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Turkey Memory Match-Ups
Preschool - 1st Grade
This activity is appropriate for: preschool - 1st grade / 3 - 6 years Use this easy-to-make card game to improve your students’ memory skills. You will need 12 index cards and two identical sets of Thanksgiving-themed stickers (e.g., pictures of turkeys, pumpkins, cornucopias, pilgrim hats, etc.). Thanksgiving-themed stickers can be purchased from a local store or card shop around Thanksgiving time. Place one sticker on each of six index cards. Then make an additional set of sticker cards identical to the first six so that each card has a match. To play the game, players place all 12 cards, sticker side down, on the floor or surface of a table. One at a time, players choose a card, and then try to find its match by flipping over another card. If the two cards show pictures of identical stickers, the player keeps the match. If not, he returns both cards face down. Players take turns playing until all matches are found. The player with the most matches wins! (For younger students, you may want to begin with only three or four pairs of cards. Then as memory skills improve, add additional sets for a more challenging game.)
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Spring Learning Centers
Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 3rd grade / 5 - 8 years This month, set up some fun learning centers with these creative ideas for spring! Read & Learn Comprehension Center Encourage children to sharpen their comprehension skills with these engaging, spring-themed reading passages! Print out several copies of the Comprehension Cards and place them in a file folder. Have students read the passages silently or with a partner and answer the questions. Kite Scenes Geometry Center Place light blue construction paper and pattern blocks in a center. (If you don’t have pattern blocks, simply download this pattern blocks template and reproduce it for students to use.) On separate index cards, write the name of each pattern block shape, such as triangle, square, trapezoid, parallelogram, rhombus and hexagon. (Be sure to review the name of each shape before having students work independently!) Invite students to choose two or three cards, find the corresponding pattern blocks, and trace the blocks onto a 9" x 12" sheet of blue construction paper. If using the template, have students cut out the shapes and glue them onto the paper. Encourage them to use colored pencils or crayons to add details to the picture so that the shapes look like kites flying in the sky. They can draw the kites’ tails and strings, grass, flowers, clouds and more. After students have completed their pictures, have them describe the shapes they used in their pictures. Or, for older students, provide copies of the Pattern Block Kites reproducible and have them fill it out to describe their picture. Display the pictures with the students’ descriptions on a spring bulletin board titled “Pattern Block Kites.” Nature Detectives Science Center Take your students on a nature walk around the school grounds, and help them collect plant samples to bring back to the classroom for observation. (Or you can have them bring plants from home.) Provide each student with a magnifier and a Plants & Flowers Observation Sheet. Encourage them to examine their specimens and record their observations. After students are finished, invite them to tape their specimens to the top portion of a sheet of construction paper and attach the observation sheet to the bottom portion. Collect the pages, bind them together in a class book and place them in a science center for students to enjoy! For younger students, collect several specimens from plants common in your area, such as a fern, flower, branch and magnolia leaf. Attach each specimen to an index card and label it for added literacy exposure. Then place the cards at a center with magnifiers. Have students choose a specimen, observe it with the magnifier and draw it on a piece of paper. For additional writing practice, challenge students to label the picture by copying the name of the specimen. Little Ladybugs Counting Center Reproduce the ladybugs template onto red construction paper. Cut out the number tiles and ladybug counters, and place them at a center. (You can also laminate the pieces to make them more durable.) For young students, have them choose a number tile and count out the corresponding number of ladybugs. For older students, create additional tiles with math symbols such as an addition sign, a subtraction sign and an equal sign. Then prompt students to create math problems and use the ladybugs to find the answers! Write About It! Spring Language Center Reproduce these Spring-Themed Writing Prompts and place them at a center with pencils and crayons. Invite students to let their creativity flow as they write and illustrate their own stories!
