From the Pond

31 July 2023

Dancing Turtle

There's a dancing turtle craft in our Pond Coloring Club ready to be made! Your children can paint, color or use crayons and pencils in the colors of their choice before cutting and arranging.

The pieces can be attached with brads (split pins) to allow turtle to dance through the water!

Once the turtle are on display, have students extend their fine motor experience by making some wavy, twirling water for the bulletin board or line.

Simply give them a thin strip of crepe paper ) or a blue streamer roll and show them how to twist along the length. Using their thumb and pointer fingers on both hands they will pinch and twist in opposite directions.

Here is the real dancing turtle if you need a short, happy brain break!

I hope your children enjoy making their turtle. You may also like:

turtle games and activities for learning
to join our Coloring Club
to hear more from me in our newsletter

Craft for Kids, fine motor, ocean

29 July 2023

Scribble Kids

Back to school activities can help establish your classroom community. Having students contribute to a classroom display by drawing, painting or writing is an effective way to both implement a meaningful activity and give students an early sense of belonging.

New kindergarteners may only be just learning to hold a pencil however. They could be new to drawing or making marks on a page. I'd love to share with you how you can encourage them to turn their scribbles into some of their first drawings.

They will draw themselves or some of their new friends at school! You can help them cut them out for display or to add to some craft projects - like this school bus craft!

Prior to your lesson, review some basic scribble patterns

spirals - clockwise and counterclockwise
circles
downstrokes
upstrokes
side to side
making dots/spots
curved lines
loops and bumpy/jumpy lines

Show them how to combine just a few strokes (using a crayon or thick pencil) to make a scribble kid.

Depending on drawing skills of your students, you could:

practice drawing large scribble kids before you attempt these small ones
practice with chalkboards/whiteboards before paper
start each morning with a scribble picture / handwriting line practice as a daily warm up routine

I hope your children have fun drawing and making friends in the first weeks of school. Some other resources that you may like include:

Back to School, Directed Drawing, Scribble Drawings

26 July 2023

Tiger Craft with Jungle Leaf Paper Folding

Help your children an adorable shape tiger by cutting and arranging squares, rectangles and triangles!

You'll need:

the printable page from the Pond Coloring Club premium library
paint
crayons
scissors
glue

Guide students in the coloring, painting, cutting and assembly, securing the large shapes together before finishing with the triangle stripes and hand-drawn eyes and mouth.

After making you can:

If you're in the classroom, a tiger banner would make a lovely display of yoru students work. Simply clip them to a line along with some jungle leaves! Show yoru students how to make them with a few simple folds and some triangle snipping!

If you're stopping by the blog here for the first time - welcome! I'd love to stay in more regular contact, sharing tips, ideas, free offers and news of new resources. Join my newsletter do you don't miss out! Read more about it HERE

2D Shapes, Animals, Paper Folding Craft

25 July 2023

Adding 1, 2 or 3

To help students achieve fluency with addition you can give them lots of practice adding 1, 2 or 3. To begin with you may see them counting to find the total.

Here is math warm up to give your small group another opportunity to add 1, 2 or 3 to numbers 1-6.

You'll need:

standard 6 sided dice (use a numeral dice if you'd like to make it more challenging )
1-3 dice (we're using the 1-2-3 Happy Dice (from Premium Pond Coloring Club)
ten frames (we're using the dinosaur ten frames from our Math Kit)

students roll both dice and combine these numbers on the ten frame
observe your students and notice when they do not need the frame for counting the total - perhaps extend these students by using larger dice and 2 dinosaurs (add within 20)

An option is to have students record their work on a whiteboard or in their math journal.

Further your math warm up by talking with your students about the numbers they are working with. You could:

ask them to tell you how many more to make 10 - and have them count-on to demonstrate
provide them another dinosaur and ask them to make the number in an alternative arrangement
challenge them to demonstrate how their addition can be inversely linked with a subtraction by taking one of the addends away - e.g. in the photo below they would model 6-5=1 or 6-1=5

I hope you and your students have fun with numbers today! Please consider joining my newsletter for more teaching ideas, tips and news of resources for sale.

Math Kit, math warm up

24 July 2023

Lollipops Art Project - Circles, Lines and Spirals

Over in the Pond Coloring Club we're sharing a free directed drawing with you! It's of 3 lollipops and encourages your children to draw with circles, lines and spirals.

They can draw directly on the page or follow the steps on a page in their sketchbook, writing book or on art paper.

