Start the School Year on the Right Foot

 

Start the new school year off on the right foot with one sole-full day of activities.

This thematic unit is the perfect way to introduce your learners to each other, classroom  procedures, expectations, as well as multiple curricular disciplines.

Kick off  the new school year by having a SNEAKER DAY!  Invite your students to wear sneakers to school, then fill the day with math, writing, art, and get acquainted activities.

Send a note home to alert parents to their child's need to wear sneakers.

Then use those sneakers for math:

• collect data and create graphs

• measurement

• Venn diagrams

• estimation 

• counting and computation

• and much more!

Sneak in some ELA:

• descriptive words

• writing center with prompts

• and more!

Step up to some arts and crafts:

• sole-full rubbings

• shoestring painting

• and more!

You will love sneaking into a new year!

You may also like:

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

TEACHING RESOURCES for THE MITTEN

Winter brings mitten weather. So what could be better for your primary classroom than a study of THE MITTEN?  I love to immerse my class in all things mitten while we study various versions of this Ukranian folktale.

We begin our week long study by reading all the versions of the folktale I can find. The above 3 are available in my library. Then I provide a plethora of materials with the mitten theme.

One of my favorite winter bulletin board displays is this one:

It is not only a winter display, but provides an awesome math center, anchor activity, sponge activity, enrichment, &/or fast finishers' challenge. Learn more about it from this video:

This thematic unit has literacy centers, math centers and printables. It is available on TPT Easel for digital learning. Explore its offerings by watching this video:

Mitten math centers include:

Practice number sense and numeracy with Mitten Math. It is available on TPT Easel for digital learning. 

This video explains its numeracy activities:

Glyphs are always popular with my learners. This activity also provides a fun display. Watch the video to see what it offers:

Although my curriculum map does not include graphing at this time of year, I like to spiral my students' exposure to these skills.  This product offers 9 graphing sets with differentiation built in. Video follows:

Latin Squares combine math & critical thinking.  They are open ended activities that can challenge even the most gifted of students. This product is available on TPT Easel for digital learning. Learn more here:

Mitten literacy centers include:

Establish a literacy center focused on antonyms and synonyms. It's 2 centers in one and it is available on TPT Easel for digital learning. Here's a video introduction:

Matching Mittens gives practice with onset & rime. This center is differentiated to give more challenge to those who need it. It,too, is available on TPT Easel for digital learning. See it in action here:

Sight word practice is always beneficial.  These color-by-word printables with delight your pupils. See more about them with this video:

You can also exercise CRITICAL THINKING while studying The Mitten. Mitten Square Puzzlers are learning disguised as fun.  They, too, provide varying levels of challenge for differentiation. To see how they work, watch this:

You can buy a bundled version of all of these products.  The bundle saves you 20% over the individual prices, PLUS, the bulletin board math center, How Many Ways?, is included for FREE! 
 

Happy winter teaching!

Sneak into a New School Year!

It's about time, teachers, to go back to school. Sneak into a New School Year by having a Sneaker Day! Invite your students to wear sneakers, then fill the day with math, writing, art, and get acquainted activities. You'll have a sole-ful day and your new school year will start on the right foot!

Activities in this FREE product include:

• Get acquainted sneaker identification
• Math 
• Estimation
• Graphs 
• Venn diagrams
• Measurement 
• Sorting 
• Writing
• Arts & crafts
• Crayon rubbings
• Symmetric prints
• Original designs
• Behavior expectations 
• Hallway etiquette
• Brag tags (color and gray scale)

This unit is CCSS aligned.

Sneak into a New School Year is FREE this weekend.  Then it will become priced as I add a literacy center to it. So if you download it now, you will get the expanded unit for free, as well. You'll just have to remember to go back and download the new version.

After Sneaker Day, you can extend the learning and fun with Step Right Up! Thematic Unit.

As always, I greatly appreciate your feedback on TPT.

There's only 1 thing more precious than our time and that's who we spend it with.

                                                             --Leo Christopher 

WOW! Weekend 3/31 - 4/2

It's about time, teachers, for another WOW Weekend!  This weekend, my fresh-from-the-farm products are FREE!

Included in this giveaway are 2 thematic units:

There are 4 math centers available:

Also included are 4 literacy units:

  

There's also a fun glyph!

I hope this will help you sow the seeds of learning and reap huge rewards.