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Boxes of Fun
Preschool - Kindergarten
This activity is appropriate for: preschool - kindergarten / 3 - 5 years Encourage students to use their holiday gift boxes for a few hands-on math activities: Large to Small—Gather a few boxes of varying sizes and have students arrange them in order, from largest to smallest or smallest to largest. Mix & Match—Take some boxes of different sizes and shapes and separate them from their lids. Then challenge students to match each lid to its correct container—as fast as they can! Quantity Count—Tape a blank note card to the inside bottom of several boxes. Label each note card with a different numeral. Then have students place corresponding numbers of classroom objects or small toys inside the different boxes. Cash & Carry—Have students cut out pictures of toys from a favorite catalog and place them in a box along with the price of each item. Then set up a “store” and have them select a few items that they would like to buy. Have students take turns being the cashier and the customer. Give them some fake coins and bills with which to practice purchasing and counting out change.
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Adjective Add-On
1st Grade - 5th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: 1st - 5th grade / 6 - 10 years This creative activity gets kids thinking and writing descriptively! Choose a relatively simple sentence to write on the board and have students copy the sentence onto their own sheets of paper. Then challenge students to add adjectives to the sentence to make it more descriptive. (For example, “The girl walked along the street” might become “The careless girl walked along the busy street” or “The little girl walked along the long, quiet street.”) Call on volunteers to share their revised sentences aloud, or have them draw pictures to go with their sentences. Then compare them to see what a difference a few descriptive words can make! Here are a few sentences to get you started: My dog has fleas. My brother ate his vegetables. Look at that painting! That goat ate all the corn in the field. The car raced down the road. The zookeeper fed the animals in the zoo. She sang a song and danced in the rain. My dad works in a building. The boy pulled out his wand and cast a spell. Variation: For older students, encourage them to continue building a story around the sentence to create a whole paragraph. Invite them to compare their stories to illustrate how some editing and a few revisions can enhance the context and meaning of what we write.
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Remember the Day in Photos
Pre-K - 3rd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: pre-k - 3rd grade / 4 - 8 years Assign students the fun task of documenting their family Thanksgiving celebration through photographs. Encourage them to take posed pictures of family members as well as a few candid shots of the day’s festivities. Then have them share the photos with the entire class and talk about their favorite memories of the day. Display the photos on a Thanksgiving bulletin board, or glue the photos onto construction paper and staple the pages together to create a class Thanksgiving photo album.
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Sight-Word Go Fish Game
Pre-K - 1st Grade
This activity is appropriate for: pre-k - 1st grade / 4 - 6 years Preparation: Make your own deck of sight-word cards by printing the First 20 Sight-Words. Mount two sets on cardstock and cut on the dashed lines to make two index cards for each sight-word. The game works best with four players, so you may want to create multiple “decks” so that several small groups can play at once. How to Play: Each player is dealt seven sight-word cards, and the rest of the cards are neatly stacked face down in a pile in the center of the table. As in the card game, “Go Fish,” players take turns asking each other for specific cards to make a pair. For example, Player One may ask Player Two, “Do you have the word ‘the’?” If Player Two has that card in her hand, she gives the card to Player One, who pairs it with the matching “the” card in his hand to make a pair. If Player Two does not have the card she is asked for, she says, “Go fish!”, and Player One must draw a card from the pile to add to his hand. The first player to collect the matching cards to all the cards in his or her hand wins the game!
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End-Of-The-Year Celebration
1st Grade - 6th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: 1st - 6th grade / 6 - 11 years As the school year comes to a close, try a few of these culminating activities to get your students reflecting on their progress! Grade-Level Graduation Encourage students to celebrate the end of a successful school year by hosting a graduation party! Purchase inexpensive graduation-themed paper plates and cups from a local party store and order a cake from a supermarket bakery. Then invite students to take turns sharing the accomplishments they are most proud of from the past year. Print out the End-Of-The-Year Diploma and present one to each student. Student Reflections Give a copy of the student memory book to each student, and encourage students to record their favorite memories and proudest moments from the past school year. Then have students take them home as keepsakes to share with their parents! Mixed Math Review Help students recall the many math concepts they learned this year with a fun-filled quiz game they create! Divide the class into small teams and distribute several copies of the Mixed Math Review! cards to each team. Then assign each team a chapter or section of their math textbook, and have them write down a question or problem on the back of each card. (Be sure to have each group create an answer key for their cards.) Simply place the cards in a pocket chart to create a quiz game that’s played just like a TV game show—and let students take turns answering questions for their teams! Tip: No time to create your own game? Check out our ready-made Math Quiz Game Shows for Grades 1-3 and Grades 4-6—each with over 200 level-appropriate question cards covering tons of essential math concepts!
