Clam Check In

Thoughts can be particularly magical, special and powerful. Help and support your learners to understand how their thoughts can be transformative and empowering. They can literally begin an adventure of a lifetime from just one thought. They can create amazing ideas and wonderful new creations from a thought. They can start a story that will grow into a book from just one thought. A thought can be a gift and treasured. At times your students will be alone with nothing but their thoughts. Let's help them. 

The first step for getting your students to create positive thoughts may be to help them understand how they are feeling. A check-in can give them a tool to do that. For this one they just need their hand. 

Tell them:

• your hand will be your clam
• make a fist, face down
• run the finger from your other hand over the bumps on your fist
• count with me from 1 to 5 as you go over all the bumps on the clam
• 1 is feeling sad, 3 if Ok, 5 is when you are feeling really happy inside
• trace your bumps again and think about how you are feeling right now
• there is no right answer, just thinking about how you are feeling - it might be different from this morning or yesterday, we feel different at different times in the day
• can you stop tracing when you get to how you are feeling - you have checked-in
• now you know how you are feeling we can share some things you can do to help

Today in the Pond Coloring Club I'm sharing with you a page to help your students do a Clam Check-In.

As they come in from recess or lunch, or after a busy learning session you may encourage them to 'check-in' with their feelings! They don't need the page, just their hand - but it can help to have a visual sometimes.

Take care this week - I'm thinking of you!

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Ice Cream Addition Worksheets

Add some sweet engagement to your addition review with our ice cream pages!

You can review or assess addition at a wide range of levels using the one pack.

Students will add the numbers, or find the missing addend to solve each ice cream sum.

Included are 15 different pages:add 1 or 2 within 5

• add 1 or 2 within 10
• add single digits
• doubles (up to 5)
• doubles (up to 9)
• near doubles (up to 9)
• add within 20 (3 pages)
• missing addend to make 5
• missing addend to make 10
• missing addend to 10
• missing addend to 20
• 2 digit without trading
• 2 digit with trading

9 of the pages are repeated - these feature an alternative style - 2 numerals to add rather than a numeral and dot pattern. Use the dot pattern pages for students who need support to develop mental strategies and the numeral pages for those more confident.

Over in the coloring club library you can also find a roll and color page!

Find more ideas with an ice cream theme in our collection!

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Summer Ready

If you're counting down the days left in the classroom, we have some countdown coloring pages your students will love! They can complete one independently or together as a whole class! 

In the free club you'll find a shark page. Each day your learners can color a fish as they countdown from 10 to 1!

And premium members have access to an ice cream scoop page! Students will similarly color a numbered section each day to see out the last 10 days of school. 

If you'd like to know more about our Coloring Club, you can find information on the dedicated website. Feel free to contact us with any questions you have.

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Clam Craft

Over in the free Pond Coloring Club library today, I am sharing with you a clam tracing page! Your students may like to trace in marker or crayon and then paint with soft watercolor shades.



After cutting they will make a beautiful bright contribution to a summer, ocean or beach themed bulletin board!

Have you read Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks with your students? It is delightful and full of beautiful illustrations. 

After reading you could add the title to your clam themed summer reading challenge!

Going to the beach may be something your children are looking forward to as summer approaches. 

• talk about summer with your students
• brainstorm and make a list of fun summer activities - be sure to include some that all students in your class can access
• read through the list with your students for modelled reading
• ask students to turn and talk with a partner about their top 5 choices
• perhaps they may like to record them on a little craft bucket to take home

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Craft for Kids, Summer

Class Reading Challenge

Get your class motivated to read this week (or as you approach over the summer school break) - with our beach themed Keep clam and read on printable pack!

Use the bulletin board letters and clam picture to create a positive classroom message about reading. This could be attached to a wall, display area, above your board or on your door!

As well as the bulletin board style decor pieces we have included:

• a DIY giant class book stack reading log - write the title of every book you read together on the book spines (trim and glue the pieces together)
• take home summer (or any time of year) reading challenge sheets - color and blackline - 5 week, 10 week and one page version included
• 100 reads/book challenge sheet
• bookmarks

Color and blackline versions of the decor and recording pages are included! 

Happy reading!

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Books, Reading, Summer

Language Game

I love having no-prep language games ready to play for lesson transitions and warm-ups. As students develop reading skills it is helpful for them to be in a language-rich learning environment. The more words they hear and use, the better! Language games give them a meaningful opportunity to speak, listen and learn from others - expanding their vocabulary wile developing classroom community and working together. 

Here is one that will require your students to think about objects/things. You could even link it in with a lesson on nouns or a theme you are working on by adjusting the word list.

The children will be thinking about 

• the features of the objects
• how the objects/things are used
• comparing and contrasting
• selecting specific vocabulary for an object

Tell me the Difference Language Game

• use a timer to set a limit - vary to reflect the age of your students
• encourage students to think about how the things are similar and how they are different
• tell your students a pair of words, provide some thinking time and choose a student to explain the difference
• there is no winner, correct answer or too many rules - just lots of encouragement to develop language and specific vocabulary

Some word pairs could be:

• turtle/crab
• kite/parachute
• beach/swimming pool
• cup/glass
• gate/fence
• door/window
• pencil/marker
• paper/ribbon
• apple/orange

Speaking of turtles and crabs - if you're looking for some fun activities for your little learners you may like these recent pages in our Pond Coloring Club!

