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Valentine Learning Centers
Kindergarten - 2nd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 2nd grade / 5 - 7 years Make Valentine’s Day extra special with these fun and easy-to-use learning center ideas! Read Your Heart Out Reading Center Fill your classroom library with a dozen or so age-appropriate Valentine-themed books. Invite students to choose a story and curl up on some floor pillows for reading time! Some suggestions include: The Day It Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond Happy Valentine’s Day, Little Critter! by Mercer Mayer Nate the Great and the Mushy Valentine by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat Amelia Bedelia’s First Valentine by Herman Parish Arthur’s Great Big Valentine by Lillian Hoban The Biggest Valentine Ever by Steven Kroll The Night Before Valentine’s Day by Natasha Wing How Many Hearts? Math Center Students will love solving simple addition problems with this hands-on Valentine math center! To prepare the center, you will need a die, a few small heart-shaped stampers and a red ink pad, as well as several copies of the How Many Hearts? downloadable page. Cut the copies in half along the dotted line. Have each student take a How Many Hearts? sheet and roll the die. Encourage them to write down the number of dots shown and stamp the corresponding number of hearts above the number in the space provided. Repeat the process for the second number in the addition problem. Then, have students count the total number of stamps to find the correct answer. Variation: Instead of stamps, you can use colorful heart stickers! Can You Hear Your Heartbeat? Science Center This easy-to-create science center will introduce young children to the basic concept of scientific observation! Simply provide a stethoscope at the table for students to use. One at a time, have students use the stethoscope to listen to their heartbeats. Then, have them stand up and do ten jumping jacks and listen to their heartbeats again. Ask them what happened! (Note: You may want to have a parent or other adult volunteer stationed at this center to facilitate questions and clean the stethoscope earpieces with alcohol swabs or disinfecting pads between uses.) Valentine Verses Writing Center Set up a center with heart-themed writing paper and fun Valentine pens or pencils. Invite students to write a poem about people or things in their lives that they love. You may want to help them get started by displaying this poem on posterboard in your learning center. Prompt students to copy the lines of the poem and fill in the blanks with thoughts of their own! Roses are red, Violets are blue, I love my _______________ And ________________, too! Or, have students make up their own verses and write them on the downloadable heart-shaped writing template. After the poem is written, mount it onto red or pink construction paper. Display the poems on a bulletin board in your classroom for Valentine’s Day! Valentine Words Language Center Write the word “VALENTINE” in capital letters across a sentence strip and place it in a center. Provide students with paper and pencils and challenge them to make a list of as many words as they can spell using only the letters in that word! For variation, try the same activity with other Valentine’s Day words, such as sweetheart, candy, cupid, flowers, chocolate and so on.
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Classroom Map Hunt
1st Grade - 3rd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: 1st - 3rd grade / 6 - 8 years The sooner students feel comfortable in the classroom, the sooner they can take advantage of all your great classroom resources. Help familiarize students with their new classroom through this fun map hunt. Draw a map of your classroom. Don’t worry about your artistic ability, just make sure to include all the important classroom features, centers, and furniture you want your students to be familiar with. Your map will probably include things like a listening center, library, student tables, teacher’s desk, math center, sink, door, student cubbies, pencil sharpener, turn-in-your-work area, and so on. Consider using grid paper—it makes it easier to get the size relationships right. At the bottom of your map, include a list of directions. The directions should direct students toward the classroom features. Your list of directions might be something like this: Go to the place where you would listen to a book. Go to the place where you would pick up your mail. Find the place where you would turn in your assignment. Find the place where you would sharpen your pencil. Find your seat. Go to the place where you would find a book to read. Go to the place where you could wash your hands. Before you give each student a copy of your map, provide a tour of the classroom. Point out everything on the map, and explain (if necessary) why these features are important to their classroom experience. Then, pass a map out to each student. Give students 15-20 minutes (depending on the length of your list) to find all the places on the list. When they find a place, they should put an x next to it on the list. When the time is up, go through the list with the entire class.