Also:

encourage them to draw more details and create a scene for a story to tell or write
have them talk about their drawing or art project
ask them what else they could draw with circles and rectangles

If you're in our Premium Coloring Club this page will help encourage your students to think creatively with circles and rectangles too!

I hope your children enjoy creating their lollipop art project! You may also like:

Directed Drawing

23 July 2023

Adding Numbers and Finding 10

Here is a fun math warm up activity to use with our Turtle Grid cards! These cards can be used for so many other skills and concepts in math - keep the Math Warm Ups page on our website bookmarked so you can learn more over time!

Turtle Adds to Find 10

students play in pairs
each player has a different colored dice
player take turns to put one dice down, anywhere on the turtle grid
the player who first completes a row of 10 may keep the turtle
play the best of 3 or 5 depending on your time constraints

Below you can see that the green player claimed the win by completing a row of 10 with the number 4.

Find the turtle grids and a growing collection of more Math Kit activity cards over in our store!

If your children are enjoying working with turtles, you may like to do some research reading about them along with a coloring page too!

Math Kit, math warm up

22 July 2023

Counting in Equal Groups

$math kit equipment for warm up$

Math Warm Ups are short, often play-based activities to begin your math lesson or small-group. They are especially good for helping students feel confident, motivated and capable in math. For this reason, consider

reviewing previously taught content
supporting students by being actively involved and guiding the activity
using visual supports and scaffolds to add an extra layer of access to the content or skill
talk and encourage math language

To make Math Warm Ups easy to implement in your busy day:

have equipment ready
keep activity short, fun and engaging
repeat activities over a week or several day, giving the students opportunities to master skills

Make a Math Kit

Begin building a collection of resources that work for your curriculum, program and grade. Start with some basic equipment like:

dice
place value blocks
counters
number cards

Over time you can add more to your kit, including visual supports like number lines, number grids and activity cards.

I've started a bundle in our store with some printables you may like to include in your kit!

The collection of resources will grow over time and:

be mostly suitable for kindergarten content (with some first grade content to allow for math extension and differentiation in K)
have colored and blackline versions
be considerate of size to enable you to have them all in a functional kit
focus mostly on number

$math kit equipment$

Here is a Math Warm Up you can implement with the Lollipop Sorting Frames!

Help students review:

numeral identification
counting with 1:1 correspondence
making equal groups

They will roll and cover a lollipop with math cubes to match their roll. Ask them to count in a circle, dropping a block onto each section of a lollipop card as they count. Each section should have the same number of blocks. Talk about what equal groups look like and having some left over with some numbers.

$making equal groups while counting$

You can certainly extend this ideas into a full mini-group experience or lesson and encourage students to

have multiple turns, gaining experience with more numbers and different numbers of groups
record their findings with drawing or sentences
making equal groups in other ways - rows, ten frames, arrays etc

Prepare for more math fun in the future by starting your Math Kit today!

Math Kit, math warm up

18 July 2023

Hot Dog Craft and Word Warm Up

Help your learners practice cutting simple shapes with a fun hot dog craft! After making they can be added to a classroom or home learning display!

You can help students:

trace horizontal lines from left to right (great for pre reading and writing)
model some math positional and directional language as you help them assemble it - behind, in front, between, first, next, last etc

Here is an idea for a word warm up or mini lesson to use alongside your hot dog craft activity. Work with small groups of students if possible. Let students write with a whiteboard as you do!

Hotdog Words Roll

make a chart for ot and og words
roll and alphabet dice (or use magnetic letters)
help students combine the onset and rime to make words - e.g. n-ot
you may like to include nonsense word as well, depending on the reading program/expectations you are implementing

If you'd like more writing activity pages for word families, our Quick Craft pack makes a great standby for the whole year. Students love seeing a new shape in a learning center each week and contributing to a new classroom display!

Language and Listening Games, Word Families

13 July 2023

Counting Cards Math Warm Up for Ten

Have a set of Counting Cards ready to help support students who are working with numbers to 10.

They can be used along with counters to help support number activities along with early addition and subtraction. Use more than one to help students build bigger numbers and begin to understand tens and ones.

Here is a math warm up you can implement with your small group. Students will

spin
count the number
find the missing addend to make 10

An optional extension is to have students record or draw their findings - or perhaps that will be the focus of your main lesson, after this quick warm up!

The counting cards and spinners are included in our new growing bundle. The bundle will help you build a Math Kit. A Math Kit is a small collection of the most essential equipment and manipulatives for a small group math warm up or activity.

You can carry it to your small table, math center or student desks to be ready for math fun in just minutes!