Crab at the Beach

Turtle One Page Craft

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

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ocean, Oral Language

Rainbow Breathing

Did you see the new rainbow page in the coloring club today? I want to tell you about a special no-prep activity you can do along with it to support your precious learners.

Help them be mindful and ready for learning with a breathing brain break! They can stand up, stretch and focus on their breath! Being able to focus on their breath may help them calm down during challenging situations in the future.

This fun exercise is called Rainbow Breathing. You may like to introduce it with our new screen wallpaper for your electronic board.

Ask your students to stand in the learning space, listen and follow your directions:

• there is a shape of a rainbow going up and over your body, from one foot - all the way up and then over your head and down the other side to your other foot - you're standing under it (make an arc movement over your body like a rainbow)
• stand nice and tall on your spot and imagine you are under your rainbow
• breathe in slowly, imagining all the lovely soft air going into your heart - in the middle of your rainbow
• breathe out and imagine your breath being a color from the rainbow
• what color is your breath?
• what does your color feel like? (repeat several times, suggesting a change of color if desired)
• now breathe in and imagine your breath sliding up and over the rainbow (like the crawling critters on our wallpaper)
• exhale and imagine your breath coming back down the other side of your body, sliding down the rainbow to your feet 
• imagine your breath going up and down your rainbow from one foot to the other

Repeat this several times, encouraging students to think about their breath. 

Hopefully they will be more focused, calm and energized for learning!

Along with our rainbow worm wallpaper that integrates nicely with this breathing exercise, you will find 5 more fun designs to dazzle your screens! 

1. sunny day
2. tiger
3. shark
4. octopus cave
5. fish

They look great on your board, computers, devices and phones. Switch to a new one each week for a fun, fresh start! 

If you're in the Coloring Club, you'll find some pages to use on the weeks you use the wallpaper - or anytime!

Some cute tigers:



A free summer shark countdown page:



An octopus cave drawing page (and here is an engaging visualization for auditory memory):



And some matching fish for visual discrimination:

I hope your students love learning about rainbow breathing and it helps them when they need it most! 

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Behavior, social skills, wallpaper

When You're Worried

In the Pond Coloring Club free library today I am sharing with you a worried crab coloring page! 

As well as coloring or painting, your students can record some strategies to engage if they find themselves worried. Have a discussion about appropriate strategies for your learning context before students attempt this. 

Talk about getting from worried to OK and how this will be different for each child. Ask students to share their own experiences of feeling worried and what made them feel better.



You may like to implement a routine of highlighting one or two different emotions or feelings each week and having a class discussion about them. Our crab feeling cards may help to engage your students.



Each poster has an original crab illustration and design. Posters and worksheets are provided for each of the following feelings:

• happy
• surprised
• silly
• sick
• sad
• upset
• angry
• excited
• confused
• proud
• appreciative
• ok
• frustrated
• amused
• calm
• uncomfortable
• comfortable
• love
• worried
• disappointed
• jealous
• guilty
• generous
• embarrassed
• curious
• scared

This past blog post also shares some classroom activity ideas for exploring emotions with crab!

If you're not yet a member of our Coloring Club, I'd love you to join me. It's a website I made for us so that I could share with you! As well as the new crab page you can find these other recent ocean themed free pages:

Have a great day and thanks so much for visiting the blog!

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ocean, social skills

Auditory Memory with Octopus

Help your students learn visualization and build auditory memory (both great for early literacy development) with The Octopus Cave!

Have your students sit comfortably before you and encourage them to listen attentively.

• tell your students that you will help them create a picture in their mind
• tell them you will help them think about how things go together in the picture in their mind
• tell them that you know about a special cave for an octopus in the ocean
• suggest that it would be nice to visit the cave and see the octopus but to gain entry they need to remember a secret message
• tell them you will help them create a visualization to remember the secret message
• tell them a secret message - a list of words (depending on your students auditory memory, select an appropriate number of words)
• e.g. The secret message is: fish, seaweed, rocks
• encourage students to make a little story with the words and then to picture the story in their mind - e.g. In my story, I see a fish swimming through seaweed. There are rocks underneath.
• tell your students to now imagine swimming down to the octopus cave, thinking about their story as they go
• provide some time and let students make some gentle sea/ocean movements as they imagine swimming down to the bottom of the ocean
• now ask one student to share the secret message (list of words in correct order) after thinking about the picture in their mind
• encourage students to turn to a partner and tell the secret message
• repeat with new words and stories, increasing the number of words in the list as your students get better with visualization and auditory memory

We have a page in the Premium Club for your learners to draw something in the octopus cave too!

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ocean, Reading, Talking and Listening