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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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End-Of-The-Year Scavenger Hunt
2nd Grade - 6th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: 2nd - 6th grade / 7 - 11 years Plan a scavenger hunt…for information your class learned throughout the year! Create a list of questions whose answers can be found in books the class read during the year. (Make sure copies of the books are available in your classroom library or reading center.) Make a copy of the list for each child in class, and then let them “hunt” for the answers. Have kids write down each answer and where they found it. Give children a time limit in which to find the information. When time is up, collect students' answers. Count up the correct answers and give a prize to the student(s) who found the most! Note: Tell children that they don’t need to answer the questions in order—that way, if the book needed to answer the first question is being used, they can simply answer another question on the list.
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Celebrating Earth Day
1st Grade - 5th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: 1st - 5th grade / 6 - 10 years Earth Day is April 22nd! Celebrate our planet with these engaging Earth Day ideas: Read All About It—Set up an Earth Day reading corner with interesting and age-appropriate books, such as Earth Day—Hooray! by Stuart J. Murphy, Let’s Celebrate Earth Day by Connie and Peter Roop, and Earth Book for Kids: Activities to Help Heal the Environment by Linda Schwartz. Invite students to read the books (or you can read them aloud to the class) and discuss ways they can help preserve our planet! Plant a Plant—Provide students with small terra-cotta pots and paints to decorate them. Then help students put soil in the pots and add seeds so they can grow their own plants! Remind students that planting trees and plants helps preserve the natural environment of our planet. Eco-Friendly Lunch Challenge—During the month of April (and throughout the rest of the year as well), encourage students to bring their lunch and snacks in reusable containers instead of disposable plastic or paper bags. Have students help you estimate the number of bags the class is saving by investing in reusable containers! Save-The-Planet Posters—Set up a center with markers, posterboard, construction paper and stickers, and have students make Earth-friendly signs. Encourage them to write slogans such as “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!” and “Keep our planet clean!” Post the signs around the school for the month of April! Pennies for the Planet—Invite your students to join in a nationwide effort to promote conservation efforts by contributing pennies (and other spare change) to Pennies for the Planet. Click here to learn how your class can get involved in this environmental effort by the National Audubon Society.
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Beanbag Blend Game
Kindergarten - 2nd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 2nd grade / 5 - 7 years Reinforce beginning sound blends and digraphs with a fun-to-play reading activity! Use a marker to label the outside of six large plastic cups with a different blend or digraph (e.g., bl–, cl–, pr–, sh–, cr–, tw–, or any other combination you would like your students to practice). Then tape the cups securely to the floor or onto the surface of a table. Next, divide the class into two teams. One player at a time, the teams take turns tossing a beanbag into the cups. When the beanbag lands in a cup, the player supplies a word with the same beginning blend or digraph. For example, if the beanbag lands in the “cl” cup, he might supply the word “clock” or “clip.” His team then has one minute to continue to come up with as many words as they can think of that begin with this blend. As they call out words, write them on chart paper or on the blackboard. Continue playing until each team has a chance to supply words for three blends. At the end of the game, have students read each word as you point to it on the chart or board. For additional practice, mix it up by writing these variations on the cups: Ending blends or digraphs (e.g., –ck, –lt, –ch, and so on) Word families (e.g., –ow, –ate, –ug, and so on) Vowel sounds (e.g., “short a,” “long o,” “short e,” “long u,” and so on)
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Time Line of My Life
Kindergarten - 6th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 6th grade / 5 - 11 years Introduce students to the concept of time lines, and explain that time lines show important events in chronological order. Then, invite students to help you make a list of a handful of milestone events that may have already occurred in their own lives (e.g., the day they were born, the day they learned to walk, the day they learned how to ride a bike, the first day of preschool or kindergarten, the day they lost their first tooth, and so on). Next, provide students with long strips of construction paper and encourage them to make time lines of their own lives, listing 6-10 important events from their birth up to the present date, in chronological order. (Note: For younger children, you may want to assign this as a take-home project that they can complete with the help of family members.)
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Teamwork Web
Preschool - 2nd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: preschool - 2nd grade / 3 - 7 years This activity gives students a great visual representation of teamwork. Begin by gathering your class around you in a circle on the floor. Hold a ball of string or yarn. Tell students something about yourself. When you’re done, grab onto the end of the string or yarn and roll the ball to another student. This student will then tell the group something about himself before he rolls the ball to another student. The cycle continues with each student holding onto part of the string or yarn until everyone has spoken. Ask everyone to carefully stand up without letting go. Look at the web you have created! This is a great time to talk about what teamwork means because everyone is working together to keep the web from falling apart. To illustrate this point, ask one student to let go—students will see how the web weakens when they stop working together.
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Party in the Park
Kindergarten - 5th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 5th grade / 5 - 10 years Have an end-of-the-year party in the park—and try out some of these fun outdoor games! Sponge Race: Divide students into 2 teams and have each team stand in a line. Place a bucket of water and a sponge at the front of each line. The student in front dips the sponge into the bucket. The sponge is then passed to the back of the line, with students alternating passing it over their heads and between their legs. When it reaches the back of the line, that student runs to the front and the race continues. The first team to have their original student in front again wins! Towel Toss: This game is played by two teams of two students. Give each team a beach towel, and have each student hold one end of the towel. Then place a beach ball on one of the towels. Students try to pass the ball back and forth by using their towels to “toss” it. If a team doesn’t catch the ball, the other team gets a point. The first team to score three points wins! Sand Relay: Divide students into 2 teams and have each team stand in a line. Place a container full of sand at the front of each line, and a small bucket at the end of each line. When the race starts, the first student in line grabs a handful of sand and passes it to the student behind him. The team passes the sand from hand to hand, until the last student in line dumps it into the bucket. The first team to fill up their bucket wins!
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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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Stringing Together
Kindergarten - 5th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 5th grade / 5 - 10 years This is a great way to help students “break the ice.” Start by cutting string or yarn into pairs of varying lengths; there should be one piece for every student. If you have an odd number of students, take a piece yourself. Distribute the pieces, and tell students that their challenge is to find the person with the string that is the same length as theirs. After everyone has found their match, they should take turns introducing themselves to their partner. You can provide a list of questions (see our downloadable list) to help them “break the ice,” or you can come up with the questions as a group. To extend the activity, invite students to introduce their partner to the class!
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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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“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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Classmates Word Search
Kindergarten - 2nd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 2nd grade / 5 - 7 years This kid-pleasing activity has students hunting for their own names—and those of their classmates—as they complete a word search created just for them! Just take a list of all the students in your class and put the names into a word search. Try using grid paper to properly line up the letters. You can even provide an extra message within your word search, such as “Have a great school year!” Making word searches can be tricky, so use our word search maker for assistance.
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Donuts with Dad/Muffins with Mom
Preschool - 2nd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: preschool - 2nd grade / 3 - 7 years Start a new parent-inclusive reading tradition in your classroom! Two or three times a year, invite parents to join their children during class time for a half hour of shared reading! Provide juice and a selection of breakfast treats, such as donuts and muffins, and encourage parents to bring their own reading material (e.g., novels, nonfiction books, magazines, or newspapers). Have students make their own reading selections as well, and set up cozy corners of pillows and blankets for everyone to use as they read. During the half-hour reading period, encourage parents to sit with their children and read silently together. (Note: For younger children who are not yet capable of reading on their own, you will want to have parents choose read-alouds to share quietly with their kids rather than having each read her own book.)
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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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“A Festive Feast” Brain Teaser Game
Kindergarten - 1st Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 1st grade / 5 - 6 years Students will love cracking the riddle behind this mystery word game! The Set-Up: Announce to students that you are having a Festive Feast for Thanksgiving and they are all invited! Then explain that there is only one rule: Each student must bring something to the party, but it must be something that is appropriate for the Festive Feast. Then give examples such as, “Tara is bringing turkey, Susie is bringing salad,
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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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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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