Pencil Name Craft For Kids | Fun back to school learning idea. Use a free printable PDF template to cut out & make. Great for preschool, pre k & kindergarten.

I can’t say I’m a big fan of icebreakers myself, at least the get-to-know-you type. Students may be grouped in a different way from the previous year, and there are always new students to the schoo…

Last summer I added Mo Willems' The Pigeon HAS to Go to School! to my classroom library. Of course, this addition was a no-brainer. Willems' books are always super popular, especially Pigeon books. Just as predicted, my students loved this book. It is the perfect length for the beginning of the year, when attention spans are extra short and students need a little break from all the procedural training they are receiving. Since I knew this book would be a hit, I decided to make it the centerpiece of back to school. I created some basic "Pigeon themed" math and literacy activities, as well as a simple craft. I used these activities intermittently during the first week and was able to glean some great info about my new students' basic math and literacy skills, as well as their fine motor skills and listening skills. One of the Pigeon themed activities was a number/number word/counting mini book. Students traced and wrote the numbers 1-10, as well as the number words 1-10. Then students illustrated a picture to go with each number. We broke this activity up over a couple of days. Students took part in a listening activity. Students had to complete a picture according to a series of questions/statements that I read aloud. (If you've every made a glyph with your students, this activity feels really similar.) Students also put together their first puzzler for the year. This puzzler focused on number representations. Students cut and glued the puzzler pieces to tell what number is represented in the box. By the end, students have a completed picture that they can color. I use various puzzlers throughout the year. This the Pigeon puzzler is a great introduction to how to complete a puzzler. Students loved making their simple, one-page craft Pigeons. All that was required was the Pigeon pattern (I used white card stock), scissors, and glue. The class Pigeons made a really quick and cute back to school bulletin board. In addition to these activities, students worked on counting/cardinality, geometry, place value, number bonds, handwriting, the alphabet, rhyming words, sight words, and more. The Pigeon HAS to Go to School! is a perfect springboard for a variety of skills. For a math freebie (from the printables featured above), click on the picture below. This freebie provides practice with ten frames, counting, and number identification. If you have not added, The Pigeon HAS to Go to School! to your classroom library, I highly recommend it. There are so many directions you can go with this book. More importantly, your students will love it and be totally engaged. What a great way to start the year, by reading a book that students truly enjoy. :) For more details about the all of the Pigeon inspired activities I used with my students, be sure to click on the picture below. Of course (like most), I'm not certain what this year's back to school days will look like. Whatever the setup, I know I'll be using The Pigeon HAS to Go to School! to help me kick off the year. Thanks for stopping by. School Is a Happy Place is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associated Program, an affiliate program that allows this site to earn advertising fees. Please know that all of the recommendations on this site are authentic and come from personal experience.

Team building activities for kids are not only fun but also essential for their social and emotional development. These activities involve collaborative tasks that encourage children to work together towards a common goal, fostering communication, cooperation, and problem-solving skills. Whether

The first week of school sure is a busy one! I work hard to balance the mandatory paperwork with games, hands-on activities and team-building fun. Even with bigger kids, it’s important to keep them moving throughout the day and providing a variety of activities. 1. Marshmallow Tower For this activity, you’ll need the following materials […]

Over 35 heavy work activities for kids, toddlers, and preschoolers that are designed to help calm and improve attention. Many of these activities can be done through natural activities your child is already doing!

I used to spend so much time looking for the perfect read aloud books each month to read to my students. I have finally compiled a list on this blog post to save you so much time searching for books your students will love. I have even created FREE book companion activities you can pr

These all about me, back to school art activities for kids are engaging icebreakers. Encourage creativity and build community during the first week back

Set a friendly tone in your classroom with these 30 "Get to Know You" games perfect for back to school or when welcoming a new student.

100+ Sunday School lessons for kids with free printables, Bible crafts, games, and activities to make Bible stories fun for all ages!

Add elements of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell to your preschool centers to integrate science and play while students explore their senses.

Learn about France with this France preschool unit! Activities, crafts, food, songs, etc to give your child a taste of France.

Easy forest school activities, done-for-you forest school lesson plans and ready-made nature curriculum: save time and teach better!

Discover the perfect All About Me preschool activity designed for young kids! Get a free printable worksheet that's simple, engaging, and ideal for emergent readers. Download now!

After school activities are more important than you think. This collections of activities & educational games enhances kids' creativity & critical thinking.

