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The Fall Preschool Unit is packed full of hands on math & literacy activities as well as no prep worksheets for easy lesson planning.

Today I want to share with you a really fun unit that I did with the kids over the past few weeks. For some reason this unit took us a while to get through. They were both really into learning about their bodies so we spent the first week learning about the outside of our bodies and the second week

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Montessori is expensive. Is Montessori possible to do inexpensively? Yes. Here are a few ideas to help integrate Montessori on a budget.

These 3d shape sorting mats would be great for a math center! You could use them in kindergarten or first grade. #teaching math #printables #mathcenters #3dshapes

We are working on a "big picture" of the Sacraments in Religion at school right now. I created these notes for the kids with the four main ideas we keep coming back to: Jesus' mission, the Church, the Sacraments, and Grace...and how they are all related. Here is my version with a little color added to make it pretty. You can print out my copy of the notes by clicking here: Or you can print the blank notes to have the kids fill in by clicking here: You might also like our Sacrament Symbols notes or some of the other activities under the Sacraments tab above.

After weeks and weeks of working on it, I finally finished my Fraction Printables for 4th Grade. I started out creating printables to use to bridge my curriculum and the Common Core Standards. In the end, I ended up with over 80 pages, complete with teaching pages, worksheets, word problems, quizzes, and a final assessment.…

This is Part 2 in my series on Take Home Folders/ Homework Folders. If you missed Part 1, I talked about how to set up, label, and organize your folders. Check it out here. Today's blog post will discuss how to actually manage the folders and the gazillions of papers that go back and forth from school to home. We live in a digital world, but papers are very much still a part of elementary schools. Having an efficient system in place will save you so many headaches. If you are a brand new teacher or new to the primary grades, I think these tips will be especially beneficial! This sounds like common sense, I know. First, choose the basket/bin/container the students will put their folders in. Also, decide WHERE in the classroom your basket will live. After you greet your kiddos in the morning, have them hang up their belongings and immediately take their folder to the designated spot. If you are like me, you have 100,000,000 cute containers in your classroom, house, and car but you still feel the need to buy more. I just found this adorable wire basket on Amazon. I'm pretty sure it's made for your kitchen or pantry, but I love it, nonetheless. It's a great size and will match any classroom door without clashing. Here is a picture of the basket in my office/playroom at home. So cute, right? I got the large, industrial gray on Amazon. I just typed up a little sign, glued it to card stock, and tied it to the wire basket with some twine. By 8:15 every morning, I personally check every single folder. I check for homework, reading log, notes from mom/dad, lunch money, permission slips, signed papers, etc. I do NOT want kids handing me things individually. I want everything in the folder. You are probably wondering... what in the world are the kids doing while you check all those folders?!?! Great question! Kiddos are doing their morning work/bell ringer, reading an AR book, and listening to the morning announcements. Realistically, it only takes me a few minutes to flip through all of the folders so I only need them busy independently for a few minutes. It's important to get folders checked early in the morning so I make it a priority. I like to separate this from Step 2 because sometimes I don't have time to do it all at the same time so it's best to check ALL the folders first, and then stuff them all. One thing at a time. :) The only thing I'm stuffing in the folder is a homework sheet or very important paper that needs to be returned to school- something like a permission slip, a test that needs to be signed, an envelope from the office, etc. My biggest advice here is to do this at the same time every day. Do not wait until the end of the day. It is way too crazy to be doing this at dismissal. Choose a consistent time when you can stuff folders every day- whether it be first thing in the morning, during your lunch break, or during your conference period. I've always used a traditional mailbox system, but whatever you have in your classroom will work (file folders, hanging file system, etc). Find a place to file the kiddos graded work, handouts, and classwork into a "mailbox" system. At the end of the day when it's time to get packed up, kiddos get their mail. At this time, I pass out the Take Home Folders that have already been stuffed with homework in the Return to School side of the folder. When kiddos get their mail, all of the mail goes in the KEEP AT HOME side of the folder. This includes graded work, classwork, papers from the school, art projects, book fair paperwork, PTA info, etc. These are the papers that you want to go home and never come back. :) I could write a novel on the behavior log. This is how I look at it. The child is spending 7 hours of the day at school. The parent should get some kind of information about how their day went (behavior wise). Realistically, teachers do not have time to write a personalized note in each child's folder every single day so you have to be selective. If a student had a really SPECIAL day, jot the parents a quick note about it. "Wow! Kacie was such a leader today. So proud of her!" On the other hand, small reminders can be a way for parents to start a conversation with their child at home. "Don't forget to raise your hand before speaking out." The teacher should walk around the room and complete behavior logs while the kiddos are getting their mail and packing up. I LOVE to pass out stickers for students to put on their behavior charts. If they've earned a sticker, it's an easy way to show parents they had a great day at school. If you use a color chart, you can have students use a crayon to color in their color on the corresponding day. Simple note. Follow up with a phone call or e-mail. Take Home Folders are an important part of the primary classroom. It's an integral way to communicate from school to home. It also gives students responsibility and accountability. Realistically, almost all correspondence could be done via e-mail/online but I think it's important for the children to be "in charge" of their behavior, backpack, folder, and homework, etc. #oldschool Check out my video to hear more about organizing and managing Take Home Folders. Download the forms and labels in my TpT store.

