Writing About Ladybugs

Encourage your children to write about ladybugs this week! They could write a:

Ladybug Life Cycle: 

Write a story about the life cycle of a ladybug, from egg to adult (this pack has a page for drawing and writing labels on a life cycle).

Ladybug Habitat: 

Write a poem about the different places where ladybugs live. Research some facts about ladybugs, isolate some keywords and make a chart for students to use as a word bank in their writing.

Ladybug Helpers: 

Write on and draw a poster about how ladybugs help the environment and plants by eating aphids.

Ladybug Friends: 

Write a play about a group of ladybugs who become friends with other insects in the garden.

Ladybug Information: 

Write an information report that includes interesting facts about ladybugs. This pack includes lots of options for students at different writing levels.

Your classroom displays will come alive with some bright happy ladybugs too! Here are some with simple cutting lines for your little learners to paint, color and assemble:

• be sure to join my newsletter community for more ideas and support 
• find the ladybug craft here

Ladybugs are fascinating creatures that are fun and educational for students to learn about. They can be easy to find and observe, they're colorful and captivate children's curiosity, they're helpful in the environment, and part of a complete life cycle.

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Ladybugs, Writing

Puppy Tracing Page

Tracing and Painting Are Great for Kindergarten on a Friday!

Have a little Fun Friday session to help your students wind down the week and review some of their learning activities.  You'll integrate plenty of learning opportunities - but they'll just think it's all fun and games! 

There are hundreds of stations you could set up in independent-learning style activity centers - here are just a few:

They could:

• draw and make with paper scraps and glue
• choose anything to read from the class library
• play some math games you’ve taught through the week in a relaxed, independent learning center
• play some music and have a dance
• choose a coloring page to color or trace

Tracing and painting are always favorites too! Use some pages from one of my printable packs or the Pond Coloring Club. 

Tracing and painting:

• help develop fine motor skills
• require children to use their small muscles, which helps develop fine motor skills
• helps develop creativity and self-expression
• allows children to express themselves creatively and explore their imaginations

Tracing and painting are both fun and engaging activities that children enjoy. This makes them a great way to keep children learning and engaged on a Friday afternoon or in a Fun Friday session. This puppy is from the Coloring Club and after tracing your children can add extra patterns with crayons and paint it for display. 

Other puppy themed pages that will delight your children on a Friday include a word wall page and drawing page:

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Tracing

Make It Mouse

Here is one game from our Ten Frame Activities pack. Your learners will:

• subitize numbers to ten on a ten frame
• count objects
• develop an understanding of the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality
• use a rectangular array to count 'how many'

How to play Make It Mouse

• have a teacher set of ten frame flashcards and briefly show these to your group, giving them time to look at the number
• decide if you'll ask your students to call the number right away, or remember it in their mind (depending on their math skills)
• have your students re-create the number pattern after you've flipped the card back over - encouraging them to work from memory
• check for accuracy by flipping the card back and letting students count again to check their pattern

For this game you can have your learners make each number with:

• counters
• cubes
• play dough
• connecting cubes (and then have them connect them)
• hand drawn dots using a dry erase marker

Ten frames are a great way to help our little mathematicians learn to count and work with numbers. They are a visual representation of numbers, and they can be used to support their emerging work in addition, subtraction, comparing numbers, equal groups and more! 

These mouse cards are from a printable pack in my store that includes 300 options for games and activities in your math groups. There are 15 games with 20 different ten frame mat style - helping you make the repeated practice needed more engaging for your students each day! 

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Ten Frames

Robot Remake Math Game

Here is another game to use in math groups using any of the mats in the Play to Ten pack! Here we are using the robot cards but you can use any of the 20 different themed cards to engage and motivate your students. Students will

• count to make a number on the robot
• add or take away to make another number

How to play Robot Remake

• place the numeral cards in a face down pile
• players flip a card and make the number  - e.g 7
• flip another card and then remake the set to show the new number - e.g. taking one away to make the new number 6

Here we've flipped a number 8 card and have taken some away to make 4. 

While playing, talk with your learners about:

• how the numbers get smaller or bigger
• comparing numbers as numerals or sets of objects
• how many more to make ten

I hope your students love this extra way to play! The pack of 20 math mats is over in my TPT store ready to print! 

