rules…
If I could speak to animals…
If I could climb a rainbow…
If I could change shape…
If I could meet anyone in the world…
If I could ride on the Magic School Bus…
If I had a brontosaurus…
If I had 3 wishes, I would wish for…
If I had $1,000,000…
If I had a twin…
If I had an airplane…
If I were stuck in an elevator…
If I were in a blizzard…
If I were stranded in the woods…
If I were one inch tall…
If I were invisible…
If I were a rock…
If I were a movie star…
If I lived in a castle…
If I lived in a cave…
If I lived in a tree…
If I lived in a spaceship…
If I lived underwater…
If I lived on a mountain…
If I won the lottery…
If I got to be captain of a boat…

What color do you think love is?

What color do you think hate is?

What is something you do well?

What is your favorite room in your house and why?

What is the worst thing parents can do to their children?

What is your favorite time of day?

What is your idea of a dull evening?

What is something you are optimistic about?

What is something you are pessimistic about?

What is the best birthday present you ever received?

What is the best birthday present you could receive?

What is something that makes you feel sad?

What is something that really bugs you?

What is something that really makes you angry?

What is the best advice you ever received?

What would happen if you could fly whenever you wanted?

What would you do if there were no TV?

What would happen if animals could talk? What are some of the questions you would like to ask animals?

What would you do if you found ancient artifacts in your backyard?

What do you do if you got a present you don’t like?

If you could have been someone in history, who would you have been?

If you could only take 3 people with you on a trip around the world, who would you take and why?

If you could give any gift in the world, what would you give and to whom?

If you could do whatever you wanted to right now, what would you do?

If you were five years older you would…

If it were your job to decide what shows can be on TV., how would you choose?

If you could participate in an Olympic event, which one would you choose and why?

If you could break the Guinness Book of Records it would be for?

If you had to describe yourself as a color, which would you choose?

What do you think of 3D movies?

What do you think the world needs now?

What do you think about ghosts?

What do you think about when you can’t fall asleep?

What do you think are the 5 most important in making a happy family?

What do you like most about yourself?

What are the 6 things you do most in your free time?

What makes you feel safe?

What makes you laugh?

What would you invent to make life better (I think I know an answer to this one!)?

What would you do to entertain your family without spending any money?

What three words would describe you right now?

What color makes you think of happiness?

How do you feel when you are in bed with the lights out?

How do you feel on a warm sunny day?

How do you feel during a thunderstorm?

How do you feel on the first day of school?

How do you feel when your parents are upset with you? Why do they become upset with you?

I wish I could be like…. (person) because….

I wish there were a law that said…..

I wish I could forget the time I ….. because….

I wish I could see…… because…..

I wish I could learn….. because…..

I wish I didn’t have to eat……

I wish everyone would learn to …..

I wish I never……

I wish I had one more chance to….. Then I would…..

I wish there was an electric……

I wish I had enough money to……

I wish there were no more…..

I wish I didn’t have to…..

I wish I could go to…..

I wish there really was…..

I wish I could hear……

I wish I could give……

If all my wishes came true, I would……

When you are angry, how do you look?

When are you happiest?

Who do you talk to when you have a problem?

Who is your favorite Star Wars character (or other movie/book/t.v. show, etc.)?

Who or what has had a strong influence in your life?

Where would you prefer to be right now–mountains, desert, beach–and why?

Describe your mom’s wedding dress – what do you know about your parent’s wedding?
What jobs has your dad had? Which one did he like the best?

What is your mom’s best trait?
What is your dad’s best trait?
What’s one word on how to live successfully?
What is your child-raising philosophy?
Do you wish you had more sisters or brothers, and why?
How do you like being the youngest kid in your family? Advantages? disadvantages?
Tell about a frustrating experience that you have had with a car.
Who is your favorite Apostle? Why?

What is your personal secret of happiness?
What is the most important lesson, message, or advice that you have learned that you might pass on to others?

What first comes to mind when you hear these things?
Green eggs and ham…
Jellybeans…
Worms…
Shoes…
Aliens…
Good luck charms…
Haunted houses…
Clowns…
Chores…
Homework…
Sports…
Dancing…
Flying…
Fishing…
Cooking…
Playing…