FREE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN ACTIVITIES It is the first day of kindergarten! What do I teach? I have taught kindergarten both in the classroom and homeschooling my own daughters. After years of teaching kindergarten, I have come up with the perfect activities for the first day. I have d

1-2-3 come Do Some Chrysanthemum Activities With Me “Chrysanthemum” by Kevin Henkes, is one of my all-time favorite back to school books. It’s perfect for a variety of ages, and especially wonderful as an introduction to name activities, as well as discussions about teasing, bullying and “filling buckets”. With that in mind, I enjoyed making a variety of Chrysanthemum-themed activities appropriate for PK-1st grade. I'll be sharing 3 of them in today's blog along with a sweet back to school FREEBIE. Because I like to mix math with literacy, I designed the Chrysanthemum Name Comparison Math Craftivity, where students compare their name with Chrysanthemum’s. I’ve included a simple PK version which can be done as a whole group, with an older elementary buddy, or done as homework with the assistance of a parent. There’s also a template suitable for kindergarten, 1st and 2nd, which involves some easy math, where students can show how they figured out their answer. Use the vowel, consonants and syllable posters to help explain things, then hang up for students to refer to. These can also be used as part of your display, as completed projects make an adorable bulletin board, or hung as a border on a hallway wall. I’ve included 2 “Mixing Math & Literacy” display posters for this as well. For extra pizzazz, punch a hole at the bottom and tie on a yarn "tail", or curl a white pipe cleaner and attach. There are 10 border options to choose from. Give your students a choice, or run off 2-3 of each of the worksheets so you have a nice variety in your display. Girls can add a bow to their mouse, and boys can opt to leave it off if they want. For an added splash of color, mount the worksheet on a variety of colors of construction paper before students glue their mouse head to the top. Next up, is another quick, easy and fun “print & go” name craftivity. I call them "sliders". Simply choose which name slider you want your kiddos to make. There are 6 options. I like my students to get some practice in making choices, so I run all of them off. I’ve included black and white patterns for kiddos to color, as well as templates in color, so that you can quickly and easily make examples to share. Mounting them on construction paper gives a splash of color and makes them sturdier. Run off the boxed “slider strips”, as well as the blank strips and trim. Children color Chrysanthemum, then write their name on the “slider” strip, by writing a letter in each box. If you have PK kiddos who don’t know how to write their name, you can have slider strips already written for them, or provide a name card for them to copy. I’ve included 6 matching name cards if you’d like to use these. Finally, I designed a Chrysanthemum-Inspired Class Name Booklet. At the beginning of the story, her parents explain why they named her Chrysanthemum, so I thought it would be fun to send a note home and ask parents why they chose their child’s name. Parents fill out the worksheet and their child colors it. After everyone has shared their page, collate the contributions, add the cover and you have a very interesting class-made book. Run off the "inside" pages and give children a choice. There are 7 girl-themed pages, plus 7 for boys. I share Dr. Seuss’s story “Too Many Daves”, then include those pages, along with the rose-quote poster in our booklet as well. We make several class books each month. They are always a favorite in our classroom "book" basket, and a big hit with parents at conferences. Adding a school photo to each page makes things extra special. Today's featured FREEBIE is also perfect for back to school. I not only give my students a little surprise treat on the 1st day of school, I do a little something extra special the entire week. For a quick, easy and inexpensive treat bag, fill up a Snack Baggie with Lucky Charms cereal and include my little note. There's also 2 "header" options if you want to put 1 at the top of your bag. Well that's it for today. My mom's visiting from Wisconsin, and I hear her stirring on this beautiful morning, so time to switch gears and go play outside. "Tears of joy are like the summer rain drops pierced by sunbeams." - Hosea Ballou

Team-building activities in the middle school classroom are a great way to build relationships at the beginning of the school year!

Looking for some fun, faith-based crafts for your kids or Sunday School classes? Check out these 50+ easy Bible crafts for kids!

These crossing midline activities support development of crossing the midline plays in functional tasks like learning and self care.

Amazing things can happen with just one dot.

It is the first week of kindergarten! What do I teach? I get this question all the time! I am so excited to put together this page together for you. I’m sharing our favorite first week of kindergarten read aloud stories and the free coordinating printables I made to go with them. Plus I will s

Have you tried using Collaborative Posters in the Classroom? Collaborative posters are a fantastic way to build a culture of teamwork and unity in your

These all about me, back to school art activities for kids are engaging icebreakers. Encourage creativity and build community during the first week back

When I start the new school year, I pick a book of the day for the first two weeks. I create a variety of activities to go with each book. I use a lot of books that focus on social and emotional learning, including kindness, friendship, and respect. But, I also add in some fun ... Read More about 8 Books for Back to School

Download this free ghost craft printable and create your own cut and paste activity with eight pages of ghosts plus features and accessories.

