A list of fun craft ideas for Splash Canyon VBS Craft Ideas for VBS 2018!

Our Easy Tie Dye Art with Baby Wipes is a fun way to explore tie dye without the worry of permanently stains! Huggies Wipes from Walmart work great!

Keep the kids active with these FREE Printable animal charades cards for all ages! Print these cards for a family game night or kids activity.

I love having a science lab in my own kitchen! I don't really understand the physics of what’s happening when each of those balls bounces, but it sure is fun to experiment with the kids. This...

Bucket Towers is an original STEM Challenge for upper elementary classes and it is a student favorite. You will love the easy prep! This is hard to believe, but some of our best STEM Challenges have been created accidentally. The STEM Bucket Tower challenge is one of those! Building boats was another total spur-of-the-moment challenge.

I did learned this technique from my co-worker Jayne, who taught it during summer school last year. I think drawing on tin foil is a unique experience for kids that can be done using a variety of themes! My third and fourth graders had a great time making these abstract drawings using Sharpie markers on tin foil. To prepare the surface, pull out a sheet of tin foil and carefully flatten it on to a piece of cardboard or matboard. … Read more... →

Get ready for the summer months with our summer activities for kids worksheet. Share your favorite summer foods, summer activities & goals.

You know what I love even more than when an activity goes exactly as planned? When my kids take the lesson even further than I'd dreame...

Free PDF agaograph art activities for all ages. These free freeprintable agamograph templates are in themes such as spring, summer, and more.

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 […]

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

What is a better topic to investigate during summer school, than SHARKS?! These dangerous and fascinating creatures will be sure to captivate your class, and even get them pumped for Shark Week! The Mega Bundle will allow them to utilize research skills, recall new information learned, summarize, and write organized paragraphs to demonstrate knowledge of information learned. The Discovering Sharks MEGA BUNDLE provides all the materials you will need to give your students interactive and hands-on opportunities to study these fascinating creatures. Check out what is included in this pocketbook, which turned out to be one of our favorites! :) 1. PowerPoint Presentations. We love to begin the unit by introducing the new topic through colorful PowerPoint slides. The students love the vivid images, which really grabs their attention and gets them thinking! Then, easily move into a group discussion after the open-ended question is given on the last slide to give students a chance to demonstrate their knowledge about the topic. 2. Anchor Chart. Use the colorful pictures and text at the end of the unit to create beautiful anchor charts that can be displayed in your classroom. As students move throughout the unit, have students recall facts learned and have them actively participate in creating the anchor chart. It can serve as a model to help students recognize goals and main ideas and review concepts learned. 3. Vocabulary Cards and Puzzle Pieces. One of our favorite parts of the Mega Bundle are all of the vibrant vocabulary cards that are included. Print, laminate and cut these eye-catching vocabulary words to serve as visuals for students to refer back to throughout the unit. You can gang them on your word wall, classroom door, bulletin boards, or even make students their own copies of the cards. Then, use the puzzle pieces to reinforce the vocabulary words studied throughout the unit, which can be used individually, with a partner, or as part of a center. 4.Vocabulary Flip Books. This activity is a favorite amongst our student!!! They can cut, match, paste and write to interactively demonstrate their knowledge of the vocabulary words and topics studied throughout the unit. 5.Student Workbook. Students can read for information on the topic then answer comprehension questions related to the topic at the bottom of each page. Students may benefit from working with a partner or small group. For students below level, you may choose to open the document onto a Smart Board and read along with them in a whole group setting. Our classes love looking back and re-reading these workbooks as the unit progresses—it is a great reference material! 6.Morning Work & Supplemental Activities: We also included some additional resources and activities that are perfect for early finishers or morning work. There are 20 task cards reflecting main topics found in the unit, Venn Diagrams, ABC order, grammar sorts, a word search, crossword puzzle, and MORE! Our students always look forward to completing these ”extras” at the end of each pocketbook, and have fun while demonstrating what they have learned and reinforcing targeted vocabulary throughout the unit. In addition...Pocketbook units also include Smart Art, which is a fun way to integrate art with writing as well as capitalizing on following direction skills throughout the activity. Students use the anchor chart, and/or PowerPoint to recall information and write it on the back of their artwork. The units also include themed writing paper to be used to write on the topic. Independence can easily be scaffolded by using the Get the Gist graphic organizer, writing graphic organizer, paragraph organizer and then the writing pages with two options for handwriting lines. Students keep their work organized in an impressive pocketbook portfolio to serve as a visual reference of the unit. Each week or sub-topic will have its own pocket inside of this easily created book. All you need is large construction paper, binding combs and a binding machine! Parents LOVE these pocketbooks (principals too!). Use this 350 page, highly organized and low-prep unit to keep you sane and taking back your summer! Grab 13 pages to instantly download from this unit!! Featuring the Mako, Great White, Whale Shark, Bull Shark and Hammerhead Shark! Or, you can access the ENTIRE Mega Pocketbook Unit for over 30% off the price of single units combined. Your kids will have a blast with all of the interesting information about these underwater animals!!

