Have you seen them? Pool noodles are everywhere... especially Pinterest. I'm here to share my ideas on using pool noodles for word work, spelling, and sight word activities in the classroom or for your homeschooler. Keep reading for my "oopsie" moments as well! If you are wondering why pool noodles are all the craze, let me tell you why...CHEAP. QUIET. EASY TO FIND. TACTILE. FUN. Seriously, pool noodles are my new favorite manipulatives because they are so inexpensive and don't make any noise! They are colorful, easy to manipulate, and perfect for fine motor skills. You can stock your literacy centers with pool noodles for building sight words, practicing spelling words, creating word families, or working on CVC/CVCe words for just a couple bucks. I was cutting my pool noodles while my littles were napping. My cat was very skeptical. She couldn't imagine what we were going to do with all of these. As soon as my preschooler saw these, he was all over it. He wanted to build every word he knew! He started with his name and then progressed to some simple sight words that we keep on index cards. We worked together on this activity, but he could also work independently by using the sight word cards to build his towers. These noodle letters are great for building spelling words and word families too. Here is my #1 tip for teachers and homeschoolers who are planning to run to the Dollar Store to bring this activity to life for their kiddos... Think about which way you write the letters on the noodle pieces. When I first started writing with a Sharpie, I was writing them all sideways. OOPS moment #1. Here is my next tip- think about how you want kids to build the words. Do you want them to build towers like this? If so, a paper towel holder from the Dollar Tree is perfect. If you would rather them build the words horizontally, like they are written, you will want to use something like a dowel rod instead. This is my four-year old, Reed, when he first started building his name. He started with R, so he ended up spelling "deer." Oops #2. I'm loving pool noodles for hands on, easy, and fun additions to any Pre K, Kindergarten, 1st grade, or 2nd grade literacy center! I would love to find out how you use noodles in your classroom or with your homeschooler. Leave a comment and share your ideas!
Chasing Cheerios is a great resource of wonderful activities to do with your kids. Be sure to head over there and check her blog out! Her blog actually inspired us TWICE in the last week! First, I LOVED her Starry Night jar. Many people use these glitter/snow globe jars as calm down jars in place of time outs. They have their children sit and watch the glitter fall and once it reaches the bottom the child can get up and continue on with their day. I wanted to make one for a couple reasons. One, I loved that hers was a Starry Night jar and we could relate it to art and Van Gogh through the colors in it. And, I wanted to make another discovery bottle for my son (I have a plan for a few more liquid discovery bottles but just haven't had time this week). I used a hot glue gun to seal the cap so my son couldn't get it open. :-) All you need is glitter glue, glitter, clear Elmer's glue, and warm water. Mix all of these together in the bottle and shake. I shook often over several minutes to make sure all the glue dissolved well. If the glue doesn't dissolve (this is why you use warm water), I believe your glitter will get clumpy. I didn't measure anything out. Just sort of estimated the amounts. Glue is used to make the liquid a little thicker. This way the glitter takes time to fall to the bottom instead of just falling quickly after the bottle is shaken. My girls liked this so much they each wanted to make their own bottles. So we now have a sunset looking bottle in purple/gold and a magenta/purple bottle. Then, I came across Chasing Cheerios' gel board idea linked from Dollar Store Mom. I thought my girls would LOVE this idea! And it's so great that it can be a gel board on one side and a dry erase board on the back. This project actually took me quite a bit longer to make (about 25 minutes each) than I thought it would. Here is what you will need: When we need to mix glitter glue into something, I used our Lakeshore Learning Confetti Glitter Glue. It is a little more liquid-y and the kids love the confetti in it. You will need about 5 oz. of hair gel (this took a bit of trial and error on my part to figure out the amount). I bought hair gel at Dollar Tree. Mix the hair gel with glitter glue, glitter, and food coloring. Carefully move the air bubbles up toward the top of the ziploc bag. Open the bag and gently force the air out. Use fun patterned duct tape (I found ours at Michael's) to attach the bag to a piece of foam core cut to the size of the ziploc bag. I made ours in gallon-size, but you could use quart-size to make them smaller and more portable (for restaurants or other places you may need something quiet to entertain your kids). If you want the back of the gel board to be a dry erase board, just add a piece of contact paper to the back side of the foam core before taping the gel bag. This was the part that took me a bit longer than I thought it would. I had a tough time getting the contact paper on straight with no bubbles or creases in it. EDITED TO ADD: After playing with these for a couple days, I have two more suggestions to make them even better. I might use two pieces of foam core next time to make it a bit thicker and stronger. All our boards have bends in them already which isn't so pretty for the dry erase side of the board. The ziploc bags also have some crease marks and slight scratches in them. No holes for the gel to escape yet, but it made me nervous. So I added another piece of contact paper to the top for more protection. This step would be easier to do before the board was finished and squishy with the gel. I would suggest putting a piece of contact paper on the bag before filling it. These can be used to practice writing letters or spelling words. Also great for just doodling with your finger or for kids that might need a sensory activity. Just pushing the gel/glitter around can be relaxing. Here are our boards in action:
Actor Karan Brar reads to second graders for SAG Foundation's Children's Literacy Programs at San Fernando Elementary School on May 29, 2014 in San Fernando, California.
