Spring Activity Pages

I'd love to share these activity pages with you for your lovely little learners to complete for spring - or any time through the year!

I have them ready for you to print from our Pond Coloring Club! If you're not yet a member, it is really easy to join and you can find all the details about it on the website. 

Flower Craft Page

Just print a page per student and attach the flowers to popsicle sticks to make a garden!

Rain Tracing Page

Trace the vertical zig zag lines for handwriting practice and glue cotton on the clouds!

Caterpillar C Craft

Trace the vertical handwriting lines and then create a cute caterpillar to remember the shape of letter c! 

I am so happy to share these pages with you today and hope your children love them too! Be sure to sign up to my newsletter list so I can send you more goodies directly to your inbox!

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Coloring Page, Craft for Kids, Spring

Bilby Craft

A bilby is a small Australian nocturnal marsupial. He has long bunny-like ears! Some children have a chocolate Easter Bilby here in Australia instead of a bunny.

In the free coloring club today I share with you a shape craft. 6 different 2D shapes are used to make the bunny and you can review them before your craft. 

All the pieces for one student are on one page - if you would like to make rainbow bilbies as I have done, give each student a different colored page and ask them to share pieces with one another. 

Here is a recording page if you would like your students to write about the shapes they used (it's shared in Google Drive): Bilby Shape Craft recording page

If you're not yet a member of the coloring club, we'd love to have you!

And if you love shape crafts - find more here!

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Everyone belongs

We celebrate that everyone belongs in Australia on Harmony Day - 21 March. In the free library of the Pond Coloring Club today I have added a page for your students to finish drawing. They can add faces and features to create a page full of children who belong! 

While you're over at the coloring club, you'll also see a rainbow craft for students to make. They can talk about the things they are good at and celebrate them by writing one on each of the rainbow colors. 



They will record next to:

• I am good at ...
• My friends think I am good at ...
• My family thinks I am good at ...
• My teacher thinks I am good at ...
• I want to be good at...

It is always very special in the classroom to have each student come before their peers and take suggestions from the class on what the student 'is good at'. Have you ever done this? It is always insightful and builds class community. Most children beam with happiness when they realise their friends have noticed things about them that they perhaps have not. 

If you're not yet a member of our coloring club, we'd love to have you!

Here is another post with ideas for Harmony Day!

You may also like:

• Kindness in the Classroom ideas
• I'm a Good Friend banner
• Rainbow Breathing brain break

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Craft for Kids, Kindness in the Classroom, rainbows

Pattern Block Shapes

Do your students love working with pattern blocks? They are a great math manipulative to have in your classroom for a myriad of shape and number activities and lessons. They are also perfect for free play and exploration.

We have a new activity in our growing collection of resources to support your teaching with pattern blocks. 

Your students will love arranging, flipping and rotating pattern block shapes to create the arrangements shown on each of these cards! We've included 108 different cards - use all of them or a smaller selection.

They will make a pattern, count the blocks and then find another pattern card with the same number of blocks. 

Once made you have the opportunity to talk about how many shapes have been used altogether (early addition) and doubling a number. 

Here you can see 2 patterns that use 6 shapes. 12 shapes have been used altogether. 

This printable packet is available in our store now for you and includes:

• 108 game cards (2 to a page)
• game play instructions
• cover page
• optional worksheet for students to complete after the game

You may also like:

• pattern block hexagon activities
• a pattern block car activity page
• shape coloring pages

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2D Shapes, numbers to ten, pattern blocks

Alphabet Posters

Using posters in the classroom

Do you have posters in your classroom? I found that my students used posters better after I started integrating them into lessons and group time. I planned activities that encouraged students to attend to the information on the posters, modelling how they could be used.

After doing this, the posters became more useful across the school day in other lessons and I saw my students starting to access information from them independently - during writing for example.

I recently revised our bright alphabet posters to give your even more options and possibilities. 

Here are 3 no-prep ideas for using our alphabet display posters, to help build that familiarity. Use them as warm ups, lesson transitions or to fill in spare minutes of the day. 

Say the alphabet

Every morning ask your students to say the alphabet and choose one student to point to each letter as you go. After time, encourage them to start from random positions. This will help later with alphabetical order and locating words in the dictionary - eg. say the alphabet starting from ‘m’.

Word Chain

Play a listening and language game.

• students are seated in a circle
• one student starts and chooses a picture from any of the posters - e.g. fish
• the next student must think of a word that links to fish and is connected by meaning - e.g. swim
• the next student links to the second student - e.g. pool
• the word chain continues
• encourage students to explain their word association if necessary
• record these words on a chart and read the word chain back with your class
• extend some learners by having them put all the words from the chart in alphabetical order (on scrap paper, in a book or on a whiteboard) using your alphabet display to support the order of letters

Add an Adjective

Play a grammar/language warm up game.

• students take turns to choose a picture from the display and add an adjective - e.g. orange fish
• other students may suggest synonyms to make the adjective better - e.g. tangerine fish
• record these on chart paper also for use in a writing center later in the week or day

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Caterpillar C

Did you see the curly caterpillar for letter c in the free Coloring Club library yesterday? If not, it's ready and waiting for you!

When teaching little learners to write, read and sound-out words I always refer to c as 'curly c'. It helps them differentiate it from k. 

Help your learners remember curly c with a letter shape craft. 

Also:

• let them trace their finger over the curve of c on their craft page
• tell them we begin writing c at the head of the caterpillar and 'curve around'
• ask them to trace a c on the palm of their hand, curving from the base of their little finger to their wrist (a little caterpillar curled up in their hand)

We have a full alphabet pack of letter crafts over in our store. They encourage fine motor pre-writing skills and letter-sound correspondence.