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Pocket Chart Word Match
Kindergarten - 2nd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 2nd grade / 5 - 7 years Write a nursery rhyme or short poem on sentence strips. Place the sentence strips in a pocket chart. Then have students read the nursery rhyme or poem aloud with you as a shared reading. Invite students to take turns using a pointer to point to the individual words as you read the passage again and again. After a considerable amount of whole-class practice, place the pocket chart in a learning center. Make a second copy of the reading selection on sentence strips and cut out each individual word to make word cards. Challenge students to work together at the center to read each word card and match it to the corresponding word in the pocket chart. Instruct students to place the word cards on top of the words on the sentence strip as they find the match. When they have finished matching, encourage students to read the nursery rhyme or poem together again to check their work.
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“Celebrity” Read-A-Thon!
Preschool - 3rd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: preschool - 3rd grade / 3 - 8 years March 2 is Read Across America Day, sponsored by the National Education Association. Celebrate this nationwide event by inviting neighborhood celebrities (e.g., local TV news anchors, community police officers or firefighters, a manager of a local supermarket or your neighborhood librarian) to visit your classroom and read aloud to the students! Then, host a Literature Lunch event for parents so they can share in the reading celebration, too. Invite parents to join their children for lunch in your classroom, followed by a shared reading time where parents cozy up with their children and quietly read picture books together. Students will delight in having these special visitors in their classroom throughout the day. Plus, having parents and other mentors model the excitement and joy of reading is sure to ignite students’ interest in literature!
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Mother's Day Tea
Preschool - 2nd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: preschool - 2nd grade / 3-7years Help your students honor their mothers (or another special caregiver) by hosting a Mother’s Day Tea. Print out these special invitations and send them home with your students. Before the big event, have students make these tea-themed Mother’s Day Teacup Cards. Purchase cookies or muffins from a supermarket bakery and serve with tea and juice on the day of the event. For an extra-special touch, contact community florists and ask them to donate carnations for the affair.
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Ice Cube Color Mixing
Preschool - 1st Grade
This activity is appropriate for: preschool - 1st grade / 3 - 6 years Using colored ice cubes and lemonade, have your students mix different colors and watch the result! Make blue ice cubes using food coloring. Give each child a cup of yellow lemonade. Ask the class to predict what color the yellow and blue will create when mixed. Have the students put the blue ice cubes into the lemonade and watch as the colors mix and turn green. Take children outside and give them 2 different colored ice cubes (you choose the colors, depending on available food coloring). The children will watch as the ice cubes melt and mix into a different color. Have students draw a picture of what happened and, if they are able, write a few sentences.
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Visit A Zoo
Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 3rd grade / 5 - 8 years Take your students on a trip to a local zoo, and ask them to keep track of the animals they see there. Bring along a pad and a pencil so that students can make a list. Later, have them check their lists and sort them into categories of mammals, reptiles and birds. Which type of animal did they see the most?
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Sharing the Dream of Dr. King
Kindergarten - 6th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 6th grade / 5 - 11 years Read or listen to a recording of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. (For younger students with shorter attention spans, you may want to select a small portion instead of the entire speech.) Afterward, discuss some of the ways Dr. King was hoping to accomplish peace among people. Then, engage students in a follow-up activity that allows them to express their own ideas of how we can live in harmony with one another: For Grades K–2: Have students draw a picture of ways they can spread peace to one another (e.g., sharing, making friends, helping each other, etc.). Then have them complete the sentence “I can bring peace by _______________.” For Grades 3–5: Have students write about ways they can get along with others and spread peace. For Grades 6 and up: Ask students to explain what Dr. King meant when he called for people to be “judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” and share some examples of when and how they can do this.
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Science Fair
Kindergarten - 5th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 5th grade / 5 - 10 years Get children excited about science by hosting a schoolwide science fair! Encourage older students (third grade and up) to conduct their own science experiments and display their results at the fair. Get younger students involved by completing a class project. Follow these handy tips to make your science fair a success: Several weeks before the science fair, talk to students about the scientific method and explain that science experiments are designed to answer questions about the world around us. Send home a helpful parent packet that includes the Science Fair Project Letter, Science Fair Project Guidelines, Science Fair Project Ideas and Science Fair Project Header Cards. Parents can help their child understand what is expected, select an appropriate topic with their child and work through the steps of the project together. Schedule brief one-on-one meetings with students to review their chosen topics and answer any questions they may have about conducting their experiments or presenting their findings. Provide students with a handy Science Fair Project Organizer to help them plan ahead and organize the process as they go. Reserve a location on your school campus for the science fair and allow students access to the room before school to set up their displays. Invite distinguished community leaders or fellow science teachers to serve as judges for the event. In addition to giving awards for first, second and third place, encourage the judges to give awards such as “Most Original,” “Best Display,” “Most Interesting” and “Honorable Mention.” Don’t forget to praise all of the students for their efforts and participation!
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Book of Class Records
Pre-K - 5th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: pre-k - 5th grade / 4 - 10 years Create your own classroom book of records! Make a list of records that students in your class might set. Some possible records might be: Most words read in one minute Most jumps on a jump rope in one minute Fastest times tables Highest stack of blocks Farthest (or highest) jump Try to have a wide range of records so that every student has a chance to set a record in something. Over the course of a few days, have kids compete to see who can set the various records. Write down the results, and then make a classroom book with the records listed. (If you have a digital camera, you can take photos of the winning kids to include on the pages.) Let students decorate the pages, and then bind them together into a book. Keep the book in your classroom library for next year’s kids to read—then let them try to break the records and set new ones!
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Manipulating Money
Pre-K - 1st Grade
This activity is appropriate for: pre-k - 1st grade / 4 - 6 years In honor of Presidents’ Day, take the opportunity to point out to your students that most U.S. coins feature pictures of past American presidents. Then, let your students explore the coins hands-on with these fun activities! Coin Rubbing—Divide the class into groups of three or four, and provide each group with several different coins to share. Then, give each student a sheet of paper and some crayons. Have students place the paper on top of a coin and gently color over the paper with the side of a crayon to make a coin rubbing. Encourage them to repeat the process with both sides of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. The result will be colorful imprints of a variety of coins! Penny Probability—Place three pennies and a dime into a paper bag. Ask students to predict which of the two types of coins they are likely to pull out of the bag at random. Test their predictions by drawing a coin out of the bag and recording which coin was selected. Replace the coin and repeat this process 10 times. Allow different student volunteers to take turns removing and replacing the coins. At the conclusion of the demonstration, guide students in discovering that the probability of selecting the penny out of the bag is 3 out of 4, while the probability of selecting the dime is only 1 out of 4. Simple Sorting—Reinforce categorizing and sorting skills by having students work in pairs to sort jars of coins into piles by coin type. Then, have them arrange the different piles in order by size or by value. Penny Predictions—Hold up a penny and ask students to guess how many drops of water they think will fit on the penny. As they guess, ask them to explain why they think their guesses are reasonable. Then have each student work with a partner and give each pair a penny, an eyedropper, and a small cup of water. Encourage the pair to designate one person to count while the other carefully places drops of water onto the penny—one drop at a time until the water “overflows” and drips off of the surface of the penny. Then have them switch roles to try it again. Invite the class to compare their results and discuss whether or not they were consistent. (You might want to provide a simple explanation for how the water drops cling to the penny’s surface and create a “net” called surface tension until the force of gravity becomes stronger than the water and causes the “net” to break.)
