GR8 PL8

It’s about time, teachers, for some creativity!  Here’s a fun project that is sure to get your students’ creative juices flowing.

Challenge your students’ creativity with vanity license plates.  Vanity plates are car license plates that convey a personalized message using just 8 letters and/or numbers.  Many vanity plates have cryptic messages that symbolize something important to the owner.  The message may tell something about the person’s:

appearance --   

personality --

accomplishment --

occupation -- 

or philosophy --

Present several examples, asking your students to deduce the meaning.  This will get your class into the right frame of mind for creating vanity plates. Then challenge them to design 2 vanity plates. 

The first license plate should describe someone or something well known.  For example:

• A famous person like Abe Lincoln, Frederick Douglas, or Christopher Columbus
• An occupation such as cook, artist, or computer programmer
• A fictional character like Cinderella, Superman, or the 7 dwarves
• A fictional place such as Never-Never Land or the Land of Oz
• A well-known site such as Mount Rushmore or the Eiffel Tower
• An historic event like the 1^st moon landing or the Civil War

The second license plate should describe something unique to the student.  It may be a personality trait, a favorite activity, a goal, an accomplishment, or a message s/he wishes to express. 

Encourage your students to think of several ideas before selecting the license plates that suit them best.  Fluency of ideas often leads to increased creativity.  Distribute 2 templates to your students and encourage them to use upper case letters.  Numbers can be used for words (1 for ONE or WON, 8 for EIGHT or ATE).  Alternate or incomplete spellings are absolutely acceptable (CS for SEES or SEAS, or EZ DUZ IT).  

Display the vanity plates on a bulletin board in the hall.  Then prepare for traffic jams as spectators gather to decipher the messages.  

You can download all the materials for this project for FREE at my TpT Store or TN Shop

 Enjoy!

Calendar Patterns

Young students love the comfort of a daily routine in their classroom.  One of the most universal routines is a morning meeting with calendar activities.  Lots of math concepts are inherent with calendar activities.  But, have you every incorporated patterning?  

Once September rolls around, I like to subtly introduce patterns on the calendar.  To do this, I provide apple cards for the calendar -- 

As the calendar starts to fill with apple cards, someone always notices that they make a color pattern.  Gotta love those "Aha!" moments!  Once that realization has been achieved, my students have a new challenge at calendar time:  predict what color the apple will be today.  

My first graders really get into this.  So naturally, I have to up the ante with the next month.  October brings autumn leaves --

The first few days of October are such fun as the children try to predict what the pattern will be.  By the 5th of October, the pattern becomes clear.  However, I'm not finished with the predictions...  Now my students have to predict such details as what kind of leaf it is, which direction the stem will point, is the leaf right side up or upside down...  

Common Core Standards are being addressed.  Visual discrimination is enhanced. Teaching time is being maximized.  Students are engaged and having fun.  Try it; you'll like it!

You can get both of these sets of calendar cards for FREE in my TpT store or TN shop.  If you like adding more content to your calendar activities, I have another product that offers icons for the entire year. 

Update 7/2015:

I have just added a new product that provides Calendar Icons in a forest friends theme.  Check it out!

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Poetry Anthologies

For some time, I have been blogging about poetry anthologies.  Many of you have responded, saying you are going to try poetry notebooks or anthologies this year.  Good for you!  

To help you get started, here's a poem I like to use for the 1st page of my students' anthologies.

Google Doc

This lighthearted poem implants the idea that poetry is fun; it makes you dance; it becomes a part of you.  I can't think of a better way to introduce poetry to students!  

Until next time. . .

Pinterest Price Dilemna

I had the good fortune to read Laura Candler's blog post about price tags on Pinterest.  In a nutshell, it seems unwise to put a price on items you pin because you may run a sale or change the price.  Laura suggests just putting $ on priced items to let pinners know it's not a freebie.  Laura's idea sounds great to me!  You can read her entire post here.  Thanks Laura!

End-of-summer, back to school, or out of this world...whatever you want to call the sale frenzy we are all in, I'm joining it!  Check out my Teachers Notebook shop.  

This sale is for EVERYTHING in my Teachers Notebook shop.  This sale lasts until 8/31/12.  Hurry on over!

Sneak into a New School Year -- Pt. 5

It's about time, teachers... to finish up Sneaker Day.

It's never too early to start your class writing stories.  For Sneaker Day, bring in an old, worn out, holey pair of sneakers.  Write a story as a whole class, giving the sneakers a history from the day they were made until today. 