Fun STEM activity for outdoor play and makes a great science lesson! (Includes a printable rocket template).

We've been excited about sharing all of the fabulous and free creation crafts that are perfect for teaching about our amazing creator! Grab our Creation Craft Globe for kids!

Crossing the midline activities for kids. What on earth are those? Sometimes in the educational world we start speaking a slightly different language than 'normal' people. Not that teachers aren't normal ... though ... you do need to be a little insane to work with small children all day long, don't you? Anyways. I had

Paper Bag Dramatics: A fun activity for Team Building and Developing Community. Here's an idea that can be used just about anywhere at any time. It encourages groups to solve problems, think creatively, and work as a team.

Use letter activities like alphabet collages or letter mats to help kids learn letter recognition and to reinforce letter-sound associations. Here are over 200 material ideas that you can use for your

Outdoor learning is a great way to connect with nature and have fun. Forest School activities can incorporate art, craft, science, sensory play, and s

Heavy work activities provide proprioceptive input that can help children stay calm. This list of heavy work activities contains ideas kids can use anywhere

This post may contain affiliate links. Thanks for supporting Sisters, What! I've recently went down the rabbit hole of home school resources that you can buy and that are also available to download for free. There are so many talented home schoolers these days and they have used their amazing art skills to create such beautiful unit studies and they're quite affordable. I thought I'd share both some that you can buy and that you can download for free. You may also enjoy: Homeschool Gift ideas Favorite Home School Resources to buy on Etsy (skip to second part of the post for free resources) *You can find a full list of my favorite Home School Etsy Favorites HERE and my Etsy Profile of Favorite things HERE This is a favorite Charlotte Mason Quote digital download that is perfect for any home school room Honey Comb Shop is one of my favorites, they have so many different mini unit nature study and the art is beautiful. I made these homeschool stickers for friends and now have them in my shop. Raising Wild Things Shop also does some great and beautiful nature unit studies printables I love all these life cycle physical prints from The Rewild Shop And more life cycle prints (printables) from Lovely Wild Sunflowers Shop Pretty Nerdy Press makes some really beautiful graphics for home school and for the home. Such great quality too. So many great simple Charlotte Mason unit studies from CM Simple Studies. MATH HOMESCHOOL PRINTABLES TO BUY Know It All Shop offers not only beautiful ABC prints but also so many great, colorful math printables you can download at a great price. This shop, Artsopomc, also contains some fun multiplication printables and if you're Korean, some Korean printables as well. I love all these very bright and colorful prints from Petunia Be Designs. They also come in black and white as well. Home School Resources to Download for Free First of all, I have created a few free printable resources here on this blog. I've made a few different types of bookmarks that you can download for free. These vintage reading chart bookmarks have open ended questions on the back to help kids dive deeper into reading. And you can download a fun reading bingofun summer reading bingo to go with the bookmarks Free Printable Coloring Reading Bookmark printable Free Printable Reading log/planner (perfect for summer) and free home school planner printables And these free printable Writing and Number Charts. Also these garden journal/books you can download for free And from around the internet: Jessica over at Simple Wonders has created so many great printables to get your home school started. Much is aligned with Charlotte Mason Philosophy. Along with a great reading and spelling list to download. She even has created a great curriculum outline for you to download. Everything is free or pay what you can. She only needs just enough to keep the site maintained, any profit she donates to a non-profit. She has been so generous at what she offers. You can also find free artist studies to download for free HERE I love all the Humble Place has to offer. She has created so many great artist study units. Most cost a little something, but she offers a few of them for free. I love This Reading Mama. She offers so many free printables, especially for preschool and younger elementary age. I have used her Learning to Read Printables for so many of my kids. Life Abundantly Blog has so much to offer and has some great printables that you can download for free like this nature collection journal Silo and Sage has created some great printables and even has some free ones, but you should also check out the ones for sale. The Measured Mom is another great blogger that offers so many free home school resources like these Math printables and these Free Handwriting Pages which I have used for all my kids. Those are what I have for now. I'll probably keep updating this resource list as I come across others that I think are great!

Send them off with a smile!

These human body for kids activities allow children to learn about the heart, muscles, lungs, 5 senses, bones organs, cells, and so much more!

Looking for easy Ocean Crafts? This printable Easy Octopus Craft is perfect! Preschoolers can practice their scissor skills with this fun idea

If you're looking for fun and easy getting to know you activities for the first day of school, these ice breaker games for kids will inspire you!

Download six cute (and FREE) printable Summer Olympics coloring pages for kids to include in your olympics celebration activities and parties!

Looking for fun LDS primary activity ideas for kids? Here's a list of some of the most creative ones we have done. Scout activity ideas too!