Looking for some fun Mardi Gras activities for your classroom? I’ve got some great ideas to share right here! RIGATONI MARDI GRAS BEADS All you need for this is some dried rigatoni or any other tube-shaped pasta. Use food coloring and a little rubbing alcohol to dye the pasta. Then your students can string them and you’ve got a perfect mardi gras necklace! KING CAKE SNACK What better way to get your students excited about Mardi Gras than to have a delicious king cake snack! Check out this recipe from
100th Day Celebration
My favorite day of the school year has come and gone! Today we had our 100th day celebration. This year, I thought it would be fun to ask the kids to create a project of some sort to illustrate the number 100. Here are some of my favorite projects that came in: 100 straw tally marks 100-starred balloon 100 hearts 100 sprinkles 100 balloons This one is my favorite…this student’s name begins with E, and his mom calls him “E-Money!” Ha! Every single year I seem to think I can
10 Ingenious Ways to Use Solo Cups in the Classroom
Last year, I bought 100 solo cups for the 100th day of school. My students had a blast building 100-cup structures. It was definitely the hit of the day. But then, I was left with 100 solo cups. Sure, I could just put them on the shelf and use them again next year, but I knew that there HAD to be a lot more possibilities for these things. I now use them all the time, and they have become one of my favorite, inexpensive tools to use in the classroom!
Penguin Activities
We’re reading all about penguins in our classroom this week! This is always one of my favorite units because my students love nonfiction, and who doesn’t love penguins!? Here are some of the penguin activities we are doing in our classroom this week. There is lots of new learning going on about penguins in our classroom! You know what’s funny? Every year, someone says that penguins live in igloos. This is always our one misconception about them! This graphic organizer is from my new penguin unit! I’ve been making it
Snow Math and Science
Here we are, a week into January and not a snow flurry in sight! Very unusual for these parts, but we have El Nino to thank for that. I decided that I don’t want to wait for the weather to cooperate in order to have some fun with snow, so I took to my kitchen and whipped some up. Check out all snowy fun over on The Primary Pack blog, and get my Snow Math and Science pack freebie!
Magnet Activities
We are exploring magnets here in kindergarten! We sorted objects between magnetic and not magnetic. I wanted the kids to be able to glue down their sort to display in the hallway. You could use tape or regular glue, but in the interest of time I opted for a glue gun. This SUPER cool temp glue gun (you have to buy special glue sticks but they are not expensive) eliminates the worry over burns! But like I said, tape works too. We have some magnet sorting in our science station
Five Little Pumpkins Freebie
Hey all! Need a cute little poem activity to get you through the rest of Halloween week? Head over to the Virginia is for Teachers blog and download this freebie!
Pumpkin Directed Drawings
I have become a little obsessed with directed drawings lately. It all started last year with Proud to be Primary and her Franken-Buddies. I made them with my kids and they were adorable–but I also saw something amazing happen with my students. They were drawing Franken-buddies on their own–all the time–and they were so proud of themselves. I saw the same thing the next month when we made her Turkeys. This year, I knew I wanted to make directed drawings a regular practice. I started out with these easy mice.
DIY liquid watercolors
I LOVE using liquid watercolors. They don’t get muddy and muddled together the way watercolor trays do. You don’t have to continually dip your paintbrush into water to mix the color. It’s just plain FASTER. Watercolors are the perfect medium for adding color to directed drawings. Bottom line–they rock! I inherited a huge stash of liquid watercolors 10 years ago when I first started teaching, and I am just now running out (sadness!) So I decided to try to whip up a batch of it myself using dried out washable
Apple Math and Science
I love fall! Nothing says fall to me like some delicious warm apple cider or baked apples with cinnamon and sugar. Yum! Here in Virginia, we are surrounded by apple orchards…so we make a big deal of out apple season ’round these parts! Here are some of the fun apple activities we did last week! Apple Juice vs. Apple Cider Taste Test Do you know the difference between apple juice and apple cider? Apple cider is just apple juice that has not been filtered and pasteurized. It contains more of