Older and/or more capable students could write a chapter a day, giving you, the teacher, the opportunity to model writing traits and to "think out loud" as you record their ideas. Younger and/or less capable students could write a simple story about who wore the sneakers, where they have traveled, how the sneakers got their holes, etc.  Again, acting as the recorder, the teacher should model her thinking as she write the children's ideas.

Another activity for Sneaker Day is to give each child a blank sneaker outline.

Google doc

Ask them to design a new sneaker that is especially for school children.  What would they include in their special sneaker?  A calculator?  A ruler?  A computer?  A pencil sharpener? . . .  Extend this activity by having the students write about their sneaker's features.

Hopefully, you can use these Sneaker Day ideas to get your new school year off on the right foot!

If you liked these Sneaker Day activities, you may wish to download a copy of the them for FREE on TpT.

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Sneak into a New School Year -- Pt. 4

It's about time, teachers, ... for some creative expression on Sneaker Day. Following are some ideas for art projects.

Ask your students to make crayon rubbings of the soles of their sneakers. Newsprint works much better than construction paper. If you have left over crayons from last year, give those to your students to make the rubbings. They may be hesitant to peel the paper off their brand new box of crayons! For best results, students should rub in only 1 direction. "Scrubbing" back and forth often causes the paper to rip. For young children, taping the paper to the shoe is often helpful.

After all the students have completed their rubbings, you can use the rubbings to talk about patterns, shapes, texture, design, ... The rubbings could also be used for categorizing according to such things as shapes in the sole or added elements (brand name, logo, or designs).

For more fun, allow the students to swap shoes and make additional rubbings on the same piece of paper. Encourage them to use multiple colors. Let them decide when they have enough soles to make their picture complete.   

Another idea is to use a single rubbing and add details to it to make a picture.  

Notice that the fish artist used multiple colors to make the initial rubbing.  

Your class can make awesome, abstract paintings with shoelaces.  Collect several old shoelaces (even frayed and broken ones). Have the children dip one in tempera paint and then lay the shoelace on a piece of construction paper.

As the picture shows, you can use multiple colors of paint -- each color with its own shoelace.  Just be forewarned that unless you have extremely patient students who are willing to wait until the first color dries, you will eventually have shoelaces that are sporting multiple colors; not necessarily in a pleasing way.

To reduce the messy factor somewhat, tie one end of the shoelace to an old pencil that will span the width of the paint container. Then students can lift the shoelace out of the paint without immersing their fingers.  

There are many variations of this project. Make it a printing project by placing another sheet of paper on top of the shoelace that was placed on the paper as above.  By gently pressing down on the top paper, you will produce a negative print of the bottom paper. My preferred method for doing this is to simply fold a 9" x 12" piece of construction paper in half first.  Then put the paint soaked shoelace on one half; fold the other half over the top of the shoelace.  Unfold and you will have a lovely, symmetric print.

Start with the folded construction paper as described above. Again put the shoelace on just one half of the paper, leaving an inch or so hanging out.  Fold the paper over the top of the shoelace.  Then, applying pressure to the paper with one hand, pull the string out slowly.  This will create a lovely smeared effect.  I especially like to do this project with white paint on black paper or black paint on white paper.  The display is really striking.

Until next time --

Sneak into a New School Year - Pt. 3 Math Centers

It's about time, teachers, ... to talk about math centers and math activities on Sneaker Day.

No Sneaker Day would be complete without including a graphing activity. Whole class graphs are fun and easy. Line your students' sneakers up in front of the class and ask them to name some attributes they notice.  Use those suggestions or one of these:

• brand
• color (all 1 color, 2 colors, 3...)
• size
• closure (laces, Velcro, slip-ons, ...)
• high tops/low tops
• special features (lights, sequins, pumps, ...)

After you complete 1 or more whole class graphs, you can easily make this activity a math center. Small groups will graph their sneakers, only.

Have each child measure his sneaker using unifix cubes. Ask the children to take their tower of cubes around the room in search of another child with the same number of cubes in his stack.  You have the opportunity to observe and note how children determine if their towers are the same length (counting, comparing side by side, 1-to-1 matching, …). If the activity is going well, extend the assignment to find someone whose sneaker is longer, shorter, 3 cubes longer, 2 cubes shorter, etc. Again, after teaching the task, this activity can be extended by making it a math center activity.

Another math activity for Sneaker Day is patterning. Have your students make crayon rubbings of the soles of their sneakers.  Use the rubbings for creating patterns of footsteps. The rubbings can also be placed in a math center. There, students can sort them according to various attributes you specify. Older or more advanced students could use the rubbings to create categories of their own making.  

Venn Diagrams are another activity that could be modeled to the whole group and subsequently placed in a math center.  

There are more activities for Sneaker Day to come, so sneak back soon.