Are you looking for a calm classroom theme? I have five beautiful and unique classroom decor bundles that will help create a peaceful, engaging, and beautiful home away from home in your classroom! These five bundles will be a perfect way to create a calm classroom vibe!
For a Forest or Camping themed classroom: Find activities, crafts, snacks, and more ideas than you can use for your Preschool, Kindergarten, or First Grade class and students. Plus FREE DOWNLOADS!
ALL ABOUT EARTH Get ready for a month filled with so many fun activities to teach your kiddos all about our planet Earth . I teach this unit in April so it coincides with Earth Day. I’ve loaded up this blog post post with read aloud book ideas, free videos you can share with your students,
FREE printable sorting mats for preschoolers and kindergarten kids to learn about animals and their habitats. Great science and nature activity that kids will love! Includes rainforest, ocean, desert, polar, woodland and wetland habitats.
Fine motor activities are the perfect way to engage your students with interactive and educational activities. As a teacher we are always looking for fun and hands on ways to enhance your kindergarten students' fine motor skills and it's a bonus when you can also incorporate math. Spring Fine Motor Activities Pattern Block Mats Spring Pattern Blocks are an excellent tool for developing fine motor skills and teaching math concepts such as shapes, symmetry, and fractions. In this activity, children can use pattern blocks to create pictures and included are different ability levels. Students can build the pictures, identify the shapes and count how many of each shape is used in the picture. A great way to incorporate math and fine motor activities. Also included are small easy to store task cards that work well for morning work or early finishers. And also a design your own version, which can challenge your students and beneficial to your visual spacial leaners. I love these more opened ended tasks which are so great for differentiation. Students are able to come up with so many different ways to make the same picture. Snap Cube Activities Spring Snap Cube Activities are another hands on and engaging resource for teaching math concepts and developing fine motor skills in your classroom. In this activity, children can create different pictures using snap cubes, sort by color and count how many of each color. This does require counting up to 20 and is a great way to reinforce that kindergarten standard. You will also fine simple to build mats that are to scale for students and a great fine motor activity and does not involve counting. As well as small task cards and can really challenge students and are great to help develop visual spacial awareness. These are small and easy to store and a great activity to keep for morning bins or early finishers. Geoboard Activities Spring Geoboards are also a great tool for developing fine motor skills and teaching math concepts such as symmetry, shapes, and patterns. In this activity, children can use geoboards to create different spring shapes like butterflies, flowers, and and birdhouses. As an extension activity, students to practice identifying shapes they may see in a picture and record on the mats. Each picture includes both and simple and more difficult version with 10 different pictures included. The small geoboard task cards are included as a freebie at the end of this blog post. Spring Building Brick Activities Spring Building Bricks are another fun and engaging fine motor activities to use in your classroom. Your students will love using Legos or other building bricks to create spring themed pictures such as rainbows, ladybugs, butterflies and bird houses. Included are 10 different spring themed pictures with both small easy to store task cards as well as large to scale cards where students can simply build on the mat You can all of these activities in Spring Fine Motor Bundle which includes a variety of templates for Snap Cubes, Pattern Blocks, Building Bricks, Geoboard Boards, and Pom Poms at a 40% discount. Each set contains 10 different spring themed picture for your students to create. You can fine the Free Spring Geoboard Task Cards here
All of these organizational printables shown on this blog post are FREE! This page contains affiliate links. Read Full Disclosure
Grab our free, clickable Mega List of Themes and Skills for Pre-K & Kindergarten Lesson Plans to see what themes/skills I cover in my classroom all year!
Find a cute and easy theme for your elementary, special education, or middle school classroom.
This moon craft is great for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, or older kids. It's a great art extension during a space theme in the classroom.
Ok so…I know I haven’t posted much of anything lately. That’s because I’ve been working on a Pacing Guide to use this school year. I wanted to make it editable…
This week , we worked on two dimensional shapes. Each year , I usually do an activity with food and sorting the food by shapes. I would use...
Explore easy classroom management strategies and ideas from other teachers to keep the classroom running smoothly and meet the 3 C's.