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Maths Game, Play to Ten

Pig Pairs Math Warm Up

Here are the new Pig Pairs math activity cards from the Math Kit! They are ideal for reference during any math activity - where students can easily be supported to learn the addition facts that make ten - but they can also be used for interactive games too! Here is one idea:

Pig Dig

• the pigs are digging for food and when they find a pair can eat (line up cubes as food)
• students take turns to choose a number to 'dig'
• for example, a student might choose the number 7 (uncovered) and say '3' before digging (sliding the cube off)
• if correct, the cube is kept by the student until the end of the game
• if incorrect, it is returned to cover the number again
• challenge students to remember these number facts to ten

It is important to first implement lots of activities for students to 'make ten' with objects and pictures before they start to memorize facts as numerals. 

An extension to the activity would be for students to play several rounds, helping to provide more opportunities for them to remember the facts. Play 5 rounds. On each round, the winner could take a pig stick from the mud (playdough). 

These pigs can be made from a craft page in the Premium Coloring Club and used for language games and retelling stories in puppet play too. 

I hope your students are enjoying the warm ups, games and activities with resources from the Math Kit! I'd love your feedback too!

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farm, Making 10, Math Kit

Sunshine in the Garden - a Math Activity

Spring - a lovely season of more sunshine and blooming flowers! Color, activity and new beginnings. Let's have our students tend to a garden in a small group math activity and encourage their minds to bloom with foundational counting and emerging number sense. 

For this game I'm using a page from the Pond Coloring Club (Pick a Flower) and flower cards from the Math Kit.

Sunshine in the Garden - a math warm up or small group activity

• remind your students that flowers need water (rain) and sunshine to grow
• have a pile of flower cards and a coloring page
• take a flower card and copy the pattern (raindrops) on any flower
• the aim to have a row with the largest number when the sun comes out - so students may like to put some mathematical thinking into action when deciding where to draw the dots from their card onto a flower on their page
• on your signal (the sun has come out) all players pause and find the garden row on their page with the highest total 
• students may or may not have completed all the flowers - how much time you give them before the sun comes out is up to you
• this game can be played with a dice or other dot cards if you do not have the Math Kit cards

Math talking points:

• talk about the totals on each row
• have students label each row with a symbol (numeral)
• have students order their rows by comparing the totals
• talk about how some rows with 3 numbers may have a higher total than some rows with 4 flowers 
• encourage sharing of counting and positioning strategies they used during the activity

If you're in my newsletter community I have sent to a Sunshine Wand to use as a prompt in the game. It adds an element of novelty and engagement for your students. 

You can shine this above the playing space when time is up and totals must be calculated. If you'd like to join my newsletter community - find out about it here and just reply to the welcome email with a request for the wand and I'll send it to you! 

I hope your learners enjoy math today and have fun tending to their garden while learning to count, compare and add numbers in a row! 

After all that math work, your children will love to color and decorate their page too! 

I think you'll also love to learn more about:

• the Math Kit bundle
• the Pond Coloring Club
• spring teaching ideas

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Coloring Page, Math Kit, Spring

A Simple Snail to Draw for Writing

Drawing Fun Snails with Crayons

Snails, with their beautiful shells and slow-paced nature, can be a delightful subject for drawing. And what better way to capture their charm than with colorful crayons?

Help your children have a fun drawing session where they’ll practice a round circle shape and a curved (capital C) to integrate some early-handwriting skills too!

Materials needed:

• a sheets of paper or pages from my printable pack
• a variety of crayons
• watercolors (optional)

Instructions:

• Start by drawing 3 round ovals for the snail's shell (see photo below).
• Draw a curved letter C shape for the snail's body and add some details like the eyes and the mouth.
• Use different colors of crayons to fill in the shell and the body.
• Add some details to the background, such as grass, flowers, or rocks.

They look beautiful on display as art projects or they can be completed as part of your fine motor or writing program. Included in my printable pack are pages to review essential lines for handwriting letters and to support writing a simple sentence or two along with clear big steps to draw. 

Tips:

• Use a variety of colors to make your snails look more vibrant.
• Experiment with different techniques, such as blending colors or using different pressures to create different effects.
• Draw some snail trails too - long horizontal lines across the page - perfect for prewriting practice too!

At a writing or drawing center the snails can help facilitate important language and communication skills too.

