CYBER SALE 2020

 

We are having a sale

Our entire TPT store has been set to 20% off. By using the code CYBER20 you can also score a 5% discount at checkout.

Best time to buy

Our store has never been bigger or better! Now is the time to secure everything that has been on your wishlist this year in readiness for a magnificent 2021 (can I get an Amen). 

Most of our bundles are already discounted to the full 50% and with the additional 25% today, there truly is no better day to shop!

Our favourites

We know you are very busy at this special time of year, so here are some helpful links to assist your browsing:

• Bundles
• Most recently published
• Christmas resources
• One Page Crafts
• Directed Drawing
• Scissor Skills bundle
• Math Packs (sequenced kindergarten and first grade centers)
• Play dough mats
• Free resources

Thank you so much for all your support throughout 2020 - we love working hard to help engage your little learners! 

SHARE:

Gingerbread Man Art Project

 

Gingerbread Man Art Project

Help your learners create a bright happy picture after reading The Gingerbread Man with the step by step drawing directions we provided here on the blog: Drawing The Gingerbread Man

What you need:

• art paper
• black marker
• watercolor
• drawing steps

Directions

1. Read the story. Discuss the Gingerbread Man character and ask your learners to recall the basic story outline. Challenge them to order the event or series of characters in order.
2. Tell students you would like them to create an art project of the Gingerbread Man.
3. Ask them to watch you draw first. Go through the steps, verbalizing each stroke and giving page position reference cues etc.
4. Give your students the option of following you again and copying your directed steps, or to go ahead and draw their own representation of the Gingerbread Man character.
5. Remind your students that artworks are not photographs and drawing with real life detail or proportions is not at all required - that in fact a more fluid and energetic interpretation can often be more expressive and appealing. 
6. Draw the steps again, pausing between each for students who are following you.
7. Use watercolors or similar to add color and movement to the artworks.

SHARE:

Art Ideas for Kids

Visual Schedule - The Learning Leap

Display the main stages of task completion with the Learning Leap Visual Schedule. Your learners will keep a visual track of their steps from pond to lily pad.

The visual schedule can be displayed on your classroom wall or use the mini desk version for focus students.

A text-editable MS Powerpoint version is also included so you can change the phrases and order if you need. I have also included a blank plain pond and lily pad should you like to make additional tasks by inserting your own images and text.

Our learning leap visual schedule includes the following steps:

1. Think, understand the task.
2. Gather your equipment.
3. Write your name and the date.
4. Complete all parts of the task.
5. Read and edit your work.
6. Tidy up your space.
7. Do an extra activity

A visual schedule will help students who have difficulty staying on task, remembering multiple verbal instructions or who have difficulty breaking a task down into parts. SHARE:

Sandy Claws One Page Math Game

We have a free printable one page math game for you today!

Students will be thinking mathematically as they plan their moves and monitor the moves of their opponent in this line drawing game. 

How to play Sandy Claws

• 2 players
• each player uses a different color pencil or marker
• take turns to connect 2 to 4 dots with a straight line
• players can choose to connect 2, 3, or 4 dots on their turn (count from where the pen starts to where it finishes)
• lines drawn can be horizontal, vertical or diagonal
• player 2 must start where Player 1 left off and continue the line in the same or a new direction
• the line must never cross itself
• the player who makes the last possible line may be declared the winner

In the photo above you can see how play ended in the center of the game square because the line could go no further without crossing itself.

If you are looking to integrate literature with your math lesson, we recommend One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab by April Pulley Sayre.

Find the printable one page math game in Google Drive: Sandy Claws One Page Math Game

If you are a Premium Coloring Club member, we added a one page Sandy Claws craft to the library today - enjoy!

SHARE:

Christmas, Math Center

Christmas Tree Craft

This cute Christmas Tree Craft is perfect for December activities in the classroom or at home. Make it for display or combine it with a writing task for a literacy experience.

Students can:

• cut, color and paste the craft tree
• listen to a story about Christmas or winter trees
• contribute to a joint collaborative class story about a tree
• attempt independent writing with one of the included prompts

We have included 3 versions of the tree craft to help you meet your students' needs:

• complete version (like a coloring page, one big piece to cut)
• one page version (all the pieces a student needs on one page)
• traditional template versions (multiple pieces on one page to distribute to various students, great for when you want to run on colored paper)

The craft template pieces can be printed on color paper, or print them on white paper and ask your students to shade them.