Find it over in our store!

Math Kit, math warm up

Glitter Bugs and a Math Warm Up

Make some glitter bugs to have a gorgeous classroom display you can integrate with counting and early math! It can also help your students with fine motor skills!

With this craft from the Pond Coloring Club, they will:

trace a big circle, a horizontal and vertical line along with 6 small circles
draw a ladybug face
paint or color
use a glue stick to apply the glitter

As an alternative to glitter you can teach your students to freehand cut a circle. First show them how to chip a paper strip (see video below) then cut a circle from one of the squares.

The bug can also be used in a math warm up - perhaps before the glitter gets glued! Use the 1-2-3 Happy Dice (also in the club) to roll and make 6 with counters!

While I'm here I will share with you another warm up idea - this one for addition. You can create happy face counters by printing our number display posters 9-to-a-page or I've created a set that can be printed for your small group Math Kit.

To play Make a Happy Face:

students all sit around a scattered arrangement of 1-5 counters
take turns to roll the dice
students gather any dice combination that makes the total
e.g. if 11 is rolled, a student may gather 5, 4 and 2
students can check one another's counters for the correct total

3 Happy Faces

Another warm up with these counters is to have students simply take 3 from a dish or pile and find the total. The group all compares the totals and the player with the largest total keeps their counters - the others are returned to the dish.

adding 3 numbers math warm up

I hope your students have fin with number today!

Craft for Kids, math warm up

09 July 2023

10 Blueberries

Help your children become more familiar with the number ten using our blueberry coloring page! It has 10 blueberries piled up and some more to trace.

Talk with your children:

ask them to tell you about the size of the blueberries - which is the biggest, the smallest etc
ask them to describe the blueberry pile (they may see the 1-2-3-4 growing pattern)
ask them if there was another row under the blueberry pile, how many it would have

Encourage exploration of growing patterns with pattern blocks too!

Using the blueberry page, your children can:

roll and add counters to the pile of berries (use a 1-3 dice or similar)
talk about how many left to make 10
on each new roll, get a new total - e.g first I rolled 4, then I rolled 2, now I have 6 and I need 4 more to make 10
ask questions to explore the math - e.g you have to add 4 more, what different combinations on this dice could you roll to make a total of 4

I made this happy dice using another page from the club, cutting and gluing the 6 sides onto a trimmed down tea box. If you're in Australia, the little Twinnings Tea boxes are perfectly sized! Your children could each make one, to encourage more math games and play - with the added benefit of exploring 3D shapes/objects too!

I hope your children have fun with numbers today!

06 July 2023

Sundae Art Project with Directed Drawing Steps

I'd love to help your children draw a 5 scoop sundae! After working with numbers and counting to 5 you could draw and color this to celebrate.

Integrate some math talk, for example:

what flavors are included - how many of each make the 5 total
how many scoops would be on two sundaes
the flavors included in order of how they've been scooped - using ordinal language to describe them (first I scooped chocolate, second I scooped vanilla ... and so on)

Here are the steps to draw along:

Once drawn you can paint, color or crayon to create an artwork for display. Add glitter or collage elements to add more detail and texture.

You can find the printable steps on a page in the Pond Coloring Club today too!

I hope your children have lots of fun drawing and creating a sundae - and perhaps having a strawberry one on July 7th!

Directed Drawing

04 July 2023

Ants at the Picnic Math Warm Up

It's a great time of the year for a picnic! If you can't get outside use some picnic themed activities and materials in your centers and free play spaces. There are so many beautiful stories to read and activities to integrate with the theme - especially for counting, order, color and patterns.

Here is a picnic themed math warm up or brain break to play!

Ants at the Picnic Math Warm Up

put colored counters in a toy picnic basket or similar
use a small cloth or square of paper as a picnic blanket
choose one student to roll a dice and gather a matching number of 'ants' from the basket (without looking, just touching to count in their mind)
have the student put the counters in a line
have the class say the sequence of colors 3 times (e.g. blue, red, green, pink) to help with memory
cover the line of counters with the picnic blanket
ask one student to remake the line of counters - placing the counters on top of the blanket
ask the class to recall the sequence and call it
compare the counters on and under the blanket - adjust if necessary
continue for several rounds
leave the equipment in the free play area to give your students an opportunity to play independently later in the week

Picnic Action Rhyme

Don't forget we have an action rhyme Picnic Ants that your students could learn to help integrate your learning activities and provide you with a transition tool for classroom management (a more comprehensive version including activities and worksheets) is available in our store).