CHINESE NEW YEAR ACTIVITIES and RESOURCES

How do you celebrate the Chinese New Year? In my classroom, I use poetry to introduce the celebration. The following poem introduces some of the holiday traditions:

Chinese children will greet their parents and other adults by saying, "Gung Hay Fat Choy," which means wishing you great happiness and prosperity. Naturally, we greet the adults in our school with this phrase.

The dragon dance is often conducted in the streets during Chinese New Year. My students create a parade of their own using these templates:

We make a dragon for the parade, keeping in mind that the longer the dragon, the greater the luck it bestows.  To make the dragon's body, create an accordian fold. Use 2 strips of paper about 1.5" wide.  Choose different colors and make the strips as long as you like.  Begin by gluing the strips together. 

The head in these pictures is a template that can be colored or printed in color.

Of course I have a poem dedicated just to the Dragon Dance.

Along the way, I incorporate other learning. These activities are part of my Winter Poetry Possibilities unit. The possibilities provide a plethora of lessons from various disciplines.

GUNG HAY FAT CHOY!

 

It's About Time for M.L. King, Jr. Day!

It's about time, teachers, to get ready for MLK, Jr. Day! You may enjoy this FREE poetry resource. It comes with teaching possibilities and is best suited to intermediate students.

Enjoy!

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!

IT'S ABOUT TIME FOR HOLIDAY RESOURCES!

 

Teaching between Thanksgiving and winter break is a unique challenge.  The time is short but the days can be long. The key to survival is keeping your students engaged, while managing the excitement. Following are resources that I find useful:

FREEBIES

• Christmas Confections Square Puzzlers (Scrambled Squares) 
  
  
  

• Christmas SCRATTLE (math & word work) 
  
  
  

• Jingle, Jingle literacy center 
  
  
  

CRITICAL THINKING

• Reindeer Squares (Latin Squares)
• Christmas Hink Pinks, et al.  
• Christmas Vocabulary Fractions  

  

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS

• Green Tree Emergent Reader  
  
  
  

• Santa Emergent Reader  
  
  
  

• Rudolph Emergent Reader   
  

• Christmas Sight Word Coloring 
  
  
  

• Holiday Syllable Sort  
  
  
  

• Merry Monkeys Antonyms  
  
  
  

• Contractions Cookies
  
  
  

• Gingerbread Man Compound Words
  
  
  

• Alphabetical Order Toy Soldiers 
  

• Poetry Possibilities for December 
  
  
  

MATH

• Elf Riddles Computation task cards 
  
  
  

May your December be merry and bright!

IT'S FREEBIE TIME!

 

Because I'm thankful for all of my teacher friends, I'm offering this product for FREE this weekend. 

                                 

It makes a great math center for primary students. Watch the video to learn more about it.

Enjoy!

IT'S ABOUT TIME, TEACHERS, for HALLOWEEN!

 

Are you ready?  These Halloween TREATS will fill your teacher's bag with activities that will delight your students.  Many are applicable to multiple, elementary grades.  Take a look:

• literacy
• math
• literacy & math
• critical thinking
• fun

Fill your bag here.