The included writing task pages are:

• an acrostic poem - CHRISTMAS
• How to decorate a Christmas Tree procedural writing
• Dear Santa letter writing

Hop over to our TPT store to find this printable teaching resource.

SHARE:

Christmas, Craft for Kids

Adding 3 Numbers with Big Bear

Big Bear Addition is a fast-prep math game for learning to add 3 numbers. Simply print the cute big bear game board and play with 3 ten sided dice. We have included an optional spinner board in case you do not have dice available. 

This game is perfect for your learners who are working on mental strategies for addition.Use it in math workshop, groups or centers.

Students will:

• roll three 10 sided dice (or spin the printable spinner)
• find the total
• cover a numeral on the game mat
• aim for 3 in a row to win

One game board can be shared between a pair of students.

Included is:

• page size game board
• 3-spin spinner board
• recording worksheet
• cover page (great for organizing your equipment and resources)

Find this new printable math game for first and second grade over in our store.

SHARE:

Addition, Math Center

Christmas Tree Finger Play

We love finger plays in the early-years classroom! They help you provide:

• a literacy experience - students can point or follow along with the text
• a language experience - students are exposed to topic vocabulary and rhyme
• an integration of listening, language and literacy
• a re-focus opportunity and a joint experience that will help build classroom community

Today we want to share with you a finger play for Christmas. It is perfect for when you are putting up a tree in the classroom or learning environment. 

A blackline version is included too for students to color. 

Find this printable in Google Drive: Christmas Tree Finger Play

Find a pack of practical and supporting activities to use along with the free rhyme over in our store. It includes:

• puppet pictures
• a quick craft
• tracing pages
• pocket chart reading cards and more!

SHARE:

Christmas, Finger Play

Simple Sentence Matching Games

Make an engaging literacy center for your kindergarten readers with our printable Sentence Match games. We just added autumn and animal themed packs to our collection.

Students each have a game mat and read the corresponding sentence cards to match each picture. Encourage students to read aloud and use the skills and strategies they have been learning with you in class:

• looking at the pictures
• using known letters and sounds
• accessing sight word knowledge

Card by card the game mat gets covered with sentences. You may find students pausing to reread and monitor their progress!

Options for engagement and differentiation

• work in pairs, alternating the reading
• write the sentence to match on a whiteboard or reading journal
• create an additional descriptive sentence for each match
• use the picture mat only and have one student give a verbal clue to the other to kind (like I Spy)

The Autumn Sentence Match is perfect for a northern hemisphere fall and is also available in our TPT store. 

SHARE:

Reading

Enjoy the Journey

How do you help your little ones learn to 'enjoy the journey'? Understanding that hard work and perseverance is a worthwhile endeavour can be so hard for young learners to fully appreciate and can take many years. 

3 ideas for teaching an appreciation of perseverance 

1. Read some books and use them to springboard into a discussion and reflection on personal experience - e.g. How to Catch a Star
2. Ask students to recall an achievement or experience from their past. Ask them to recall at least 5 steps they took on their journey. Share and discuss how persistence paid off.
3. Set the class a goal or challenge e.g. a reading challenge to read 20 books. Check in regularly through the week to monitor progress and reflect on how to maintain perseverance. 

Free Screen Wallpaper

We have a little treat to brighten your week - a new FREE digital screen wallpaper. Our little bear cuties will delight your students on their screen or device and remind them to keep moving when things seem impossible.

Use it as a background or screensaver with just a few clicks on your device. Change the wallpaper on your screen regularly for a new fresh start!

You can find this free offering over in our TPT store!

You can pop back through our blog to find other screen wallpapers we have made for you too!

SHARE:

wallpaper

Adding 3 Numbers to Make 30

 

Your students may need to practice their emerging addition strategies. We have the game for you! They will encounter multiple opportunities to put their strategies into action in our Number Detective fast-prep math center! Yes, we said fast-prep because it is literally one piece of paper to print!

