Sound Out Snail

Did you see little sound-out snail in the free coloring club last week?

Your little learners can write a word on the snail trail and celebrate how much they love reading (and writing) words! 

Using any book you are reading in your existing literacy program (no matter if its shared reading, modelled reading, instructional reading, guided reading, topic reading for another subject or independent reading) pause and take a look at a page. Help your students find words on the page that they can sound-out (this will vary depending on what program you are using). 

You may like a mini lesson engagement tool for this!

Write the words on a chart or on your board and review them at the end of your reading session with your learners. Use sound-out snail as a visual and point to each box and you sound out beginning-medial-final. 

P.S Have you seen the Grumpy Cat books? Hilarious. 



Of course you can use this activity without a reading lesson and just help your children create a garden of words! 

During your regular small group word-work you can also use the sound-out snail. Have a student snail and teacher snail with some counters. Students place a counter in each section as you make and say words together. Either laminate your snail to use with a dry erase marker or pop some sticky notes down, allowing you to quickly make multiple words. 

You could also use the snail for some fun math games:

• Roll 3 dice and create a 3 digit number to record. Talk about place value and the value of each digit. 
• Roll 3 numbers and order them from smallest to biggest.

We hope you love sound-out snail! If you're not yet a member of the Coloring Club, we'd love to have you!

Find more ideas for One Little Snail on the resource page too!

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Robot Number Craft for Math

Celebrate how well your little learners can count and write numbers with a display of number robots! 

After cutting and gluing, you can have them write numbers 1-6 or vary it to suit your learning program!

Here are some idea variations:

Backward Number Counting

Shapes and Skip Counting

Counting by 10s

 Subitizing Dot Pattern Robot!

This new mathtivity is ready in our store for you along with a set of number activity cards! 

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math craft

Shape Friends

Get your children excited for geometry with our 2D Shape Friends! They can first draw a standard shape and then turn it into a cute character! 

Today I will share the steps to the circle cutie with you - but 9 more are available to you in the printable pack!

• start with a big circle

• draw little sticks for the beginning of the arms and 2 L shapes for the beginning of the legs

• finish the arms and legs

• draw big eyes and a bow

• add some happy cheeks and a big mouth

• zig zag some teeth

Now paint and crayon your shape cuties to make a beautiful classroom display!

You may also like the draw more shape friends page over in the free Coloring Club library! 

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2D Shapes, Art Ideas for Kids, Directed Drawing

Hip Hip Hippo-ray for More Ideas

Here is a coloring page from the Premium Coloring Club library that is perfect for your youngest learners. You can talk about colors as they practice a circle crayon scribble in each dot to create a rainbow hippo! Or perhaps use a dot marker that they can easily dab.

A thin wash of purple paint over the top looks great too!

In the classroom you may like to have a behavior challenge (finishing with a hip-hip-hooray), giving each child a sheet on which they can collect stickers of achievement towards a goal. 

You can use the page flexibly for a range of fast-prep number games too:

• roll and add counters for counting
• start with a hippo full of counters and roll-take-away for subtraction
• write numbers on each spot for numeral formation practice

I hope you love these extra ideas for using the hippo page - have a great day! 

And if you'd like to find out more about our Pond Coloring Club (to get this sheet) you can read more here!

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A Tail of 3 Cats

If your children are feeling creative today they may like to trace, color and paint a cute kitty cat from our Pond Coloring Club free library! 

Simply print and provide materials for tracing and coloring. You can extend the activity with some more complex fine motor skills too. Here are some ideas:

Wool Tail

Squeeze a line of white glue (PVA glue) along the spiral tail and use yarn (wool)!

Glitter Tail

Use a glitter glue pen or squeeze some glue along the tail and them sprinkle some glitter on!

When the glitter glue dries your students will enjoy the sensory experience of tracing their finger along the line.

Sticker Dots

Stick small round dot stickers along the tail - using the thumb and pointer to carefully pull each from the sheet. 

If you're not yet in our Pond Coloring Club, we'd love to have you! Find out more HERE

Find out about Calm Kitty breathing to help your students in a brain break HERE

Have a great day - I'll be with you again soon, to give you extra ideas for using the nine cats number page, added to the premium club this week!

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fine motor

Build a Fence to 20

Perfect to play in kindergarten or first grade, here is a free math game for learning to count groups of objects to 20. 

Students will match a numeral card to a set that they count!

All you need to use alongside the printable game mats and number cards are craft sticks! 

It make a fun and open-ended small group activity lesson.

To extend it for your learners:

• use 2 standard dice, roll and add - with students building a fence that shows the total
• roll a single die and make it cumulative - beginning to develop an understanding of addition and how to make 20
• let students play side-by-side with a friend, have them each make a fence and them compare them - let them discuss who has the longest fence, by how much etc
• reinforce skip counting by 2 - build the fence 2 sticks at a time - use dice - e.g. roll a 4, build 4 sets of 2 for a fence of 8
• make a pattern fence - use colored sticks and make repeating patterns - blue/yellow/blue/yellow for example

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counting, Math Game Interactive

Numbers 1 to 5 Math Craft

Count to 5 forward or back with our caterpillar cutie!

