Easy Homophone and Homograph Activity and Craft

One of my favorite ways to review and practice homonyms: GUESS MY HOMOPHONE or HOMOGRAPH! This fun and very low prep project helps students remember tricky homophones and homographs.

This digital download includes everything you need for this lesson including printable templates, anchor charts in color AND black and white, and teacher samples and instructions. Final products make excellent (and easy) bulletin boards :)

This activity makes a great back to school or end of year review! Click HERE or on any image for the link to this digital download!

Scissor Skills Fine Motor Practice Printables

Scissor. Skills. SO many kids are lacking the ability to cut using scissors these days but it is such a fun and easy skill to practice! If your kids or students are younger, I highly recommend these toddler loop scissors. My son LOVES them and has gotten pretty good at using them to cut paper, grass, leaves etc. You can see the loop scissors pictured below :)

I have a whole collection of scissor skill printable worksheets. Each download includes three levels for easy differentiation. These worksheets are a wonderful tool to have on hand for a rainy day or when you need a quick filler station or activity!

Grab this growing bundle by clicking HERE or by clicking on any of the images in this blog post. Let me know what you think!

Mother's Day Crafts

Happy Mother’s Day!! Below are two fun and easy crafts to do with kids in the classroom or at home:

Mother’s Day Handprint Art Keepsake Craft

I love, love, love all the handprint artwork I have collected over the past year. This year our theme for Mother’s Day is fruit puns :) Check out these fun templates below:

Mother’s Day Fraction Flowers

This activity is perfect for students in grades 4, 5, or 6 but I’ve also included a blank template so you can create your own math fraction flower craft OR let your little one color on a blank flower. Final products make beautiful potted plants that will last forever! In this math craft students will practice finding equivalent fractions, multiplying fractions, adding fraction, simplifying fractions, and converting improper fractions to mixed numbers.

Interested in trying either of these activities? Click on any of the images to take you to the download or click on the links below:

Mother’s Day Fraction Flowers

Mother’s Day Handprint Art

Construction Themed Week

My latest themed week is NOW AVAILABLE and I can’t wait to share some of these activities with you. Each themed week bundle includes around six activities, printable decor, fact sheets and more!

These activities are perfect for toddlers, preschool, prek and kindergarten kids and are great for use year round, when you need a quick and easy rainy day activity, or when you’ve got the kids home for the summer!

Check out some highlights of this new bundle below and head to my store to view the entire product preview.

There are SIX activities included in this instant download! Kids will practice scissor skills, colors, numbers, letters and the alphabet, sorting, matching, counting, and much more!

There are also open-end play options included! Your little construction workers will love “laying bricks” and “building roads” for their own imaginative cities.

In addition to the six activities, this download also includes fact pages, instructions for each activity, and printable construction themed decor! Click here or on any image to take you to this Construction Themed Week download!

Check out some of my other themed weeks by clicking on any image below:

Easter Activities and Crafts for Toddlers, Pre School, Pre K Kids and Beyond

Happy (almost) Easter!

I’m sharing a few fun Easter themed activities that have been keeping us busy over here this week! While I designed these for my toddler, many of these activities will work for a variety of ages so check them out :)

Easter Memory Matching Game

One of the things I love about this activity is how many ways it can be played! I’ve included various levels of play in the instructions included in the download. Pictured below is how I am using the game with my toddler- simple matching. This memory game is also great for Easter vocabulary development!

Easter Patterns

It’s never too early to start practicing math skills! This download includes pattern sorts using AABB, ABAB, and ABCABC patterns. As with the memory game above, the download includes instructions for various levels of play. Patterns are practiced all the way through elementary school so even your older kids can enjoy this game.

Easter Handprint Art

This is a perfect last minute, no prep, good for all ages, activity for Easter. We love to decorate our kitchen with seasonal handprint art!

Easter Color Sort

This is a great day-of activity, especially if you are looking for alternatives to candy for your Easter eggs. These colorful bunnies can make excellent egg fillers!

Easter Scissor Skills

A classic skill that needs to be practiced regularly! These worksheets are easy to print and use right away.

If you’re interested in trying out any of these fun Easter activities click on any of the images above or below to take you to the download. Happy Easter!

Fraction Flowers: A Simple way to Review Fractions

Welcome Spring!

In honor of the weather shifting from cold and dreary to bright and sunny here is a fun springtime themed activity and craft to help students review fractions.

These fraction flowers are perfect for bulletin boards or sending home in beautiful flower bouquets! There are also multiple worksheets in each download so it is very easy to differentiate for all students! Check out what I did for Mother’s Day one year:

The best part about these fraction flowers is you can review almost any fraction skill! Check out the available fraction flowers below. Click on any image to access the download! Happy SPRING!!

Easy St. Patrick's Day Toddler Activities and Crafts

All of a sudden it’s March and St. Patrick’s Day is upon us!! Need some quick crafts and activities for the littles in your life? Check these out!

St. Patrick’s Day Memory Card Game

Such a fun way to practice matching and to go over those St. Patrick’s Day vocabulary words like leprechaun and pot of gold :) This download comes with directions for various levels of play to support all the little card sharks in your life!

St. Patrick’s Day Handprint Art

I can’t go a single holiday without some handprint artwork for my kitchen walls! Here are my latest St. Patrick’s Day handprint art templates. I recommend adding a little sparkle on top of the pot of gold handprint and the rainbow handprint :)

St. Patrick’s Day Scissor Skills

Practice those fine motor skills with these fun St. Patrick’s Day printables! This download includes various skill levels- start with the most basic and work your way up to curves and sharp turns!

St. Patrick’s Day Patterns

Practice matching and creating patterns with these fun AABB, ABAB, ABCABC pattern cards for St. Patrick’s Day!

Interested in trying any of these activities?

Click on the images below to take you to the downloads!

Valentine's Day Toddler Activities and Crafts

Happy February!

Here are my favorite Valentine’s Day themed activities and crafts for 2-, 3-, and 4-year olds!

Handprint Art

No kitchen fridge is complete without a few pieces of adorable handprint art! I love to look back at the itty bitty handprints and watch them grow throughout the years.

Color Matching

There is no better way to practice colors than with a box of chocolates and hearts :) These two activities are easy to use just print, cut and you’re ready to go! I like to laminate the pieces so we can use them again and again. These are also really fun to do with sensory bins- just put the pieces into a bin filled with a sensory materials such as rice or beans and let your little dig around for the pieces!

Repeating and Extending Patterns

Recognizing, repeating and extending patterns is a skill students will practice throughout life! This activity is great for toddlers all the way to first graders. Start with repeating basic AABB patterns then ABAB patterns and finally ABCABC patterns. Once that skill is mastered students can begin to extend patterns and create their own!

What are some other fun toddler Valentine’s day activities? Let me know below in the comments.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Top Airplane Activities for Little Kids

Keeping a toddler, a 2 year old, a 3 year old, or any age kid busy on a long flight is definitely a daunting task! They have short attention spans, nap schedules get messed up, meal schedules change, but if you are prepared you can definitely avoid a meltdown— or you can at least try!

We have traveled to over nine countries with our toddler here is my collection of top 10 airplane activities for young children:

1. Snacks. Large variety, small quantity. We love the GoBe Kids Snack Spinner but I have also seen some parents use pill boxes.

2. Airplane Busy Bags. These bags are perfect for young children. It comes as a download and does require some initial prep work but these kits pack up very small and will grow with your kids to provide endless flexible and creative play. Kids will enjoy solving math problems to escape a maze, building numbers and shapes out of play dough, creating race tracks for their matchbox cars, playing games like airport bingo and tic tac toe, and solving number puzzles to reveal images and more! See more in the video above or click HERE.

3. Indestructibles. These light weight books are perfect for on the go and like the name suggests they are very durable. Our favorite book is “Things that Go!”. We usually take about four or five books along with us for airplane rides.

4. Crayons, markers and paper. The open ended creativity these provide make these a no-brainer to include in any child’s airplane bag.

5. Wiki Sticks. These unusual craft sticks are small pieces of yarn covered in wax. They are very malleable and can be used to create scenes on paper or road obstacles for small matchbox cars.

6. Stickers. Pick stickers that match your child’s interests. My son loves vehicles so we bring along some car and truck stickers. Use them with the wiki sticks to create a scene on paper or stick them on clothes.

7. Dot stickers. These stickers are great for all ages! For younger kids, use them to practice color matching and color naming or stick them on yourself to practice naming body parts. For older kids, use them for color or number patterns.

8. Post it notes or tabs. Like the dot stickers, these are great for any age child. For younger kids, stick them on the tray table and have them pull them off. For older children, use them to practice color or number patterns, or matching upper and lowercase letters. Spell out your child’s name, one letter per post it note, scramble the letters and see if they can build their name. You can do this with names or sight words!

9. Paint brush and paper. Use a paint brush, dip it in a cup of water and create a masterpiece on colored paper and watch it slowly disappear. You can also use the Melissa & Doug water reveal pads.

10. Don’t have the airplane busy bag listed above? Don’t forget to bring play dough, matchbox cars, and road tape!

BONUS: Wrap up a few small activities like birthday presents. Kids love finding surprising new activities hidden in their airplane bags. This works for any age but is especially fun with older kids.

I hope this article was helpful! If you have any awesome ideas to add mention them in the comments. Happy travels!!

Order of Operations A Room Transformation

Order of Operations

A student asked me today what my favorite subject to teach is and I said, “Math, of course!”. To which, he replied, “What’s your favorite math topic to teach….[paused]…Nevermind, I know it has to be order of operations.” :) He’s not wrong.

Room Transformations

One of the reasons I love teaching order of operations is because I get to transform the classroom into a hospital operation room and it is actually the easiest room transformation I have ever done. Here’s what I do:

1. Tape a white plastic table cloth to the door frame and tape some hospital signs on the table cloth.

2. Play some hospital sound effects in the background (check out Spotify- they have a few options)

3. Put a mask, gloves and surgical robe at every student seat (you can grab all these materials on Amazon) Don’t forget to include Dr. badges! You can print them out as part of this download.

4. Lay down white butcher paper on a group of tables and free hand a gingerbread-like person on the paper using a thick marker.

5. Prep these order of operation cards (differentiated for basic-intermediate-challenge)

You’re ready to go!! I typically hold this activity right away in the morning so the day before I give the students their doctor ID badges and tell them they will need them to enter the classroom the next day. I don’t give them any other hints or ideas about what we will be doing the next day and they get SO excited and anticipation is VERY high the next morning when they show up with their ID cards :)

I give each group of students a pack of order of operation cards and explain that each pack represents one patient’s life! If they can correctly match every card in a set they will have saved the life of their patient. When they finish one pack, I advance the group to the next level and they have the chance to save another life. It is really fun to keep a tally going on the white board to see how many patients were saved!

You can get all these order of operation materials by clicking here!

This download includes the following:

• Three levels of activity cards for differentiated instruction (basic, intermediate, advanced).

  • Basic: multiplication/division & addition/subtraction

  • Intermediate: parenthesis, multiplication/division & addition/subtraction

  • Advanced: exponents, parenthesis, multiplication/division & addition/subtraction

Each level includes 12 task cards (6 matching pairs).

• Activity & room transformation instructions, suggestions and images.

• Editable medical badges (two styles, five colors).

• Blank cards for you to create your own activity cards.

• Medical posters to help set the mood in the classroom.

• Bell ringer work (editable)

• Answer keys