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Pen Pal Project
2nd Grade - 5th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: 2nd - 5th grade / 7 - 10 years Set up international pen pals for your students. (A great website that can help get you connected to other students or classrooms around the globe is www.epals.com.) Encourage them to write to their pen pals to ask about which holidays they celebrate and how they are celebrated. Prompt students to include in their letters explanations and descriptions of their own holiday traditions and celebrations. Have students take pictures of holiday decorations to send with their letters. And don’t forget to invite students to share their letters with the class when they receive a response!
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Sharing the Warmth
Kindergarten - 6th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 6th grade / 5 - 11 years The holiday season seems to be the perfect time to focus on giving to others. Invite your students (and their parents) to get into the spirit of giving by donating gently worn (or even brand-new) mittens, gloves, hats, and scarves to be given to less fortunate children in your community. After collecting the items, arrange to drop them off at a local family shelter or church that may reach out to needy children in the
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Shopping for Sounds
Kindergarten - 1st Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 1st grade / 5 - 6 years Reinforce beginning letter sounds with this fun-to-play shopping game! Copy a page in a catalog or a store sale flyer and distribute a copy to each student. Choose an item pictured on that page without revealing your choice to the students. If you chose a “hat,” say, “I want to buy an item that starts with ‘h’!” Then invite students to search the page and guess which item you’re thinking of. When they guess correctly, write the name of the item on the board, so students can visualize the word. Tip: To eliminate confusion, go over the pictures on the page together, so that you agree on the names of the items (e.g., “hat” instead of “cap” or “box” instead of “carton,” etc.).
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Thanksgiving Word Hunt Collage
Kindergarten - 5th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 5th grade / 5 - 10 years Invite students to search through a collection of gently used magazines and cut out words or pictures of items that represent things for which they are thankful. Have them create a class collage by pasting the pictures onto a large sheet of butcher paper that is mounted to a wall or bulletin board with the title “We Give Thanks For…!”
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Student of the Week
Preschool - 1st Grade
This activity is appropriate for: preschool - 1st grade / 3 - 6 years Spotlight the individuality of your students by giving each child a week to shine! Try a few of these creative ideas to make your Student of the Week feel extra special. Create a bulletin-board display featuring the Student of the Week. Send home this parent letter and Star of the Week reproducible. Invite the student to fill out the form and bring it to class along with a few favorite photos. Showcase the items on the board so everyone can learn about her unique interests and hobbies! Encourage the students in your class to identify characteristics they admire about the Student of the Week. Assemble written notes in a folder that the student can take home to share with his family at the end of the week. Or have students write their sentiments on star templates and display the stars on the Student of the Week bulletin board. Tip: Have younger children dictate a few kind adjectives or a brief compliment for you to write on the star template. (For example, “She shares toys with me,” or “He is nice.”) Be sure to include the student’s name so that the recipient will know who said the kind words. Throughout the week, offer the Student of the Week fun privileges, such as serving as line leader, running special errands, or selecting music or games for free time. Send home a letter at the beginning of the week and invite parents to share things about their child that make them proud. At the end of the week, read the comments aloud to the class and watch the student beam with pride! Select a day for a Student of the Week lunch. As a special treat, invite the honored student and two classmates of her choosing to join you for lunch in the classroom. Encourage your Student of the Week to select a favorite storybook to share with the class. One afternoon during the week, you or the student can read the story aloud. Invite your Student of the Week to create a Special Sharing Sack! Ask him to bring three items from home that tell about people, interests or activities that are important to him. Throughout the week, invite him to reveal each item to the class and share one or two sentences about it.
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