Set up an easy seed jar science experiment to watch check out how plants grow with your kids! A seed jar science activity is an amazing spring STEM project to try indoors this season. Learn about seed science, plant science, and simple science experiments with an easy to spring science activity all kids will love!

Journaling with preschoolers is a step toward further developing emergent writing skills in addition to making text to speech connections.

These habitat sorting mats are perfect for science centers! Students sort the provided animals into the correct habitats, record their names, and write about the characteristics that make them well suited for the habitat, but less well-suited for the other habitat in the pair. -- I’ve included habitat mats, twelve animals, and recording sheets for the following habitat pairings: • Tundra & Desert • Pond & Ocean • Grassland & Temperate Forest • Rain Forest & Mountain There is also a recording sheet option that includes all eight habitats and a writing prompt. This is a great choice for a small group activity. -- I love that these centers get kids discussing and reasoning about animal characteristics and adaptations. The hands-on nature of the activity also makes it accessible for all your learners. -- This activity supports the following Next Generation Science Standard: 2-LS4-1. Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats. See all my science resources here . -- If you and your students enjoy this resource, please consider following my store. Freebies and new products are posted regularly. You can contact me with any questions or requests at [email protected]. - Amanda Taylor @ Second Grade Smiles

Embarking on the homeschooling path is an engaging journey filled with discovery. But along with the excitement, there's also a practical side to consider. In some areas, keeping a homeschool portfolio is not just beneficial;

Yesterday, I posted about the idea behind our yearly home visits. Today, I wanted to share some materials I have created for students/parents to use at home. First off, some behavior resources. I have given parents a copy of this "Good behavior" and "Bad behavior" list we keep posted in our classroom. If timeout is successful in reducing an attention maintained behavior at school, then I will give the parents some time out visuals. I may give them a visual they can post on the wall for a designated time out space, or just a picture to carry with them in the purse (in case they need it in the community). I also LOVE this 3 strikes visual my coworker came up with! After each time a child engages in the behavior, a strip is removed from the visual. When all three strips are removed, the student receives time out. Another common visual I give to parents is an "I am working for" card. These can vary in how they look. Some are token systems (like the one pictured below) while others are more like a "First-Then" set-up. For the token card, students receive stars as they engage in positive behaviors (doing work or chores, staying quiet, keeping hands to themselves, etc). Once they receive 5 stars, they receive a reward of their choosing (at home this could be TV, video games, snack, etc.). I make parents pictures of each childs' preferred items to velcro onto the "I am working for" card. Another area I like to focus on during the home visits is chores/housework the child can do at home to help out the family. I created a "chore list" for parents to choose from (I have adapted this for individual students as well). To go with some of the chores, I have also created some visuals. For instance for laundry, I have created labels for sorting laundry (color clothes vs. white clothes). Parents can put these labels on two different laundry baskets/hampers, or they can just throw them on the floor and have the child sort clothes that way. I also have created clothes labels to go on drawers or in closets so that my students can help with putting away their laundry or finding clothes to get themselves dressed in the morning. Some other supports I have created have to do with creating routines in the home. I created a "dinner choice board" to aid students in communicating to their parents what they would like to eat at home. A shower routine to help remind kids to wash all the major body parts. A weather board to help with anxiety around cloudy/rainy weather. A brief schedule of "getting a haircut" for a student who struggled with behavior at the barbershop. It's nice to have these to draw from and adapt for each child in my classroom. After posting about this, I am starting to get super excited about these home visits. Tomorrow, my goal is to make the materials parents are requesting (bring on the laminator!).

