IT'S ABOUT TIME, TEACHERS, for MARCH!

It's about time, teachers. . . for March winds to blow in some springtime sun and weather.  Where I live, in central IL, it's beautiful, sunny, and unseasonably warm. And the wind is blowing gusts in excess of 30 mph!  

Since March is blowing in, it's time to start some March poetry; my passion.  One of my favorite 1st grade poetry activities is. . .

Use the following poem for handwriting practice. As you write each line of the poem on the board for your students to copy, you have the perfect opportunity to conduct myriad mini-lessons.  Think out loud with your students as you capitalize the proper nouns, insert punctuation, read the punctuation, notice rhyming words, apply suffixes, highlight high frequency words, . . . The possibilities are almost endless, the review priceless, and the ability to succeed guaranteed.  (The latter being 1 of the chief reasons I prize handwriting practice so much.)

March 

March is blowing, 

Huffity puff.

March is showing 

Liony stuff.

March is crying, 

"I really am,

Trying to be 

An April lamb."

              by Carol Quinn

Reward their hard work by having them create lions and lambs from paper plates. My craftivities for this are pretty simple, straightforward, and time friendly (since we all have to feel the urgency in educating our students).  

Each student will need 2 plain white paper plates, crayons, 5 or 6 cotton balls, crayons, glue, and construction paper scraps.

The lion is easiest.  Using their crayons, the students draw a lion's face on the flat, center section of the plate.  Then color the mane on the bumpy part, interspersing shades of brown and yellow.

The lamb takes a bit more time. We created everything on the lamb using scraps of construction paper, except the mouth.  You could simplify this by using crayons or markers to make the eyes and nose, as well.  But, I think it's well worth the time to make the eyelids with curly eyelashes.  Glue cotton balls on the forehead, or, if you have a plethora of cotton balls, they could be glued all around the bumpy part of the plate. 

You can see that we staple the ears on. After many years of trying to glue them, let me tell you, it just doesn't work.  So break out the stapler and move on.

Use the products to create 2 displays:  

• Make a bulletin board graph using these crafts.  Have your students place their lion or lamb in the appropriate cell of the graph according to their prediction of March's entry. [BTW, a really quick and easy way to make lines on the bulletin board is to use yarn.]  

• Attach the other paper plate craft to the poem.  Display these examples of their handwriting.

Now, March winds, do your work; blow winter away and usher in spring.

You may like these March resources:

IT'S ABOUT TIME for DOLLAR DEALS

 

I've teamed up with a group of awesome intermediate teachers to bring you 2 days of dollar deals.  On March 12 & 13, use #345dollardeals to find great products for your 3rd - 5th grade learners on TPT.  

Here are my offerings:

ST. PATRICK'S DAY TEACHING RESOURCES

It's about time, teachers, for St. Patrick's Day! These resources will be perfect for this week...

FREEBIES

CRITICAL THINKING

ELA

MATH

THEMATIC UNIT

March Teaching Resources

 

Are you ready for all things March? Prepare your classroom and lessons for this special month that ushers in spring.

What could be better than a bulletin board that serves as a math center? 

Challenge your students' critical thinking and fluency as they determine how many ways they can reach the target number. The task is similar to Boogle™ for numbers. Post the operation symbols and the target number you choose to easily differentiate the task.

Try this FREEBIE:

SCRATTLE is a differentiated, math and literacy, learning center activity that combines word work with computation; individual effort with competition. As in Scrabble™, students use a set of letters to create words. After recording their words, they calculate each word’s score using the letter values. Then they engage a friend in a battle wherein they compare their scores using >, <, and =. The student with the most >s wins the battle! (SCRAbble + baTTLE = SCRATTLE!)

This brand new resource is specially made for TPT Easel. (No print product is available.) 

Students will exercise deductive reasoning, inferencing, drawing conclusions, sequencing, problem solving, and computation.

It simply wouldn't be a fresh, new month without a new poetry unit.

POETRY POSSIBILITES for MARCH is a collection of 11 poems about St. Patrick’s Day, March weather, signs of spring, and kites. Each poem is followed by a page of teaching possibilities. These possibilities include a teaching point pertaining to poetry, as well as custom designed skill lessons and activities from multiple disciplines.

St. Patrick's Day FREEBIES

Sure an' you'll be wearin' the green for St. Patrick's Day.  And it's lucky you'll be if you snag these FREEBIES for your classroom.

Both you and your students will feel extra lucky when learning is this fun! Skills involved in solving these riddles include: 

• vocabulary development 

• parts of speech 

• synonyms

• rimes

• HOTS

In this packet, you will find 32 cards with St. Patrick’s Day-themed clues. The cards are copy ready; just print on pink card stock, laminate, cut apart, and you have them for years to come. The answer key is included. 

You can use these as a warm-up activity, a sponge activity, or in a literacy center. Fast finishers love working on the solutions. If your class is unfamiliar with Hink Pinks, Hinky Pinkies, & Hinkity Pinkities, solve several together to model your problem solving.

Luck o' the Irish is a one week creativity challenge for your students to complete at home. They then bring their results to school to share with the class. The intention of this product is to enhance 2 of the four traits of gifted and talented students: fluency and flexibility. Although originally created for G/T students, I find it works perfectly well with heterogeneous groups of students. 

The challenge in this project is to seek out superstitions and symbols of good luck. Students will then create a t-chart listing superstitions that promise us good and bad luck. They are encouraged to share the t-chart with the class, along with a good luck charm they may own.

This creative thinking project is from the Destination: Imagination via Creative Thinking, Vol. 1 files. If you and your students like this challenge, you may wish to check out the larger products:

 

Scrattle: St. Patrick's Day Edition is a learning center activity that combines word work with computation; individual effort with competition. 

As in Scrabble™, students use a set of letters to create words. After recording their words, they calculate each word’s score using the Scrabble™ letter values. Then they engage a friend in a battle wherein they compare their scores using >, <, and =. The student with the most >s wins the battle! (SCRAbble + baTTLE = SCRATTLE!)

SCRATTLE can be played by students with simple addition capabilities, as well as those skilled in solving mixed operations in complex equations. Three different recording sheets are included, providing instant differentiation. 

Enjoy!

You may also like these March products:  

High Flying Kites

It's about time for flying kites, teachers!

Here's an idea for a center, individual work, or partners' activity.

  

Create colorful kites from construction paper. Write a number in the center of each shape. Laminate the kites. Then give a kite to each group or individual. Instruct your students to use wipe-off markers to write as many math facts as they can about the given number. Post the kites on a bulletin board.  Allow students to create tails for their kites using string and pieces of crepe paper.  They can add a colorful tie for each fact they wrote.

Obviously this activity can be used for any operation and within whatever range of numbers are appropriate to your students.  It could also be used for seasonal words and their synonyms or other vocabulary exercises.

My favorite way of doing these kites is to have partners work together. This increases their perseverance and improves accuracy.

March products you may enjoy: