Holiday Freebie & Teaching Tip Series: Day 7

The last day of the holiday freebies and teaching tips is here! I have a freebie up that I know will challenge your 3rd and 4th graders!

Here is a winter activity my kids love:

If you are feeling adventurous and live in a cold climate, bring some real snow inside!

This is a few years ago, but we do this every year. Sometimes it's just too cold to go outside! Gloves are recommended. =)

Add snow cones to make this a real treat! Use syrup or flavored drink mix, or mix lemon juice with sugar for lemon flavored snow cones. Happy holidays! =)

mini felt christmas tree ornaments - lazy style

A friend was telling me how much her kids were enjoying their felt Christmas tree and I thought, "I should make one of those!" but I didn't have any giant pieces of green felt and wasn't in the mood for a large sky blue or pale gray tree (those are the only large pieces of felt in my stash). I *did* have small pieces of green felt, so I immediately thought "ornaments!"

We make ornaments every year (link takes you to ornaments we've done in the last few years). We have made a few others, but these were just too cute not to share:

What you need:

• Felt (cut to resemble something tree-like)
• Buttons or other "ornament" decorations
• Velcro sticky-back dots (or glue, but I pity the fool who gives a young child felt + glue)
• Ornament hooks

When dealing with felt, I always grab Velcro sticky-back dots. I love these things. I can't tell you how many times they've come in handy for something (to secure markers to Nature Bingo, to make a functional open/close door on a cardboard box play oven, to make a target practice game, etc.). Use the rough sticky dot, not the soft one. It clings to the felt.

Yeah. LOVE them.

Stick the Velcro on the back of some buttons. I had to cut the Velcro for the small buttons.

Stick, stick, stick. Don't like how it looks? Move your buttons around. Easy peasy!

My kids loved this! I even found some stars they could stick on, too. After they were done, I poked an ornament hook through the top. The end! I know they will love to do this over and over. They asked to make more so I need to find more green felt! This is by far the most mess-free, easy-to-prep, easy-to-clean up ornament we have done. =)

Holiday Freebie & Teaching Tip Series: Day 6

Need a quick multiplication review for your third or fourth graders? Head over to Michelle Dupuis's TpT store to download this Christmas tree multiplication freebie!

Make sure you leave feedback! TpT sellers love to read what you think of their products!

Holiday Freebie & Teaching Tip Series: Day 5

Melissa Shutler has an awesome freebie for your 3-5 grade students today! Create a mini book and learn about different traditions to celebrate the new year!

After you leave feedback and check out the rest of Melissa's products, head over to Common Core Chicks for tons of great teaching ideas.

Holiday Freebie & Teaching Tip Series: Day 4

Kamp Kindergarten (love that clever store name!) has these adorable Christmas tree 10 frames for your math centers!

Make sure you leave feedback after you download and check out the rest over her store (over 125 products)! Here is a fun Holiday craft idea to use with your little ones:

 I will have another greet freebie for you tomorrow!

Holiday Freebie & Teaching Tip Series: Day 3

Always Learning has a sweet treat of a freebie for your 6th and 7th graders today!

Don't forget to leave feedback and check out the rest of her products! Also check out this holiday greeting and teaching tip! I just love her profile pic! What a sweet pup.

Check back tomorrow for another fabulous freebie!

Holiday Freebie & Teaching Tip Series: Day 2

Are you ready for another freebie? Rosie's Resources has a fabulous ELA product to share with you! Your grade 3-5 students will be revising and editing “The History of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

Please make sure to leave feedback after downloading, and check out Michaelene's blog, especially if you are a fan of whole brain teaching!

Holiday Freebie & Teaching Tip Series: Day 1

I am thrilled to share with you some amazing holiday resources this season! I will be posting seven days of these freebies and tips!

First up is Kristy Bearfield with these adorable holiday lights shapes! Click on the image below to down these from her store:

Kristy also has a holiday message and tip for you:

If you download, please remember to leave Kristy some feedback. Want to check out her blog? Head over to her blog. Happy holidays, and don't forget to check back tomorrow for another great freebie!

-Meredith

New sight words FREEBIE game up at my store!

Check out my new sight words FREEBIE game! It includes the first 25 words in Fry's first hundred words.

How does it work? Find the matching word on two cards! It's harder than you might think!

 
ENJOY! Please leave me feedback if you enjoyed this game; I love hearing your thoughts!

-Meredith

Are your wish lists ready?

It's that time again! Get 28% off at my store (and most TpT stores) on Monday and Tuesday, December 2nd and 3rd.

I'm not going out shopping on Black Friday, but I will be hanging out at home with my family, and filling up my wish list with all sorts of TpT goodies. Don't forget to leave feedback on all your previous purchases so you can use your TpT credits during the sale! This is a great time to stock up on higher-priced items like bundles. You can be sure I will be adding lots of clip art products to my cart to create more products!

Leaf Relief Art Project

Fall Leaf Art Project

I have been wanting to do this project with the kids ever since reading about it over at Cassie Stephens's blog. We love to do leaf rubbings with crayons every autumn, but this was such a fun new twist, I just couldn't wait to set it up! Yesterday we had unusually warm weather, so we went on a long walk and gathered leaves as we walked. What a rarity to walk around in November without even a sweatshirt or hat on! I think it was 65F but it felt at least 10 degrees warmer with the strong sun! Luckily I already had spray adhesive, spray paint, and very fine steel wool on hand, so all I needed to do was find something to mount the leaves to! I ended up using cardboard, which seemed to work just fine.

After our walk, the kids ate ice cream on the deck while I gathered materials. Then we got to work! After putting on the aluminum foil and rubbing:

Aluminum Foil and Spray Paint Leaf Art!

I spray painted them outside. It was fast-drying paint and was dry within 15 minutes, but we still waited overnight for the next step.

Here's my big kid working on his. He was very excited!

Here's my little kid being his usual silly self. =)

Friday Freebie!

Have you seen this adorable freebie from Erin Palleschi over at Once Upon a Classroom?

What a sweet reader for Thanksgiving time! I know my Kindergartener and 2nd grader will really enjoy this!

Friday Freebies!

Today is a very exciting day for freebies! There is a Facebook Frenzy going on today! It starts today at 8am EST and ends Nov 11th at 8pm EST. The way it works is you go to a Facebook page of someone participating, look for the little "FB Frenzy" tab and click on it. Then, after you have liked that Facebook page, you will be able to download an exclusive freebie and get the link for the next freebie in the hop! What fun!

Here is the map so that you can pick the appropriate grade level(s). After you have collected your freebies, make sure you check out all of the sellers' wonderful TpT pages for more freebies and products! Enjoy!

Facebook Frenzy coming soon!

Are you ready for the next Facebook Frenzy? This is my first time participating and I'm so excited! It's less than a week away now! It's all happening over on Facebook and there will be maps for various grade levels. Mine will be in Grades 4-5 and I will link up the map once it's available.

museum monday!

We hadn't hit up a museum in a few weeks so I thought it was time. We headed out to the Museum of Science this morning and had a really lovely time there! It was relatively empty with only a few school groups, the typical toddler crowd, and a few other homeschoolers. Here are a few highlights of the trip.

We checked out a fun Pixar exhibit which showed elements of digital design, lighting, and modeling, and had a fun station to build your own mutant toy (like Sid in Toy Story).

F's mutant toy.

H playing with 3D modeling.

If there are tubes, my kids are there. Word. 

Squee! Definitely the coolest part of the trip imo.

Found: Rodent mandible and tons of other bones!

When H spotted the Periodic Table, he skipped over quickly to check it out. He has been choosing different elements to learn about from the library and was excited to recognize some. Nearby, we checked out a cool leaf shape sorting activity.

Of course F was enamored with the ocean themed I-Spy table. He loves I Spy books right now and we looked hard to find everything!

There was a seashell game very much like "Guess Who?" which the kids really liked! They played several times.

This station was fun: sorting shells, then rotating the table and guessing how your partner sorted their shells.

We also saw a 3D movie about Sea Monsters!

Wicked awesome. I was thrilled to be able to add to our Engineering is Elementary storybook library as well:

Hooray!

After our museum fun, we came home and raked, and I pruned the blueberry bushes and tended the strawberry beds. It was a perfect homeschooling day!

Top 5 freebies over at Primary Paradise

Have you seen Primary Paradise's Top 5 freebies list? I am thrilled to have one of my products featured today:

Be sure to check out the freebies archive as well for more fabulous freebies, and check out Primary Paradise's TpT store too! Tons of great products!

Wonderful NBT blog posts by a fellow blogger!

Brenda over at Teaching...Seriously has just completed a series of blog posts highlighting resources for teaching Numbers and Operations in Base Ten, grades 3-5. If you need to teach to the Common Core, you are going to want to check out these resources! Here are a few of the resources she has included:

Fine Motor Paper Pumpkin Crafts for Halloween

Pumpkin and Origami Halloween Crafts 

Here are two crafts that are so much fun for Halloween! I hope you enjoy these pumpkinspired ideas. Not only do they help use fine motor skills, you can incorporate measurement tasks and logic as well!

Woven pumpkin!

Materials Needed for Woven Pumpkin Craft

• orange paper (I used extra large construction paper for the pumpkin)
• pencil to draw your pumpkin
• scissors to cut out your pumpkin
• paper trimmer or cutting blade to make slits on your pumpkin and to make weaving strips

1. Draw a pumpkin and cut it out!
2. Cut some slits either vertically or horizontally. Mine are spaced about 1" apart.

 3. Cut strips of paper (there are 1" wide) in another color. I chose another shade of orange.

 4. Weave!

5. Glue the ends down and stem to your pumpkin. If yours came out really well, laminate it! It makes a lovely fall place mat!

Origami Balloon Halloween Crafts

Here is another cute one! I was obsessed with making origami balls/balloons as a kid and I thought they would translate well to mini jack-o'-lanterns! There is a great tutorial with videos on how to make the balloon. After you have made your shape, use a marker to draw your face! I trimmed a pipe cleaner for a stem and put it through the space where you blow up the balloon. Voila!

 

Some more ideas: a black cat, some ghosts, and...

Spookley the Square Pumpkin Halloween Craft

Spookley!

If you need to draw on a flat surface, unfold it. The face goes as shown.

This is where the logic skill can come in. Because most young kids will need help with this project, you can ask them where they think the face should go before you fold it up. Then after you make a few you can show them that it's easier to find the location after it's been folded up once! You can even fold it, lightly pencil in the face, unfold it, darken and detail the face, then fold it back up again!

Enjoy!