IT'S ABOUT TIME for WINTER RESOURCES!

 

It's officially winter!  Hopefully, you are on winter break.  Kick back, relax, and enjoy your holidays. 

Then, look ahead to your winter lessons. Planning now will make your return to school ever so much easier. Check out these winter resources to help you:

The WINTER EDITION of POETRY POSSIBILITIES provides each poem with a teaching point about poetry, skill lessons, writing models & prompts, and activities. 

Learn about Mortimer Moose’s life in the Great North Woods through these 20 word problem task cards.  Skills under study include addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, as well as averages, fractions, elapsed time, critical thinking, and H.O.T.S.

WINTER SQUARE PUZZLERS are fun, yet challenging brain teasers. They exercise critical thinking & problem solving, build perseverance & stamina, and stimulate the brain while disguising it all as fun.

These puzzles exercise concepts about geometry (transformation, rotation, congruence, symmetry, etc.). WINTER TANGRAMS are printable & include a tangram template.

Because tangrams are so much fun, here's a 2nd set just for winter.

Use these winter themed, coloring printables to give your primary learners fun practice with Dolch sight words. 

NEW DIGITAL RESOURCES

 

  

I'm proud to announce the launch of 3 new digital products for teachers of grades 3-6.  THINKING CORNER will provided daily brain challenges to your students. They require higher order thinking skills and perserverance to solve.

THINKING CORNER slides are wonderful for:

• daily bell ringer activity
• distance learning
• computer laboratory lessons
• technology center activities
• fast finishers
• enrichment/differentiation challenges

Each slide requires learners to solve 5 puzzles:

• Hink Pinks or Hinky Pinkies
• 

  
• Mystery Math or Monster Math
• 

  
• Triads
• 
• Word Ladders
• 
• Word Winkers
• 

Try it before you buy it.  There is a free version that provides 1 week of challenges as a preview.

THINKING CORNER Vol. 1 provides a full semester of daily challenges.  

Vol. 2 of THINKING CORNER supplies another semester of them.

These resources are available digitally on TPT's Easel platform.  No print product is available.  THINKING CORNER is CCSS aligned.

These resources are no prep.  That's a win for teachers!!  Students find them to be fun and engaging.  A win for students!!

SANTA CLAUS CONTRACTIONS

 

One of my favorite, December activities with  first graders is making Santa Claus Contractions books. They write the text and add the illustrations.  All you need to do is supply the booklets.

To create the booklets, simply put several sheets of writing paper inside a construction paper cover.  You can provide the cover copy and illustration, or not!  They can certainly make their own.

Next I demonstrate writing a sentence containing a contraction, then make a quick illustration.

Finally, I send them off to do their writing and drawing.  The books they produce provide insight into which children may need more contractions instruction.  Their compilations always make me smile.

If you try this project, consider these suggestions:

1. You can easily differentiate the assignment by limiting or increasing the number of pages in the booklet.
2. Challenge your more capable writers to include more than one contraction in the sentence. (See the last page above.)
3. Discourage the use of markers. Those sheets of writing paper with illustration space at the top are thin! The marker will bleed through. Encourage the children to use crayons or colored pencils.

MY DAUGHTER'S 1st PUBLISHED BOOK!

 I am so proud and excited to share that my daughter, Reed McCloskey, has published her first children's book.

Many Greetings, Many Faces is a delightful, lilting rhyme that introduces fanciful animals made by combining two creatures. It is available on Amazon in hardcover and paperback. It would be a fabulous gift for your favorite child!

Check it out!

It's Time for Holiday Resources

 

 Check out these FREEBIES --

LANGUAGE ARTS resources --

MATH resources --

CRITICAL THINKING resources --

REINDEER LIMERICKS

Say what? REINDEERICKS are  limericks about reindeer. 

Like all limericks, REINDEERICKS have a specific structure:

• They are 5 lines long.  
• The first, second, & fifth lines have 8 beats each and rhyme with each other.  
• The third and fourth lines have five beats each and rhyme with each other.

Here's an example:

REINDEERICKS make a fun writing assignment during these days before Christmas.  If your students need help getting the rhythm, have them recite Humpty Dumpty several times. 

Use their REINDEERICKS to create a fun bulletin board. Ask your poets to read their limericks to another class. Celebrate the season!