Each letter has a downstroke internal pattern line to trace. Encourage your learners to trace these by placing their pencil at the top of every line and tracing down.

I found so many little learners would come to school with the habit of writing from the baseline up to form letters. Once that habit is formed, it can be hard to shift. Encourage top to bottom (except of course for d and e) formation and pattern practice whenever you can!

I sent out an additional exclusive freebie to our super-fan email list today to complement this craft. If you are not on our list and would like to be - read more about it on the website!

Find more ideas for teaching with caterpillars HERE

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Craft for Kids, Letter Recognition

Sorting and Comparing

If you're making the flowers from our free Coloring Club with your children, here is an idea for math - use them in a sorting and comparing lesson. 

Sorting, classifying and comparing - along with ordering and making patterns are essential for early work in number.

Mini Lesson: Let's Sort the Garden

You need:

a flower made my each student - let them choose 1 from the 4 they made

Activities:

• tell the students that together they will sort flowers from the class garden
• have all the flowers placed in a central place for all students to view (the middle of a circle of seated students on the floor will work well)
• ask students for suggestions on how the flowers could be sorted - e.g. color (pink/not pink), shape (circle/not circle), flowers colored in pencils/crayons, flowers with a yellow center/ not yellow center
• using some of the suggested sorting categories, facilitate a sorting of the flowers - use some large sheets of paper, hoops or trays to place the different groups
• discuss the sorting as the lesson progresses and help students understand that their flower has multiple attributes and can be a part of different groups - e.g. it is pink, round and colored in crayon
• once the flowers are sorted use the opportunity to compare the groups - there are more pink flowers than other flowers, there are fewer circle flowers than tulips
• as the week progresses look for way to encourage your learners to describe objects based on their attributes and sort objects into groups

Shape Garden

Following the sorting with flowers, you make like to encourage your students to make repeating patterns with the flowers or have your class garden display show a pattern.

Provide pattern or attribute blocks to your students and let them independently sort like in the whole class mini lesson. After this a fun activity is to let them take a scoop of blocks and sort them. 

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Math Lesson

A Craft Garden

Create a little paper craft garden with your students using the free craft coloring page we just put in the Pond Coloring Club!

Provide watercolors and crayons and once dry your learners can cut and tape them to craft sticks. Sit them in sticky tac along your display space or pin to a bulletin board. 

You may also like our free action counting rhyme The Fairy Garden to integrate with this craft and display. Keep a look out for a snail and ant rhyme coming very soon for you too!

If you're not yet a member of our club, we'd love to have you!

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Craft for Kids, Spring

Whale Craft, Writing and a Game

In the Pond Coloring Club free library we have a craft cut-out page for recording some wh words! 

Here are some ideas to help you prepare some lessons for it!

Word Work Activity - Whale Watch

Tell students that they are going to the seaside to whale-watch! They need to look carefully at all the words in a shared text as you read and signal when they see a word beginning with the letter w. 

Now read a whale themed book to your class and chart the words as they notice them. After the reading and chart are completed you can review the word bank with your students and have them distinguish the w words from the wh words. 

Highlight the wh words on the chart. Talk about consonant digraphs.

I have Elmer and the Whales by David McKee in our home library. Here are all the wh words you can gather with your students and chart on paper for collaborative writing:

whale, Wilbur, when, watch, what, which, we're, we'll, with, walk, way, wow, we, wait, we've, way, wonder

Now your students can record some of them on the whale they cut out - or think of their own words.

If you are a member of the Premium Coloring Club, you can find a plain whale for scissor skills and art.



Students may like to simply color, cut and glue however you can also:

• ask them to crayon some patterns or scribbles before painting with watercolor

• concertina fold a piece of paper to glue between the head and tail to make a stretchy whale

If making the stretchy whale, take some time to include some positional math language. For example, encourage some discussion as they work on their whale that includes talk about:

• first, second, third
• in between
• in the middle
• at the front, in the middle and at the back
• first, next, last

It may also be a good time for a quick, fun no-prep math game. Here is one with an ocean twist:

Whale Trade Math Game

You need:

• dice (use a standard six sided or for a faster game a 10 or 20 sided dice)
• counters
• craft sticks
• craft stick bundles (tie an elastic band around 10 to make a bundle) 

To play:

• tell students the counters are krill, the craft sticks are fish and the bundles are whales
• tell students that the aim of the game is to win a whale (or 5 whales etc)
• let students roll a dice on their turn and take the matching number of krill
• once they have 10 krill they may trade for a fish
• they keep rolling and taking krill and trading for fish until they have 10 fish
• upon 10 fish they trade for a whale and may be declared the winner

I hope you find these ideas useful! Find more over on the website page.

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Books, Digraphs, ocean, Place Value

Classroom Door Decorations

I am currently making some new door display sets for our range! 

Have you seen them yet?

You can type or write student names on the pieces and create your own message board with the editable pages.

I would love to know if you have a request - especially if it is something that you think will make your learners happy and excited to come to school!

Let me know!

Bee Classroom Door

Here is a peek at our bee set! Featured on the door is also a pink vinyl sticker heart from our Red Bubble store!

Apple Classroom Door Decorations

And here is a peek at our apple set! Through the door you can see some giant cute kids printed from our classroom clipart set and a diversity poster!

The best part of these sets is the versatility! 

• use them as classroom labels
• use them as classroom posters
• use the accent pieces as classroom decorations
• type your own messages, words and posters

If you would like to see our growing collection of fast-prep, practical and vibrant door decor hop over to the website page!

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Classroom Decor, Door Displays