Wednesday 26 November 2014

A Week of Holiday Fun - 5 Holiday Activities

Super Fun Holiday Activities
A WEEK OF HOLIDAY FUN

Free Holiday Activity 
Woohoo, to start us off, here is another FREEBIE from Little Monster's Classroom.  

This activity is a great one to post on a bulletin board when parents come to the school for the annual Christmas concert.  My son's grade 1 class did something similar to this last year and the student responses were so adorable.  We just loved reading what our kids and all their friends wished for.

I thought that this activity could start with a brainstorming session about their holiday wishes, then open up an interesting discussion about people in the community and those who are less fortunate.  You could talk about toy drives, the food bank, winter coat drives, and more.  


 
This activity is a free sample from the Week of Holiday Fun package.  It has 5 different activities that incorporate a variety of cross-curricular printables, including Art, Language, Math, and Social Studies.  

Many of the activities in here are definitely bulletin board worthy.  The cute snowman craft, the abstract tree decorating craft, and the unique snowflake craft are all great activities for decorating the halls and classroom.

The tree decorating activity would make a great Math lesson.  It has 2 pages of shapes that students can colour and cut out.  It would definitely make a good lesson for following instructions.  You could have students do things like, colour the triangle green or colour the smallest polygon brown.  You can also talk about numbers and counting.  You can ask them to paste 5 stars onto their tree or 8 dots.  You can also incorporate patterning.  Have them colour the striped image with a colour pattern, then cut it into strips and paste them onto their tree.

 


The snowman craft is a fun art activity, but Math can also be incorporated into this activity as well.  There are fun patterns in the bottom corner to ignite ideas for patterns that students can draw onto the different sections of the scarf.  

Students also have to be aware of pasting this craft in order.  They start with the big ball for the base, then the arms go under the second ball, and the scarf goes under the last ball for the head.







This is a different take on the traditional snowflake activity.  These snowflake templates come in different shapes (square, circle, and hexagon) and have fun designs in them (dots, stripes, and elegant swirls).

Students can have fun colouring the designs before they cut out the shape, fold, and make little cut out shapes in their design.

Students probably make snowflakes every year to decorate the classroom, so it's nice to change it up a little bit.









Last, but not least, is the gift tag art project.  This is a nice activity because it allows students to think
about the people they love and create a thoughtful gift tag for those people.

There are 4 shapes for the gift tags and several holiday themed images that they can choose from to colour and add to their designs. 

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Fun Art & Language Activity

Little Monster's Art & Language Activity
CREATE A MONSTER AND PROFILE FOR YOURSELF

Little Monster's Classroom Book Cover 
This is the introductory activity to Little Monster's Classroom.  It's super adorable and seriously fun.  I even had fun making little monsters with the kids.  The best part is that it's FREE!  Who doesn't like free stuff?

It starts off with a cute little comic style story about Little Monster and his friends and all the things they like to do at school.  They talk about center time, so the story is definitely geared for Kindergarten to probably grade 2.  I know some classes still have some language and math centers in grade 2, so it's still appropriate.  The story ends with Little Monster telling the class that they have a new student in their class and it's YOU!  Definitely a great lead up into the art and language activity.  

**Note, if you use this activity for older classes, just omit the story.


Monster Body Parts Their next task is to create their own little Monsters.  It has the cutest little monster parts that kids can colour and cut out or even trace.  There's a body page and a page with eyes, mouths, and accessories.  I'm loving the super hero cape and top hat.  Definitely makes for an ultra spiffy, super hero monster.

I was supplying in a 3/4 and 5/6 class not that long ago and I brought this activity for when we had some extra free-time.  The kids loved it.  I didn't read the story.  I just told them we were doing a fun art activity.  I didn't have them cut out the parts, as I only had one page available.  So, they students just looked at the monster parts and used it for inspiration to draw their own.  They added their own twists to the designs and were super creative.  Their monsters were fantastic.  There were a couple of kids that didn't feel as confident in their drawing skills, so they simply traced some of the features off of the examples page.


Profile Card
When they were done drawing their monsters, I told them that we needed to make a profile card for them, kind of like the ones you see on the back of hockey cards (we have some serious hockey fans in this class).  They thought that was a great idea.  It definitely made the writing portion more enjoyable.  

Since the monsters are their monster selves, all of the questions really pertained to them.  Come to think of it, this would be a great activity for the beginning of the year when you are getting to know your students.  It's also a great introduction to the Little Monster clan if you are planning to use the Classroom Management Resources.

Enjoy this freebie and if you want the full version of this activity with all of the differentiated versions of the art and language portion of the activity, you can purchase it in Little Monster's Classroom.  It includes 14 differentiated monster fact cards that you can post around the classroom and 4 different differentiated versions of the art and writing activity.

Monday 17 November 2014

The Ultimate Classroom Management & Behaviour Management Package

The Ultimate Management Package
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT & BEHAVIOUR MANAGEMENT


Classroom Management Package
Here's another fun filled package from
Little Monster's Classroom.  This is the ultimate resource for Kindergarten to Grade 2 classrooms with 160 pages of extremely useful posters, worksheets, printables, sticker charts, and more.  It's full of great resources for the whole class and individual student use.  We love it!

We're really excited that the 67 page Emotions Package is included in this kit.  It's an entire month's worth of fun activities to teach students to self regulate and it's also a great resource for anti-bullying initiatives.  Each lesson is about 30-45 minutes of activities, worksheets, drama exercises, fun journaling worksheets that incorporate a fun art activity, and more.




I am a super frugal person, so this set definitely makes my day.  It incorporates a ton of resources and saves me money.  I can use these items all year round, which makes them a great investment.

This set includes everything you need for a successful classroom:
Certificate for the Classroom 
- Day Plan / Visual Schedule / First - Then Chart
- Awards & Certificates
(awards for positive reinforcement, certificates of success, Kindergarten graduation diplomas)
- Groups & Stations
- Learning Goals & Success Criteria Posters
- Name Cards & Sign In Cards
- Special Helper Chart, Cards, & Calendar
- Sticker Charts
(daily & weekly charts)
- Voice Level Poster
- Washroom / Drink Sign Out


Follow the links to discover all the details for each section of this package.  I hope you and your students enjoy it!