Fun spring lessons for math, literacy and art!

If you are in the mood for fun spring lessons you may want to check out these packets that feature math, literacy and/or art. They all have a variety of fun and colorful graphics that will make you and your students in the mood for spring and are good for late elementary students.

If all of these packets interest you you can purchase my Spring Math, Literacy and Art Bundle that combines all subject areas for a discount. 

My Spring Literacy Centers focus on writing, synonyms/antonyms and suffixes/prefixes. Individual centers are also sold separately if you plan on focusing one skill in particular.

My Spring Math Centers include 10 spring centers that focus on multiplication, division, rounding, simple decimals, money, addition, subtraction, and place value skills. See more by downloading my preview.

  

For a fun art activity for the fast finishers in your classroom or for a quick sub activity check out my Fast Finishers Art for Spring. Included are a pack of drawing pages that encourage creative thinking that are based on spring and my best selling Fast Finishers Art Pack.

Have fun and enjoy spring in your classroom!

Fabulous Freebies: Spring Things

Here are some more spring freebies that can help you celebrate warmer weather with your students:

#1: Here is a great idea for having students create a mural while learning about nouns and verbs, all with a spring theme.  It is meant for the younger grades, but could be adapted to many other lessons.

#2: Weather Graphing Activity  is a fun activity that has your students track weather and graph it over time.  This activity is perfect for the younger grades and so appropriate for this time of year as the snow turns to rain and the temperatures continue to fight to stay above freezing throughout the country.

#3: April Showers Bring May Flowers Clipart  is an eight page packet with spring clipart.

#4: Weather Whiz Kids is a website on how to conduct close to forty weather related experiments.  It is definitely worth checking out.

#5: The Weather Channel also has a ton of free lesson plans to check out.    

#6: A packet of puns is a great way to follow up April Fool's Day.   

  

Five Egg Experiments

With the spring and Easter coming up, I thought I would share some egg-citing ways to use eggs as teaching devices in your classroom. Here are five egg related experiments you could try!

1. Make a naked egg! 

Learn how to remove the shell of the egg following these instructions. A naked egg has such an unusual shape that students have never seen before!

2. Make an egg geode.

Mimic a geode using the shell of an egg and other simple ingredients such as salt. The process looks easy and the results look great!

3. Learn about air pressure using eggs.

See how air pressure reacts with eggs as an egg gets sucked through a small hole. This would be a fun activity to have kids make predictions before seeing what actually happens and learning why.

4. Teach dental health!

 

Eberhert's Explorers has a great experiment that teaches dental health using eggs by soaking them in soda. This is a great lesson for those reluctant tooth brushing students and a great way to practice dental hygiene.

 5.  Practice problem solving skills.

This Spangler Science video has a great idea that could be used to build creative problem solving and critical thinking skills. This video asks the question of how to separate the yolk from the white without touching it. Providing students with a lot of different materials to use and experiment with could be a fun problem solving activity! The video of course does show an easy solution.

Have fun if you decide to try any of these ideas!

Fabulous Freebies: Writing Prompts

Here are some fabulous freebies to help you get writing prompt ideas for your students!

If you haven't seen this post yet, check it out! It contains 15 spring themed writing prompts. I tried to include a variety of reasons to write with the selection of these prompts.

Here is a huge list of 501 writing prompts! They are divided into four categories including persuasive, expository, narrative and literary response. They are in general less 'fun' type prompts and more practical prompts but still useful.

This Writing Prompt Task Card Pack is geared towards students in grades 1-5 and has some creative and interesting prompts! I think these prompts would definitely motivate students to write.

Daily Teaching Tools has a huge list of 180 journal writing prompts divided into the four quarters of the year. It looked like many could be used for a wide range of students from elementary through high school level.


With this list you now have more than 700 prompts to pick from for your students! Wow!

Teaching Kinesthetic Learners

Newton's laws of motion state that "an object in motion tends to stay in motion..."  This is especially true of kids.  We've all had students--some of us entire classes--that seemed to always be wiggling and jiggling around.  The young ones need to be able to move.  Why not give them some guidance and direction to make it a productive part of your class?  The older ones need to be shaken up a bit before their bodily inertia travels to their brains.  Why not get their blood flowing every now and again?