Perfect for math groups, rotations, guided math or centers, your children will delight in covering 3 numerals on their game mat to show combinations that make 30. As they search to discover a combination, they will be accessing all their mental strategies to test if a perfect 30 is totalled. They will become flexible with their strategies as they modify their combinations - e.g. they may try 10 + 10 + 11 and realize they have 1 too many, and look for 10 + 10 + 10 or 10 + 9 + 11. 

This game is available for purchase over in our TPT store!

<

SHARE:

Addition

Santa's Beard Scissor Skills

 

Get your scissors ready - Santa needs a beard trim! Combine Christmas fun with cutting practice with our fun activity pages. Each of the 45 beard-trimming pages give students different line styles to cut with increasing complexity

Perfect for:

• kindergarten and preschool learners
• remediation with students who are challenged by cutting
• fine motor development
• printing on paper or thin card (card will offer additional support)

Students will:

• cut from the top edge down to the circle
• use the solid thick line for visual support
• move from standard, evenly spaced straight lines through wavy lines, zig zag lines to wavy lines of varying length
• curl each strand around a pencil to make the beards curly

Tip: tape the top corners down to the table with washi tape for extra stability!

By curling each strand around a pencil, students will get additional fine motor development and learn a great paper-craft technique to use in their own creative projects.

When students have finished the cutting activity they can also color, cut and glue the page into a bright backing paper for a fun classroom display of Santa's curly beards.

Hop over to find these pages in our TPT store!

SHARE:

Christmas, fine motor

Introducing Equal Groups

This collection of resources can help you implement a lesson, or series of lessons, to support an understanding of the concept of equal groups, most particularly the language - ‘groups of’ which can commonly be an area of difficulty.
We suggest reading There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake, by Hazel Edwards to ignite your learning sequence.

Remind students that Hippo loves to eat cake and suggest that they may have eaten cake at a party too. Today we will play a party game and feed Hippo all sorts of party food. Students may like to suggest what they like to eat at a celebration and you can incorporate these by drawing them onto the blank plates.

Auditory Memory Game

Use a hippopotamus puppet (or make a craft paper puppet from the template in this file) and tell students that they will help feed him party food. Show them the plates of party food. Identify them clearly ‘this is a plate of chips’ etc. 

Use only one plate of strawberries to start.

Tell them this is a listening and memory game and that they will need to pay close attention to your description of what to feed Hippo.

Give a verbal description and have one student retrieve the plates and ‘feed them’ to Hippo in the correct order..

e.g.

• Please feed Hippo a plate of cookies, then a plate of cake.
• Please feed Hippo a plate of candy, a plate of strawberries then a plate of corn chips.

The chosen child takes the plate from the play-area, brings them to Hippo (your puppet) and pretends to feed him in the correct order. Return plates to the table for the next turn.

Equal Groups Game

Repeat the same game, but tell students you are adding more strawberries to the party table as Hippo loves that they are healthy. With this game you will reinforce the language ‘plates of’ and gradually replace it with ‘groups of’ as student
understanding and participation becomes more confident.

e.g.

• Please feed Hippo one plate of candy and one plate of 2 strawberries.
• Please feed Hippo one pate of lollipops and 2 plates of 3 strawberries.
• Please feed Hippo 2 plates of 3 strawberries.
• Please feed Hippo 3 groups of 2 strawberries.
• Please feed Hippo 2 groups of 2 strawberries.

Do not worry so much about counting or finding totals, just lots of fun with ‘groups of’, math language and checking for understanding. Use slow, deliberate, careful language so students have time for language
processing.

Extension

To extend learning and encourage more formal multiplication (repeated addition to find the total) use our worksheet after playing the game!

1. play the game once more with just the plate of strawberries
2. encourage students to identify the total of each ‘feed’
3. consolidate understanding with the worksheet

This pack of resources will support your introduction to equal groups and we know for sure that your little learners will LOVE them! Find this pack over in our TPT store.

<

SHARE:

Books, Multiplication

9 Little Monsters Screen Wallpaper

We have a little treat to brighten your week - a new FREE digital screen wallpaper. Our 9 Little Monster cuties will delight your students on their screen or device.

Use it as a background or screensaver with just a few clicks on your device. Change the wallpaper on your screen regularly for a new fresh start!

You can find this free offering over in our TPT store!

You can pop back through our blog to find other screen wallpapers we have made for you too!

SHARE:

Halloween, wallpaper