Ways to explore Medieval Europe.

This foil pritntmaking method produces monoprints but the foil printing plate can be used over and over. Foil prints are a great experience for any age!

Use these 101 after school club ideas for kids to help you form your own club. School clubs are a great way to help kids develop a number of skills such as social, problem solving, and critical thinking. Whether you are looking to start a math club, science, club, theatrical club, or even a sports based club this is

Thank you Elmer’s for sponsoring this post. All opinions expressed are my own. Today we're experimenting with salt, glue, and watercolors to create some colorful ocean art. You'll only need a few materials to create

32 Sensory Play Activities For Kids With Autism. Sensory Play helps all children learn, but for kids on the autism spectrum, it can

If you have middle school aged students, these STEM projects for middle school will be great additions to your collection of STEAM activities for kids.

DIY Song Cubes to help children learn music "old favorites" and practice finding and keeping the beat; for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten.

Middle School Students enjoy doing creative interpretations of their name, and exploring the art of graffiti lettering is always a hit. When I saw a lesson in one of my art teacher Facebook groups …

Our kids love, love, love scavenger hunts. They always ask for one when we are darting out the door on our way to an activity or when I have a gazillion things happening. I made a

Summer is a season of sunshine, warmth, and relaxation. It's also a great time to capture your own image through self-portraiture. Whether your students are in kindergarten through 5th grade, drawing a self-portrait can be a fun and rewarding way for students to express themselves and document their unique features. In this fun and easy drawing guide students will draw themselves living their best summer lives!

Summertime arts and crafts reflections. I loved this summertime arts and crafts project so much, I decided to make one myself. How cute!

I LOVE the Olympics! I have always loved the Olympics, and I get very excited when it's an Olympic year. The summer Games are my favorite, especially the gymnastics and swimming. The Olympics is also a high-interest topic for students. The summer Games are a perfect theme for the end or beginning of a school year, and it's a great theme for summer school, as well. When I have a theme that I'd like to teach but is not in my curriculum, I always start with guided reading. I am very lucky to have a Reading A-Z subscription through my school district. On the Reading A-Z site, there are several different books that are leveled and perfect for an Olympic theme. My favorite is titled Summer Olympic Events and is available in levels H, K, & Q. In my Gold Medal Literacy resource, I have two mini books that I also use: The Summer Olympics and Where in the World is Rio de Janeiro? They're perfect, because students can highlight and write directly in their books. The nice thing about those little books and the A-Z readers is that they come with comprehension activities and worksheets. My Gold Medal Literacy packet is loaded with word word and writing activities that can help you run a mini-unit on the summer Olympics. I used it during the last week of school, and my kids had a blast! They're definitely excited for the Games in August. You can find my Gold Medal Literacy resource here. Over the years, I've collected Olympics trade books as I've found them. They are kind of few and far between, at least the good ones are. I've linked up a few of my favorites and a few on my wish list. (These are Amazon affiliate links.) What Are the Summer Olympics? I LOVE this series! Magic Treehouse: The Hour of the Olympics- Excellent for guided reading or as a read aloud. Ancient Greece and the Olympics: Nonfiction Companion G is for Gold Medal- I love the variety of information in this book. It's not a great read aloud, but it is perfect to add to a themed bookshelf. Elympics- This one looks really cute, although I do not own it. How to Train with a T.Rex and Win 8 Gold Medals- I think this one looks so cute! Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman- There are tons of great biographies about Olympians, and this one is one of my favorites. Excellent book! Olympia the Games Fairy- My girls love these fairy books, so this is a good one to add to the bookshelf. It is always chosen. ...and if you're looking for some more fun ideas for teaching about the Olympics. Click on the photos to access the link. (image and link to The Chaos and the Clutter) (image and link to Classy Mommy) (image and link to Fun-a-Day) My summer Games math resource on TPT. Math and Literacy together!

Celebrate your students' individuality and the Summer Games with these free printable All About Me worksheets that feature an Olympic torch, gold medal, and athletes your students can relate to.

Super cute, FREE printable Spanish worksheets help learn the names to spanish colors while coloring, tracing, fill in the blank, word search.

Students choose different ways to create the longest paper chain out of one sheet of construction paper in this easy to prep and complete STEM Challenge.

Learn all about the medieval manuscript making process with a fascinating but short documentary, several living books, and simple DIY project.

Learn about five different biomes as you color and read key facts about with free printable Biome Coloring Pages for Prek-4th graders.

Struggling with ideas for field day? Check out my list of 40 easy to implement activities for your next field day! #20 is my favorite!

Get your child ready for summer camp by watching one of these nostalgic movies.

In my homeschool, we implement nature study year-round as it helps children engage with the outside world and sets a foundation for other learning. Enjoy learning about sunflowers with this sunflower dissection activity and free summer flower unit study download, plus dozens of activities to continue the fun.