Free set of printables to go along with Magnetic Tiles. Includes two levels of difficulty. Builds problem solving skills.
15 classroom organization hacks to make teaching easier that every preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, and elementary teacher should know. FREE theme box labels too!
Learn About the 7 Continents! Exploring the 7 Continents has never been more exciting! It’s a Small World Continent Study is filled with over 35 activities to help your students gain a greater understanding of the seven continents. This 130+ page unit is filled with great resources, posters, printables, activities, and projects that will open […]
CUTE printable Construction Worksheests make practicing counting, matching upper and lowercase alphabet letters, and more FUN!
Discover new classroom ideas for classroom management, decor, organization, storage, desk layouts, fun ideas and more!
Inspiration, tips, and sources for creating a nature themed classroom for your middle school or high school students!
A Kindergarten blog about effective teaching and making learning fun.
Grab our free, clickable Mega List of Themes and Skills for Pre-K & Kindergarten Lesson Plans to see what themes/skills I cover in my classroom all year!
If you have been following along this summer, then you know just how much I love having a classroom theme! In THIS post, I told you my top three reasons for having a theme and in THIS post, I shared four ways to save money while decorating with a theme. Now, as promised, I want
Create a tranquil feel for you and your students with these calm classroom decor themes! Use nature inspired decor for a peaceful vibe.
ALL ABOUT EARTH Get ready for a month filled with so many fun activities to teach your kiddos all about our planet Earth . I teach this unit in April so it coincides with Earth Day. I’ve loaded up this blog post post with read aloud book ideas, free videos you can share with your students,
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
Need some ideas for transportation centers and activities? I'm here to help! I'm sharing my favorite, most engaging transportation-themed activities with you. I also created Road Number Mats FREEBIE for you, too! AND a train name craftivity FREEBIE! Go grab your lesson plan book and get ready to be inspired!
FREE printable Apple themed coloring activity for preschool and kindergarten kids. Use dot markers or any kind of coloring utensils to complete the apple patterns! Great math activity for Back to School or Fall!
Have you thought about having a class pet, but don’t want to add one more thing to take care of in your classroom? Well, I have the perfect solution---a take-home stuffed animal! Kids love it and there is no cage or tank to clean out! Having a traveling class pet was by far the most popular class pet I ever had. Kids couldn’t wait for their week to take home the pet and have it be part of their life for a few days. Of course, I had to include a journal for the kids to write in through the week. Tips for having a take-home class pet. 1. Choosing a stuffed animal is the easy part because kids love them all. But, keep the size of the pet in mind. Too large and it's difficult to transport home and then back to school. Too small and it feels too much like a toy instead of a real pet. 2. Pick a traveling bag for your pet. I like clear plastic bags so everyone can see the adorable pet inside. Make sure it's large enough to hold the pet and the journal. I found this bag on Amazon for under $10. (Search "clear plastic tote" for lots of choices.) 3. Decide on the requirements for the journal. The requirements should be based on the writing level of your students. Kindies can have a drawing journal where they draw a picture or two that shows what they did with the pet. Firsties can write a few sentences along with illustrations. For older students, they can write paragraphs and add illustrations. Make sure all requirements and suggestions are included in the journal, so kids know exactly what is expected. 4. What will you use as a journal? I like using a composition book. It's sturdy and will last the whole year. You can glue on a cover and then glue all instructions and suggestions to the inside cover. Click here to download this freebie from my TpT store. (Click on this image.) 5. Make sure you share the journal on the day it's returned and before it goes home with a new student. 6. A letter home at the beginning of the year, explaining the Take-Home pet is a good idea. That way, parents know what to expect. I also let parents know the take-home schedule a few weeks in advance. That way, the schedule can be adjusted if a family needs to reschedule the pet's visit to their home. Above all, have fun. Just like a live pet, the stuffed animal pet is a great way to teach responsibility.
Flowers, insects, and sunshine! Just in time for the month of May, and these Transitional Kindergarten May Worksheets! These printables have been a life saver for me! In the midst of distance learning, I have been sending these electronically to my parents to help my TK students continue their learning at home. You can also...
Find out how to create an ocean classroom in a few simple steps! You'll find fun DIY projects and ideas, plus ready made products for instant sucess.
I love a pretty classroom. Although I realize that classroom decor is not the most important aspect of teaching, having a pretty classroom makes a nice
I set up an entire Investigation Day for my kinders to celebrate all we had learned so far! I wanted to have a fun filled learning day for them where they could really apply all of the letter knowledge that they gained during the first month of school. Our Investigation Day had a big mystery for the kids to solve - Who Stole the Cookies From the Cookie Jar? This day was mostly prep work and planning, but don't worry, I have that all available for you here. The actual day was obviously fun for the kids, but also a lot of fun for me as a teacher. I was worried that I would be stressed going so far from routine, but in reality, it wasn't that far from our routine! I let the families know that an investigation day was going to be coming up. I told them not to tell their kids. I gave them the date and asked that their student would wear black to school that day. I created a wish list on Amazon with some of the items that we needed for the day: flashlights, hats, invisible ink pens, notebooks, magnifying glasses, investigation tape, a stamp, and footprints. The parents were great and donated all the supplies for the day! I love Amazon wish lists! I told my students a secret the day before our Investigation Day. I told them that they had been so amazing and had already learned so much that we would have cookies for breakfast tomorrow! Their mouths dropped. I had the cookies in a cookie jar and we did a little cookie dance before dismissal. The students were in shock that their teacher was going to let them have cookies before 8:00 AM! That afternoon came around and I worked on creating our learning space, the "crime scene" for the following day. As I said, it did require some prep work, but again, I go in to detail with what you need to do in my Investigation Packet. Students entered the next day wearing black (totally wasn't necessary, I just thought it added a little more to the day) and they were so excited for cookies! I was waiting outside the classroom where students had to scan to enter. Once approved, they walked in to the room, where they noticed all the cookies were missing! We had music playing and students had to figure out what happened. We opened our "Top Secret" note to start our day and learned that someone had stolen all of the cookies! We started the morning by making Investigation Badges. This was our typical math block. We counted our fingers and added our finger prints. We drew a self portrait using our basic shapes. We measured our bodies with snap cubes and counted how tall we were. Students came up with a Secret Agent name and scanned their badges in. Next was our literacy block. This was the bulk of our day. Students had 3 different codes to crack. First they searched for clues all over the room. Once they found clues, they had to figure out how to sort them. Once the clues were sorted, they had to figure out what they meant. The clues went together to solve 3 codes. Each code led to a hint of where the cookies went. We added in some extra to the day. The students had to make it through a maze which worked on motor skills. The students recorded what was going on with the investigation on Seesaw, working on our retelling. Students used watercolors to paint over a secret map that was leading to the cookies - this was our first time with watercolors and a great way to introduce rules of how to use them. Students eventually found the cookies and of course were able to eat the cookies to celebrate a successful day! Click here for the Investigation Day Packet.
Lessons, Themes, Resources, Tips, & Freebies for Kindergarten Week One - Help and Advice for New Teachers from Fern Smith of #FernSmithsClassroomIdeas
All about apples, with books, resources, videos and crafts. Everything you need to start your apple unit in September. Apple activities for K &1st.
Enhance the learning environment with effective classroom decor! Learn how to create an ideal space for teaching, learning, and growing.
Classroom transformations are a great way to spice up the school year. Camp Read-a-Lot is sure to leave your students with great memories!
Grab your FREE hair salon scissor skills printable to use with your preschool and kindergarten students! Use at home and at school!
Friendship-building activities help children in K-3 develop strong social skills. When relationships are an important factor in education, kids succeed in school and life.
Get our Apples Pre-Writing Tracing Printables for more fun, engaging and exciting tracing activity! Trace the lines in the apples and
Pumpkin Name Craft Activity, Fall Preschool Activity, Fine Motor Skills, Pumpkin Number Order Activity, Preschool Classroom Name Activity
Fall activities for your little learners for math, literacy, fine motor, and more! There are so many fun things to do and learn about in the fall!