Children love using Interactive whiteboards in the classroom. I have observed that children learn more and are involved more when they are actually interacting with the board, with their touch. It…

Free Printable Activities for Toddlers that go along with popular board books. Matching and sorting file folder games perfect for tot school for your toddler to practice concepts taught in board books such as colors, shapes, sizes, animals, body parts, opposites, numbers, counting, letters and more!

Worksheets with Color. Did you know that color can help memory retention in learning? Color is a very important part of emotion, productivity, and learning.

Naps are no more, but the kiddos (and mama) need a little rest. Enter quiet time bins! Full of fun, educational, and quiet activities for preschoolers.

Are you following us on Pinterest? Welcome once again to the "Playful Maths" weekly series brought to you by Learn with Play at home (us) and The Imagination Tree Together, let's make MATHS FUN! ............................................................................................................ Last week I shared Measuring Fun with Plastic Bottle Tools. This week we bring you 2 Playful Maths Activities using Bottle Tops. Today's activity from us focuses on "Number Recognition and Number Writing" This activity also includes counting, subitising and pretend play and could include addition, subtraction etc. Ages: 2+ (M has just turned 4. See the bottom for handy tips to Extend or Simplify to meet your child's needs) Making your Bottle Top Calculator Materials: 12 Plastic Recycled Bottle Tops, a piece of thick recycled cardboard, all purpose glue, scissors, marker and foam number stickers (optional). Directions: Cut your cardboard to size Stick (or write) the numbers 0-9 on ten of the bottle tops and write "on" and "off" on the remaining two. Glue your number and word bottle tops on your cardboard Draw in a "screen" Free Play I presented a real calculator with our bottle top calculator to explore with. My daughter asked for the extra bottle tops so she could use them as money that she needed to calculate. Extend the Play Once the kids had enjoyed the calculator as it was, I cut the "screen" out of the cardboard to extend the play and allow for other learning opportunities. To begin I wrote some numbers down a sheet of paper and she found the corresponding number. She loved sliding the paper to reveal the next hidden number. You can encourage subitising by putting in the dots and get them to see how quickly they can find the corresponding number. Then she wanted to write the numbers in herself (which was the original idea behind the design) Sometimes she pressed numbers and wrote them in. Other times, in order to practice her teen numbers I would ask her to put "12" on the calculator. This allowed us to really talk about the order of numbers and which went first (eg the 1 or the 2? A common area children struggle with.) as she had to press the numbers one at a time. We could see on a real calculator that when we pressed the numbers the first one would move along one space to the left. This allowed her to see how to write it in the space. She insisted on practicing some numbers again and again. It was great having the numbers on the bottle tops so that she could copy them. Handy Tips: - Simplify this activity by just giving the play calculator for them to explore and use in imaginative play. Try some basic instructions like, "can you find the 4?" - You can Extend this activity in many ways: With the window screen cut out, challenge your child to find numbers, already written around the house (try labels, books etc) to display through the window. Add some extra buttons to your calculator eg. "+" "-" and use these to encourage practicing basic sums Have some larger numbers already written on some paper for them to feed behind the calculator. They can then find the numbers on the calculator and count out corresponding amounts of bottle tops. Have the children make their own calculators - Make the screen reusable by putting a white board behind it or painting the screen with blackboard chalk so that you can write in the numbers, rub off and write again. - Mix it up by presenting your child with the same materials to see what they could create. - Allow children the freedom to explore and investigate on their own. They will often come up with ideas or experiences that we would not have thought of. It also gives them the opportunity to make these discoveries and learn new skills themselves without being shown them. - Have you see the rest of the Playful Maths series from us and The Imagination Tree? Below are our previous posts using various everyday materials. Playful Maths Plastic Bottle Activities (click the pictures to go to the posts) Playful Maths Paper Tube Activities (click on the pictures to go to the posts) Playful Maths Egg Carton Activities (click on the pictures to go to the posts) Don't forget to join us next week where we're bringing you more Playful Maths activities. Bottle Tops have so many uses. How do you use them for play? Happy playing, Debs :) Follow the entire series on our Playful Maths Pinterest Board. ----------------------------------- Look where else we are. Are you following along? :) New Here? Subscribe to get all activities sent directly to you Enter your email address: Delivered by FeedBurner

When I visited Europe as a child, I remember being struck by the Gothic stained glass windows, and particularly the rose windows found in so many cathedrals- for their symmetry and massive scale. So this year as we've been homeschooling through the Middle Ages, I found myself wanting to help my children interact a little with the beauty of Gothic stained glass somehow. I liked the way this project allowed my children to do their own work but create pieces that were unique and presentable. I had envisioned helping them a great deal, but found that the the art mediums at both stages of the project were very forgiving. My six-year-old and four-year-old made their windows almost entirely on their own. I think an older child could include finer detail and could maybe be more creative with the project. Materials: Glass rectangle from a small picture frame Black fabric puffy paint with a fine tip Acrylic paints Clear liquid glue Procedure: 1. Find a simple outline of a rose window online (a google image search produces lots of options), resize it to fit your glass rectangle, and print onto paper. 2. Place the paper with the outline underneath the glass rectangle. Trace the outline of the rose window onto the glass using the black puffy paint. There will probably be more detail on the outline than is possible to include in the tracing. I let my six year old decide which lines to trace and which to ignore. If you do a little research you can easily find the technical terms to describe the different kinds of shapes in your particular rose window. For example, my six year old's window included a central roundel, and trefoils around the outside of the wheel. It's ok if your child doesn't have a perfectly steady hand with the tracing or if the lines run together at some places. The black puffy paint looks like lead between the panes of glass, and wobbly-ness is actually a pleasing effect here. Also, you can touch up major mistakes with a paper towel. 3. Allow the puffy paint outline to dry. (At least three hours). Mix acrylic paints with clear gel glue on a palette. There is no exact ratio to follow. The finished color on the glass will be more or less opaque depending on the amount of glue. Different amounts of transparency in the same window can be pleasing. Just make sure the glue is thoroughly mixed with the glue before painting with it. If you paint with a little bit of paint that has no glue mixed in, the finished product will have brush marks instead of the smooth look of stained glass. Make sure all the panes in the window are thoroughly filled with paint for best results. Allow to dry overnight. I love these! They cheer me in my kitchen as the light shines through them on the window sill there. The fact that stained glass is beautiful only when light shines through it reminds me of this fact: "God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin."* They are a gentle reminder to me to stay in fellowship with Christ during the day! I John 1:5-7 Get 10% sitewide when you shop at Access Hydroponic. Valid until November 2013!

This fifty state word search will keep you and/or your students busily searching for quite a while. Ready to print and enjoy.

As your preschooler gets toward the upper-end of the preschool age, you'll want to begin introducing scissor skills. Using scissors with ease is a life skill, and one that gives young children a real feeling of accomplishment. Working with scissors also aids in general fine motor skills - which means learning to use scissors helps children learn to write, too. When to Give Your Child Scissors Every child is different, so it's impossible to say when your child should begin working with scissors. However, by kindergarten all children should have at least rudimentary scissor skills. The only way to know if your child is ready for scissors is to give him a chance to work with them. Give him lots of help, lots of patience, and very simple projects. As your child's skill increases, the difficulty of the projects can, too. Spring scissors are the best first scissors. Choosing Scissors I believe the best first scissors are those with spring action - which means the scissors themselves spring back open after your child has pushed them closed. Closing scissor blades is relatively easy for small children, but opening them back up is much harder. I often see this type at the Dollar Tree (in fact, that's where ours came from), but you'll also find them at educational stores and online. Once your child has stronger fine motor skills, you can move her on to traditional childhood scissors. Both types of scissors come in left and right hand varieties. Avoid the ambidextrous type; they are more difficult to use. Once you get the scissors home, please be sure to try them out yourself. If the blades are so dull you can't cut with them, your child won't be able to, either. Finally, no matter what scissors you choose, always make sure your child holds them correctly: The thumb through one hole and either just the middle finger or the middle finger and the index finger through the other hole. First Projects * Start slow and tell your child "open, close" as he cuts. * Roll some playdough into thin strips and have your child cut through the dough at intervals. * Hold a piece of construction paper rigid for your child and have her cut off the corners. Keep going until there is no paper left (or your child looses interest). * Cut long, thin rectangles out of construction paper. Make them narrow enough your child can cut through the narrow side with just one cut, then have your child cut the rectangles into lots of little squares. If desired, you can put stickers at intervals across the paper and have your child cut between them. For a more advanced activity, make the rectangles wider, so your child must use more than one cut to get across the narrowest part of the paper. * If you have paint chips laying around - the type with more than one color on the card - have your child cut out each color. * Make paper "grass." Cut a rectangle from green construction paper, then show your child how to make short cuts on one long end to create "blades" of grass. This "grass" can then be pasted onto a piece of paper as the start of a painting, drawing, or collage. Cutting feathers is a good beginner's activity. * Make "feathers." Cut a piece of paper in the shape of a feather, fold it in half, then have your child make short snips into the paper to create the individual feathers. * Have your child cut a soft (not rigid) plastic straw into approximately 1 in. pieces. The pieces can then be strung onto yarn and made into a necklace. * Give your child a paper muffin cup and show her how to cut straight lines toward the center, creating "flower petals." If desired, she can then paste this "flower" onto paper and draw a stem and leaves. All beginning projects should have straight (not curved) cuts. Show your child how to hold the paper in one hand while cutting with the other - being careful to keep little fingers out the way. DLTK has some simple, free, printable sheets for working on straight (and curved) lines, as does Kids Learning Station. Family's and Children's Trust also offers a free .PDF with tips for teaching scissor skills. For all these beginning projects, choose firm paper (like construction paper), which is easier to handle than thinner paper, such as copy paper. Avoid cardstock or cardboard at first; it's more difficult to cut through. You don't need to purchase a book with cutting projects in it, but you might want to. My experience with these is that while the color pages are exciting to children, the projects are often less geared toward beginners and more appropriate for the kindergarten crowd. My First Book of Cutting is a great choice, however. More Advanced Projects After learning to cut straight lines, teach your child to cut angels by having him cut halfway across the paper in a straight line, then stop and turn the paper so he can cut a right angle. Slightly curvy lines can be next, followed by shapes and finally circles. Don't expect perfection. It will take several years for children to be able to cut out a "perfect" circle. (Actually, some adults can't even do that!) More Articles in the Homeschool Preschool Series: Why Homeschool Preschool? Thoughts on Readiness How Much Time? Numbers Letters Colors & Shapes Sorting Worksheets The Balance Beam Game

A blog with tips, ideas and freebies for first grade.