I know you're excited to get your printable! Your freebie will be arriving in your inbox in a few minutes, it sometimes can take as long as 30 minutes to get to you. While you
Here is a fun, simple activity - painting, drawing and writing with baby oil. Materials: baby oil, small cup, cotton swabs, different types of paper and dotted shape cards from Alphabet, Number and Shape Cards - http://yourtherapysource.com/alphacards.html Purpose: To encourage prewriting skills, handwriting skills and drawing. Promotes visual motor skills. Activity: Just dip your cotton swab in the baby oil and start writing or drawing. The cotton swab with the baby oil moves fluidly across the paper making it excellent practice for cursive writing. It smells wonderful and is also a very calming activity. We tried using the baby oil paint on various mediums such as construction paper, cardstock, crepe paper and tissue paper. The card stock had to best end result for pretty artwork. The crepe paper strips added some bilateral coordination to the activity. Marking the dotted shape cards added visual motor control to the task. We did use paint and a cotton swab to paint the dots. The baby oil pictures fade somewhat as they dry so this activity is more about the process than the end result. Tip: Cut the cotton swab in half to encourage an appropriate grasp.
Alternative Loom Band Ideas
As a teacher who is responsible for teaching ALL subject areas (except French), I have had to become a master of integration (just my humble opinion lol). The amount of curriculum expectations we have to teach keeps growing. Every time we have new P.D. something else seems to be added on. The presenters always begin with, "This isn't new ... I'm sure you're already doing this in your classroom ... BUT ... JUST ONE MORE THING ..." It's a good thing I love finding ways to integrate the subject areas, and the teacher nerd in me loves how I can get multiple subject assessments from one assignment. This was a fun assignment we did near the end of the year - and the best part was I got a math, media literacy, art, health, and drama mark from it. We were studying volume and surface area of rectangular and triangular prisms in math. I paired the students up and gave them two pieces of bristol board. The pairs had to draw the nets for both prisms, then assemble them. I set a challenge to see what group could create the prism that had the largest volume and the largest surface area. When the groups had finished, as a whole class we checked the volume and surface area of all the prisms. Then the pairs had to turn one of their finished prisms into a cereal or candy box. They had to include specific information on each of the panels (including nutritional information for health). When the pairs had completed their product boxes, they had to create a 90 second commercial for their product using one of the methods of advertising we had studied in class. The commercials were so much fun! Many of the groups even created jingles (although it wasn't required). I videotaped the commercials, and the students couldn't wait to watch them. We even popped popcorn for the event! Happy Tuesday!!!
Activities for early finishers don't have to be busy work. This post shares meaningful and engaging early finisher activities for all subjects.
How to make Plaster of Paris handprints with your kids!
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IELLO - Little Town von Shun Taguchi, Aya Taguchi
Challenge students to practice using relative pronouns by creating sentences with the sentence fragments.
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Today was our 100th day and it was quite chaotic! Even with this short week, we managed to squeeze in everything we needed to and have a mini-celebration for being 100 days smarter! We made 100 day necklaces and these too cute gum ball machines. I pre-cut the patterns and the kiddos counted to 100 and used [affiliate link] bingo dot markers to make 100 gumballs. Here they are hanging in the hallway! (Don't mind the green dots, my kiddos pictures are attached to the clothespins their work hangs on.) I made these labels and just stuck them on each gumball machine...too easy and super cute! Thinking about doing this with your class? You can grab the labels right here! Just print them on [affiliate link] Avery 5164 shipping labels (or any other 3 1/3" x 4" label). Happy 100th day!
Highlights Wooden mailbox with working door and flag Set includes two reusable write-and-draw postcards, reusable ruled letter with envelope, letter and number stickers, three wipe-clean crayons and pencil Activity ideas included to inspire learning and fun Durable wooden construction Helps teach color recognition and pre-literacy skills; encourages fine motor skills and imaginative play. Description Everyone likes getting letters! Sending and receiving "mail" is even more fun with this toy mailbox, complete with a bright red flag. The sturdy wooden box comes with letter and number stickers so kids can decorate it with their name, address or a special message. The hinged door opens to make room for two postcards and a ruled letter and envelope, all reusable with the wipe-clean crayons that come with the set. Need even more inspiration? Drawing activities and play ideas are included to keep this letter box filled with creative correspondence and lots of fun!
via skitch.com I'm really enjoying the visual nature of Pinterest. I like being able to collect all my visual media this way and have links back to the source. http://pinterest.com/derrallg/blooms-taxonomy/
Méthode syllabique de lecture pour enfant en CP. Pour apprendre à lire, comparaison et photos des meilleurs livres. Bien choisir pour un enfant dyslexique.
The Music T.X.X.X.C. Paragraph Writing Templates are an invaluable, lifelong teaching resource for teaching music paragraph writing in the Middle School and General Music classroom. There are scaffolded templates for each of the Elements of Music using the T.X.X.X.C. paragraph strategy and they can ...
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I’m bummed that April Fools Day 2017 falls on a Saturday. But if you’re one of those teachers who still has to pull a prank on your students, here are some ideas I’ve found. Also …
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Explore our comprehensive collection of classroom resources, including classroom posters, engaging activities, classroom management techniques, and more. Enhance your teaching and inspire your students with these valuable insights.
