It's About Time for Leap Year!

So jump on this FREEBIE that is refreshed, reformatted, and expanded for 2016.  

This is not a huge unit.  It's not full of rigor. It's just a little collection of activities to make Leap Day (Monday, 1/29) a bit more special for primary classes.

Included is a word activity asking students to create words from the letters in LEAP YEAR. The letter sets come in different colors to make sorting them easier.  This activity will initiate verbal fluency and provide practice with sight words.

LEAPING LIZARDS is an addition worksheet; quick and easy for you to prep.  Fun for the kiddos.

Another language activity that promotes fluency and flexibility is naming animals that leap. We have started a list that hangs on the bulletin board.  Adding animals to it makes a great sponge activity. (Having to wait until we have time for the sponge activity also helps develop patience!) 

We have had some very interesting discussions about whether certain animals, like monkeys, actually leap.  In the end, I let the students decide.

There are a couple of other activities suggested in this file.  Hopefully, you will find them worthwhile and incorporate them into your Leap Day plans.  

You may be interested in these products for March:

Another Valentine's Day Flash Freebie!

Today's FLASH FREEBIE is --     

There are 60 Heart Idiom Cards to extend your students' understanding of common idioms. Challenge your kiddos to match the idioms to their figurative meanings in a variety of ways:

• small group instruction
• partner work
• individual work
• literacy centers
• games (instructions included)
• whole class Scoot activity

Although it is offered as a Valentine flash freebie, Heart Idioms Cards is actually holiday neutral. Thus you can use it any time of the year and with all students.  Moreover, it is CCSS aligned.

If you take advantage of this freebie, TPT store followers and product feedback are greatly appreciated.

If your students love this product, check out these idiom products:

   

Be My Valentine FLASH FREEBIE!

Just in time for Valentine's Day, you can make my heart happy by trying Valentine's Day Square Puzzlers absolutely FREE!

If you are not familiar with square puzzlers, you are in for a treat! Here's how they work:

The 2x2 puzzler is perfect for introducing the task and can be solved by students as young as kindergarteners. The degree of difficulty increases exponentially with each iteration of the puzzlers. My intermediate enrichment students beg to do the 3x3 and 4x4 puzzlers.

These puzzlers are a wonderful challenge for any student in that they promote visual discrimination, problem solving, flexibility, and perserverance. 

Give square puzzlers a try. I think you'll like them.  But hurry.  They are only free today.

You may find that your students want more of this fun thinking challenge. Not to worry! Here are some other versions:

     

Super Bowl Flash Freebie

It's Super Bowl Sunday!

To celebrate, I'm offering a FLASH FREEBIE!

It's only FREE until the Super Bowl is over. Rush over to my TPT store to claim your copy.

New Files for a New Year

It's about time, teachers, to

I've been busy the last few weeks, refreshing and renewing my Hinky Pinky files.

Take the time to get the new files.  You'll be glad you did.

Happy new year!

Check out these files, also renewed and refreshed:

   

FLASH FREEBIE for 12/8/15

It's about time for a gift for the teachers! So here's a flash freebie.

          

Although this center has overtones of Christmas, it is actually holiday neutral in the materials your students use.  Thus, you can use it at any time of the year.  It's a great addition to any gingerbread man activities you may do, as well.

          Run, run

          As fast as you can!

         So you can catch

         This gingerbread man!

You may also like:

               

A Shopping Story

It's about time, teachers, for . . . 

holiday shopping. 

Thus, I took a trip to Target today to gather stocking stuffers (and whatever else jumped into my cart). Imagine my delight when what to my wondering eyes should appear --

but this forest of friends!

Since I decided last summer to create a Forest Friends classroom, I have been amazed at the number of products available in a forest theme. However, mittens and stocking caps, towels and sheets, shower curtains and crib mobiles were not priorities for my classroom. But these ornaments, well, that's a different story entirely.

I have visions of sugar plums forest friends dancing in my head. These little guys will be adorable hung about my room, adding swag to centers and shelves.  Now my dilemma is which ones to choose. The buri animals are a definite.  Their natural look is perfect.  But the fur wrapped birds and the scarf cloaked owls are so darn cute.  

The white knit animals are appealing, but perhaps impractical in the elementary school world. The little felt fox is mighty dapper, but not so natural looking.  The metal owls are bells. Pretty sure I have to have those.

Then I wandered over to Pier One and there were even more buri forest animals. Larger, but they were sporting small amounts of glitter. The glitter eliminated them from my wish list. 

I had to give myself a stern talking to about having priorities and making careful budget decisions, especially this month when expenses sky rocket. And so I drove home hoping that before I can get back to Target, they will have sold out of precious woodland wonders. OK, not really, because if they are still there when I go back it's a definite sign that I am meant to buy them! 

Some forest friends products you may like in your classroom: