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We are Heidi and Emily. Sisters. Heidi & Emily are both former 2nd grade teachers and current preschool teachers with a combined 17 years experience. We are passionate about making education fun for little ones and teachers alike. We share ideas, tutorials and free downloads here. In our shop you'll find classroom resources like homework, lessons, and workbooks. Read more about us here.
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« October 2010 | Main | December 2010 »
November 2010
Wednesday Words-- Synonym Turkeys
The third grade at my school does Synonym Turkeys every year. The students choose a word and write it on the turkeys' bodies.
Then they look up their words in the thesaurus and write synonyms on the feathers (sometimes with correct spelling, sometimes without. :) )
My favorite was this one from a horse crazy little girl:
Then they look up their words in the thesaurus and write synonyms on the feathers (sometimes with correct spelling, sometimes without. :) )
My favorite was this one from a horse crazy little girl:
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Toddler Tuesday: I Am Thankful for My Family
If you ask a toddler who their favorite person is, their answer is bound to be a member of their family: dad, grandma, big brother. Thanksgiving is a great time to teach toddlers about being thankful for their family members.
Everybody in the family is special! Model your thinking to help toddlers recognize why they are thankful for their family. "I am thankful for Mom because she takes care of everyone and is good at playing legos." or "I am thankful for Grandpa because he reads us stories and takes us fishing."
And of course, "I am thankful for YOU because you help your sister play with her toys."
I made some finger puppets you can use for teaching about being thankful for family. Download the finger puppets here. I left them black and white for your toddler to enjoy coloring. You may need to print several copies to have enough of each person in your family.
You can use these finger puppets for a many activities. You can sing songs, do finger plays, or tell stories with the finger puppets. Or your toddler can wear them as they describe their family members and why they are grateful for each of them. Enjoy!
We're linked up at Tot Tuesdays.
Everybody in the family is special! Model your thinking to help toddlers recognize why they are thankful for their family. "I am thankful for Mom because she takes care of everyone and is good at playing legos." or "I am thankful for Grandpa because he reads us stories and takes us fishing."
And of course, "I am thankful for YOU because you help your sister play with her toys."
I made some finger puppets you can use for teaching about being thankful for family. Download the finger puppets here. I left them black and white for your toddler to enjoy coloring. You may need to print several copies to have enough of each person in your family.
You can use these finger puppets for a many activities. You can sing songs, do finger plays, or tell stories with the finger puppets. Or your toddler can wear them as they describe their family members and why they are grateful for each of them. Enjoy!
We're linked up at Tot Tuesdays.
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Giveaway on Facebook
Baby Makin(g) Machine is hosting a "flash" giveaway today. Head over to her facebook page and you can comment to win a $20 gift certificate from us! The contest ends in 24 hours. Be sure to look at the other posts on her facebook page to win giveaways from other companies as well. Good luck!
Monday Math will be coming later today, so check back this evening!
Monday Math will be coming later today, so check back this evening!
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Math Monday--Questions
Instead of math journals, in my class I have the students write me "postcards." I tell them that when you're someplace special you send other people postcards to tell them how great it is. Since I can't visit inside their heads, they have to send me a postcard to tell me what's going on.
I write the prompt on the board and answer brief questions about it. Then I hand them all an index card and insist they write for a few minutes. The trick is keeping them all writing for the whole time!
After the timer beeps, they can "mail" me the postcard in a little mailbox I got in the Target Dollar Spot around Valentine's Day last year. Of course every single one of them has to put the flag up!
The best source of math questions that I've found is from the book Good Questions for Math Teaching. The title pretty much says it all. :)
I don't know that it's worth the original $24.95, but Amazon has it for about $13 and I definitely get $13 worth out of it! I like that the questions are open-ended. I like that they challenge my high kids, but are accessible for my strugglers. But most of all, I like that I don't have to think of my own prompts!
For example:
Last week I had the kids answer ___ + ___ + ___ = 13 and asked them to find as many numbers as they could that fit the number sentence.
It was a good assessment for me to see which students recognized the different ways to decompose 13, which students could use patterns to build their answers, and which students still had no clue what was going on.
We're linked up at Math Monday.
I write the prompt on the board and answer brief questions about it. Then I hand them all an index card and insist they write for a few minutes. The trick is keeping them all writing for the whole time!
After the timer beeps, they can "mail" me the postcard in a little mailbox I got in the Target Dollar Spot around Valentine's Day last year. Of course every single one of them has to put the flag up!
The best source of math questions that I've found is from the book Good Questions for Math Teaching. The title pretty much says it all. :)
I don't know that it's worth the original $24.95, but Amazon has it for about $13 and I definitely get $13 worth out of it! I like that the questions are open-ended. I like that they challenge my high kids, but are accessible for my strugglers. But most of all, I like that I don't have to think of my own prompts!
For example:
On a graph about pets owned by children in our class, I counted more dogs than cats. What might the graph look like?
It was a good assessment for me to see which students recognized the different ways to decompose 13, which students could use patterns to build their answers, and which students still had no clue what was going on.
We're linked up at Math Monday.
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Freebie Friday--Turkey Bookmark
Howdy! If you're lookin' for a fun Thanksgiving craft to do with the kiddos, we've got you covered! I thought a bookmark would be a fun holiday/reading/art connection. It was supposed to be a simple little coloring activity, but it morphed into something a bit more involved.
I've done it with 4/5 of the second grade classes so far and they've all loved it. I think that counts as a thumbs up! They've all been so creative. From your traditional turkey tom...
...to the harvest colored birds...
...to the rainbow fantastic!
And now you can own your very own turkey bookmark pattern! I know you've spent years dreaming of this day, and now it's finally here!! :)
Download the black and white template here.
If you're not in the mood to color, you can get a colorful version as well.
If you try it out, we'd love to see pictures!!
We're linked up at ABC and 123 Show and Tell.
I've done it with 4/5 of the second grade classes so far and they've all loved it. I think that counts as a thumbs up! They've all been so creative. From your traditional turkey tom...
...to the harvest colored birds...
...to the rainbow fantastic!
And now you can own your very own turkey bookmark pattern! I know you've spent years dreaming of this day, and now it's finally here!! :)
Download the black and white template here.
If you're not in the mood to color, you can get a colorful version as well.
If you try it out, we'd love to see pictures!!
We're linked up at ABC and 123 Show and Tell.
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A Thanksgiving Classroom
We have a two day week next week. Not enough time to do much of anything. Monday I try and stick to the routine, but Tuesday is more laid back. I don't do a big party. Instead I pretty much just make use of all those Thanksgiving worksheets I was handed my first year of teaching. :)
I die-cut several turkeys and listed a Thanksgiving-ish activity on each one. I set a timer for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, etc. We go on with our day, but when the timer beeps we stop and I choose someone to pick a turkey from the basket.
We sing a song and read a story. We finish up any Novembery things I couldn't quite fit in. We pass the Thankerchief.
We survey ten people and graph our favorite Thanksgiving foods. I kind of thought this was a universal classroom activity, but this was about the only photo I could find!
We do some probability and if I'm feeling brave, we might make a yummy treat like these darling Pilgrim hats or one of these bazillion turkey snacks (even more here!).
I like to give the kids some little vegetable pictures to color and turn into patterns or we might make some pattern block turkeys.
source: trcabc.comWe have loads of low-stress fun and the kids never realize they're doing (mostly) educational stuff!
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Wednesday Words--Turkey in Disguise
Considering the books I read to my class each November, it's a wonder any of them actually sit down to a plateful of turkey on Thanksgiving! No worries, though, they're still counting the days until they can savor mom's home roasted turkey goodness!So far we've worked our way through:
[Click on the covers for more information about each book.]
Apparently there's a well established tradition of having children disguise a (paper) turkey as a Thanksgiving art project. I'm sad I've been missing out on this! Lynne shared these pictures from her class.
The kids made a disguise for their bird and then wrote: "Turkey? What Turkey? I'm not a turkey, I'm a ______. Maybe you should look at a _______."So cute! I love the turkey gnome!
If you're looking for more turkey inspiration, check out this site. (Scroll down.) There's even a turkey rodeo queen!
Littlegiraffes.com suggests a prompt for some undercover turkey writing.
This is a patterned writing activity for practicing nouns, verbs, describing words, and quotation marks. Each turkey disguises itself as another animal to fool the farmer. Make three columns on the board: Animal Names, Animal Actions, and Animal Sounds. Then brainstorm ideas.You can even toss in the song Five Fat Turkeys Are We.
This is an example:I could be a ________. (pig)
I could ________. (roll in the mud)
" _____, ______," said the turkey (oink oink)
"Oh!" said the farmer, "It must be a ______!" (pig)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yWteO_UgEQ?fs=1]
I can't wait to try this out with my little turkeys! This guy is just begging for a new look, don't you think? You can download the .pdf from teachers.net.
But if your Thanksgiving disguise need run the other way, Designs With Heart has a pattern for making a turkey mask. If you try it out, just make sure to keep your running shoes on!
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Toddler Tuesday: Wooden Lacing Beads
Our friend Lori has a fun post up about how her 2.5 year old son E enjoys lacing the wooden beads she found at Target.
She also shares how she used some of the beads to make a "cutting" activity.
Check out Lori's blog for this post and many other great ideas! I can't wait until Adelaide is big enough for these fun activities.
We're linked up at Tot Tuesdays and Show and Tell.
Photo courtesy of This Little Life of Mine
She also shares how she used some of the beads to make a "cutting" activity.
Photo courtesy of This Little Life of Mine
We're linked up at Tot Tuesdays and Show and Tell.
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Monday Math--It's Autumn Time
It's starting to feel more like winter than fall outside, but I'm not ready to give up on my favorite season just yet! Let's stretch out these glorious golden days a little longer. Are you with me?
kbteachers offers some free season themed math worksheets. The nice thing about these is that you can choose color or bw.
Three worksheets are available at printables4kids.com. All of these worksheets include an extension activity for even more practice! For example, after identifying even and odd acorns, students can cut out the shapes and order them from least to greatest.
For hands-on activities, try Mathwire's list of pumpkin math ideas.
Makinglearningfun.com has a whole list of fall themed fun, including these M&M; math trees.
Mathcats makes great use of autumn leaves and one of my favorite math tools, the number balance.
Now I guess it's almost time to start thinking about winter math ideas.
We're linked up at Math Monday.
kbteachers offers some free season themed math worksheets. The nice thing about these is that you can choose color or bw.
Three worksheets are available at printables4kids.com. All of these worksheets include an extension activity for even more practice! For example, after identifying even and odd acorns, students can cut out the shapes and order them from least to greatest.
For hands-on activities, try Mathwire's list of pumpkin math ideas.
Makinglearningfun.com has a whole list of fall themed fun, including these M&M; math trees.
Mathcats makes great use of autumn leaves and one of my favorite math tools, the number balance.
Now I guess it's almost time to start thinking about winter math ideas.
We're linked up at Math Monday.
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