After painting, coloring, cutting and gluing your learners can add crayon detail and track the numbers (write with a single stroke inside the bubble writing) too!

Why not count by 5 when they’re all made and on display too!

This page is in the coloring club library!

To follow up and extend the learning in this activity, here are 3 fast-prep game activities to play with simple classroom equipment.

Caterpillar's Circles

• give each student some counters/math chips
• point to a number on the caterpillar - e.g. 3
• students say the number (numeral recognition)
• students make a group of counters to match (they take 3 counters from their pile and set it apart)

Before and After

• play at the small group table
• each student has their caterpillar for reference
• you call a number and they tell you the number that comes after - e.g. you call 3, they say 4
• challenge them by asking for the number before
• this is a good foundation for early addition and subtraction

Roll and Cover

• play a roll and cover game for numbers 1-6
• find the free game mat HERE

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math craft, Numbers

Calm Kitty Breathing

I've shared with you (over in the Pond Coloring Club) a calm cat tracing page! Your children can trace the big shape and spiral with a crayon before shading or painting! 

Here is a little calm breathing activity to try too - that also helps with fine motor, and all students need is sitting with them - their hands! 

Calm Cat Spiral Breathing

• show your students the spiral tails on the cats
• tell them that they can make a spiral in the palm of their hand as they breathe in and out - just like the tails
• demonstrate how to trace a spiral in one palm with the pointer finger of the other hand
• demonstrate how to spiral back along the same track once your finger hits the middle of your palm
• demonstrate how to take a full breath in as you make the spiral and a full breath out as you spiral back
• spiral breathe with your students for 5 breaths in and out (adjust as suits your class)

If you love the idea of a classroom of calm kitties, here is my new Display in a Day pack. You can write or type the name of your students on each printable accent and decorate your door, wall or bulletin board! You may have some cool cats in the class too!

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One Snail One Sun Drawing

I'm sharing with you the steps your little ones might like to follow to draw a snail scene!

This can accompany a reading of One Little Snail our new action rhyme!

Learning About Number One

The action rhyme is perfect for integrating when learning the number one - especially at the beginning of the school year. 

• talk about how a snail has one head, one foot, one shell, one tail etc
• talk about other things that come in 'one' - the sun, Earth, each child in your class
• ask students to think about what things they have one of - one head, one belly button, one nose etc
• find things in 'ones' around your school or classroom
• practice writing number one
• teach the sight word 'I' and how it looks like one tall person standing up
• talk about how there is only one Monday in a week, one Tuesday etc and practice saying the days
• talk about how there is only one teacher in the classroom (if this is true for your context) and the classroom routines associated - waiting our turn, raising our hand, listening carefully, following rules
• encourage students to draw lots of 'one' things in their picture to add to the scene or background - one flower, one sun, one cloud, one bird etc

One Snail One Sun Drawing

Here are the steps - enjoy!

If you'd like to integrate more activities with the action rhyme or drawing, find some inspiration over on the resource page!

Find the action rhyme finger play and more activities on the resource page!

Find more Directed Drawing packs HERE

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Directed Drawing

Star Students

Have you tried 'Star of the Week' (or 'Star of the Day') in your classroom? It is a wonderful way to build a community of learners through recognition and acknowledgment of students.

In the free coloring club library today I'm sharing with you a Star Student page to accompany an overall routine in your classroom. 

Use it to discuss with your student the expectations of a 'star' in your classroom! 




If you'd like to set up a Star of the Week - or Star of the Day (I've got both included for you), routine, you may like to peek at our full printable set over in the store. 

You can cycle through your students systematically or link the routine to special award or recognition.

Included in the pack is:

• a poster (write student name)
• poster (fill in details about student in a getting-to-know-you style)
• student worksheet version of poster
• student certificate
• 3 student bookmarks (gift or prize)
• classroom banner (bunting) spelling 's-t-a-r of the w-e-ek'
• coloring page
• one page craft (make the cute star character)

An exciting way to finish school on a Friday is to reveal the new star. Have the poster on display and write the new name in! Ask students to start thinking of special things to say about the star for Monday!

if you're using the full page poster - ask the star to come before the class and go through each space with the rest of the children contributing ideas. Scribe as you go until the page is filled out and display - perhaps alongside a photo of the student, on a special place in your classroom.

After this little routine, the star of the week may get a special 10 minutes at a VIP table or similar, to color their page or bookmark. 







I hope these resources help you develop a very special weekly (or daily) routine for your learners that combines so much essential classroom-community-building goodness!

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Back to School, Classroom Management