• Organize a gallery where the drawings can be displayed close to where students draw and write.
• Encourage them to use their drawings, additional photos and word banks as a tool for group discussions and brainstorming sessions.
• Encourage students to explain their drawings to each other, fostering communication and collaboration. It can be as simple as having them point to their work and describe the colors they've chosen to use or as elaborate as telling a short story about their drawings. 

If you'd like more ideas and support for drawing and writing in the early-years classroom, be sure to join my newsletter list. 

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Directed Drawing, Handwriting, Pre Writing

Counting with Frog

Here is a math warm up to get your kindergarten children counting to ten with counters. Use it to engage them before you start a mini lesson at the math table and to review and asses their counting and number sense. I've used the frog lilypad cards and dot cards (1s and 2s) from the Math Kit. 

Using Counters in Math Play

Using counters or blocks is important for:

Hands-on learning: 

Using physical objects like counters allows children to engage in hands-on learning, which research has shown to be effective in early math education.

Concrete representation of numbers: 

Counters provide a concrete representation of numbers, making it easier for children to grasp abstract mathematical concepts.

Promoting number sense: 

Counting with chips helps children develop number sense, which is the ability to understand the magnitude and relationships of numbers.

To play Count Along the Lily pad 

• have numbers to 10 out 
• flip the 1s and 2s face down in a pile
• have access to a dish of counters

As students flip a dot card they add them to one space on the 5 frame and count. By the end of the 5 frame they will have come to a total and they find teh number card to match. 

Other ways you may like. to support counting and number sense in your classroom include:

• counting objects in the classroom
• playing counting games, like "I Spy" or "Count to 10"
• using counting manipulatives, like blocks or beads with play mats
• singing counting songs
• creating counting books or charts

I hope your students are excited for math today and this warm-up idea has you feeling supported and excited to teach. Here are some more ways I can help:

• Find more Math Warm Up ideas here
• Find more from the Math Kit here
• Learn about my newsletter community - it’s free

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Math Kit, math warm up, number sense

Kindergarten Drawing

Drawing in kindergarten helps you integrate practice for fine motor skills with creativity and writing! Your children will be inspired to write about their drawing or join in discussion on the topic, using essential language and communication skills. Their artwork is ideal for a classroom display too.

I have a new set of directed drawings in my store that all use a simple 3-hop movement to start. The hopping (or jumping) pattern is one they may already be familiar with from their handwriting fluency practice. This forward clockwise motion is important for learning to write letters like r, p, b, n, m and o.

As well as drawing on the included writing papers you can use the steps in a directed art project. Here is a flower from the pack. It starts with 3 hops:

Once you've taught the directed drawing your students could use it within one of their own art project ideas:

This flower is just one of 15 projects included in the new pack. 

Directed drawing is an engaging activity that allows children plenty of opportunities to improve and succeed. It can help them build confidence in their artistic abilities and encourage them to talk and write as well! 

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Directed Drawing

Place Value Game for Teen Numbers

Play is a natural way for children to learn and develop, and it's a great way to teach math concepts. Manipulatives, games, and math centers help children to visualize abstract concepts and make them more concrete. Encourage your kindergarteners to use their imaginations and creativity to solve math problems through play!

Here is a game that introduces tens and ones to make teen numbers using the Happy Car cards from the Math Kit. 

Children will:

• add ones to a ten (on the car play mat already) to make a teen number
• identify the teen number on a number card
• identify 3 teen numbers in order

To play

• to start have number cards 11-19 in an array - this is the carpark
• place a ten block on the car - it stays there for the duration of the game
• tell students they will be adding ones to a ten to make a ten number - model a few to demonstrate 
• have each child roll a 10 sided dice and add ones to the car play mat to complete a teen number
• find and flip a number in the ‘car park’ (number cards lined up in an array) that matches
• to win or finish the game, have 3 number cards flipped in order - e.g. 17, 18, 19

Extend the game by encouraging your children to clear the board (empty the car park with all cards flipped).

I hope your children have lots of fun making teen numbers to practice teen numbers. 

Here are 3 more ways to use dice and place value blocks in your math play:

• Roll and compare - children play in pairs. Both roll and model a number with blocks. Compare the numbers and talk about greater than / less than etc.
• Roll a dice twice and have your children model the number with blocks, finding the total and trading for a ten if needed.
• Roll and model numbers, adding to a pile until you reach 20 (or 50 or 100).

You may also like to:

• find the happy car math cards HERE
• learn more about the Math Kit bundle HERE
• find more place value activities

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Math Kit, Place Value