Movement seems to really help students, especially the kinesthetic learners.  Below are a few ideas to use in your classroom...

1) In Spanish, I always make my students play human bingo.  This gets them moving around and dialoguing in Spanish (something for which the extra blood flow is very helpful).  Obviously games shouldn't be restricted to certain classes.  Playing games that allow for movement is a great way to engage kinesthetic learners.

2) Gallery walks are great ways to get students moving around.  One way I've used them recently is to post giant chart sheets around the room with a different character's name from the novel we are reading on each one.  Students pair up and go to a chart sheet.  They have a few minutes to write down a detail and or quote about the character along with the page reference.  Then everyone rotates to the right or left.  They look at what is written and add one or two new quotes/details about the character.  Students proceed like this until they are all the way back to where they started.

3) Word sorts are a quick, easy review.  I write vocabulary on post it notes and divy them up among the students. Then I write headings on the board and have them get up and put their post its under the heading they think it belongs to.  Finally, the class goes over what is on the board to check for understanding and correct any misunderstandings.

4) Have students work on projects so that the lessons are hands on.  Having students construct, type, bake, glue, paint, manipulate, build, present, act, photograph or do anything that goes beyond just listening and seeing are stimulating.

5) Use role plays.  One of my favorite units to teach is one on how to land a job.  I have students participate in mock interviews with community members.  This is a great way to get students fully engaged in learning with a real world application.

There are so many ways to get moving.  If you have any great ideas, add a comment with a tip.

Fabulous Freebies-April Fool's Day

This long, brutal winter has wiped the smiles off of many faces.  The sun seems to shine just long enough to melt a few inches of snow and ice.  Temps above freezing tease us for a day or two before plummeting back down and turning would-be spring rain into another layer of snow.  So, with April fast approaching, now is the perfect time to start collecting some April Fool's Day freebies and put smiles back on students' and colleagues' faces.

#1: This April Fool's Day Packet has a variety of activities appropriate for grammar school.  There are writing prompts, poetry prompts, drawing activities, a brief history of the day, and much more.  This is sold as a product for 1-4 grade, but could probably be used as stations or fast finisher activities for 5 or 6th, as well.

#2: Have a little fun with your class.  Send a prank letter to your students and parents.

#3: Want to do some silly math problems? This freebie is a packet of simple math problems that students can complete.  Most of the word problems are two digit addition and subtraction, but there are a few multiplication problems thrown in.


#4: Have some fun with your colleagues.  One of the best sites I've found is April Fool Zone.  There are pages of ideas of pranks to try.

15 Spring Writing Prompts

Since we had a few nice days of weather before our next predicted storm, it reminded me that spring will (eventually) show up. Here are some spring themed writing prompt ideas to get you and your students in the mood for warmer weather!

1. During spring, trees grow leaves again on their branches. Imagine what this would be like and write a story from the perspective of the tree about what spring feels like.

2. If you could be any flower, what flower would you be and why?

3. Earth Day is in the spring. Describe what you do to help take care of the earth.

4. May is National Pet Month. If you could have one unusual pet, what would you have and why?

5. Write a list of interview questions you would like to ask the Easter Bunny.

6. In April there is Read a Road Map Week. Describe where you would like to go on a road trip and what you would see.

7. Plan a celebration for National Peanut Butter & Jelly Day.

8.  During the spring you can wear different clothes than during the winter. How are your outfits changing and what are you looking forward to wearing?

9. List ten things you would like to grow in a garden in the spring.

10. Many baby animals are born in the spring. Write a story about a baby bird coming out of an egg and living in a nest with his or her bird parents.

11. Many people do spring cleaning. Think of an invention that could help you do all of your spring cleaning. Write an ad to help sell your spring cleaning invention to others.

12. What would you like to do over spring break? Write a persuasive essay to your family to try to convince them to follow along with your ideas.

13. Imagine a farmer would plant a magical seed in his garden in the spring. Write a story about what would happen and what would grow from the seed.

14. The sun stays out for longer and longer in the spring. What do you like to do with all of this extra daylight?

15. Teacher Appreciation Week is in the spring. Write a list of ways you could show your teacher you appreciate him or her.

For more spring activities, check out my Spring Math, Literacy and Art Packet!