January Calendar Days & National Bird Day freebies

Here is a list of some celebrated National Holidays in January – you may find a few surprising ones! You might have fun wearing some new socks on National Argyle Day or start a classroom band on National Kazoo Day. 🙂
 

I’m anxious to get back to my classroom and start working on Arctic animal studies! It’s one of my favorites. You can check out my best-seller: Arctic Animal Research Pages by clicking here. So, it doesn’t seem like a great time for me to celebrate National Bird Day! However, there are some great ideas and freebies out there for birds. I’ve listed some at the end of this post. You could use them on Monday or just hold onto these ideas until spring. Another way to incorporate two themes: focus on birds in the Arctic! They just happen to be some of the most fascinating birds that I’ve studied! A few of my favorites are the Arctic Tern, Peregrine Falcon & Snowy Owl.

The small Arctic Tern circumnavigates the globe during migration. They are also very territorial and will attack animals (or people!) who come near the next. I also just found out that they can hover!

I can usually trick my 1st graders by asking them to name the fastest animal. Most of them will say the cheetah. Wrong! The cheetah is the fastest land animal and can reach speeds of 70 mph. The peregrine falcon can reach speeds of 200 mph while diving! Incredible! My students already know this since I can never wait until January to teach it! Plus, there was a passenger on board the Mayflower who was named Peregrine (Peregrine White – He was actually born after they arrived and while they were still anchored in the harbor). This year, one of my littles, drew that name for their “Pilgrim Name” and so they definitely had to learn about that bird. I’m curious as to why that name was chosen. I wonder if those birds were near the boat during their voyage?

Everything about owls is so fascinating – owl pellets, asymmetrical ears, variety of homes, etc. There is a wealth of information to keep young learners interested. Snowy Owls are one of the animals in my Arctic Animals unit and there is also an All About Owls product that helps students learn about owls while learning new vocabulary.

On to some general freebies and crafts about birds. 🙂

1) My friend, Chrystine, at Tweet Resources has made these awesome I have…Who Has… games. My kiddos love these games! It just so happens that there is a Bird Joke freebie game. I am SO excited to print this out and use it in my classroom. My 1st graders will love it!

2) I love this inspirational poster by Ben Clarance. It’s a great reminder to celebrate individuality!

The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. – Henry van Dyke.

3) Montessori Print Shop has created a wonderful freebie to teach about bird adaptations and beaks.

4) Here is an easy bird feeder made with a cardboard tube. You can read about it @ The Ramblings of a Crazy Woman. 🙂 This seems like it would actually be a great project for this time of year. Does anyone know if they will come if you start leaving out food in the winter? Have they already found other food sources by then or are they always looking?

5) I chose this for a craft once for 1st-5th graders. They turned out so cute! It is bystephanielynn.com. You just need to cut out the template from the pages of an old book (Goodwill!) and then lightly ink the edge and apply a little glitter. Then, attach to a clothespin! Beautiful!

6) This is a freebie (sample) from my Animal Writing pages with word banks. Just click on the picture to download. I love to give the students a list of words related to what they are writing about. It gives them such confidence and helps them to become more detailed writers. They often have lots of info. – they just need practice to express it well!

Another bird resource to consider adding to your teaching resources is this wonderful book by Dianna Aston. She has a few more books like this (a butterfly one, etc.) and they are all fantastic! I hope she keeps creating them! I love that the front endpapers have pictures of the eggs and the back endpapers have pictures of the birds. You can spend a while just matching up the two!

I really should make a general bird unit! I absolutely love teaching about birds. 🙂 In addition to the products listed above, I also have one for Bald Eagles.

I hope that you’ve learned a bit about birds and found some new resources for your classroom. Thanks for visiting! I’d love to hear a comment or two! 🙂

National Dice Day ~ December 4th

Today is National Dice Day! Dice are a part of many fun family games — including Monopoly, Boggle & Yahtzee. They are also a fun part of many educational math games. 

Dice found at Cantonment Clinch (1823-1834) in Pensacola, Florida

Dice have been around for a very long time! In Iran, archaeologists discovered the oldest known dice. They are over 5,000 years old! I couldn’t find a picture that I could post, but you can see a picture of the oldest dice here. The picture on the left shows dice that were likely used during the American Civil War. Historically, dice have been made from bone, wood, ivory & plastic. There are many more materials available today. A little trivia – –did you know that the dots on dice are called pips? This is also the word for the dots on dominoes. 

We have been taught that die is the singular form of dice. However, according to the Oxford dictionary, dice is now used for both singular and plural. I wish I would have know that at the beginning of my research for this post! While looking for graphics to use, I typed “dice” into the search field of a graphics site and when there weren’t any results (should I say – “no dice” LOL!) I quickly typed in die. Then, I started laughing thinking about the absurdity of finding a graphic for die on this cute graphics site that caters to scrapbookers– not to mention what will the site owner think when they look at the history of search terms. I’m pretty sure that I will be the only one who used that search term!

There are many great classroom resources that use dice. I’ve provided a little list here of some freebies. Read to the end of the post for a few ways to organize your dice collection!

CLASSROOM FREEBIES
1) Winter Dice Games by Teacher Treasure Hunter
2) Winter Color by Sum created by Teacher Tam
3) Polar Express Roll and Cover Games created by Mary Lirette
4) Roll a Snowman by the Tutu Teacher
5) Roll it! Make it! Expand it! worksheet by Rebecca Anderton – Teaching First
6) Roll a Tree a Christmas worksheet for adding 3 digits by Fun in First
7) Save the Snowman a winter game by Heather’s Heart
8) Anna, Elsa & Sven dice game for number recognition by the Activity Mom

Here are some great ideas to keep your dice organized:
*Put dice in magnetic containers that are put on a hanging cookie sheet (cutesified!)
*Plastic craft boxes with multiple compartments
*Plastic bin storage made for organization nails and other hardware (repurposed!)

Keep the dice QUIET with these ideas:
*Dice in a water bottle
*Glue felt or foam to the bottom of a container

Happy dice day! Now, go “shake” things up in your math lesson today!

Calendar Time! December National Calendar Days

Happy December, friends! Here is a list of National Days in December – mostly the unusual ones! I didn’t include ones that are on most calendars and/or ones that would be difficult for little ones to celebrate. 

It is so difficult for me to find blogging time! I’m trying!! I will try to do at least a few posts this month on some of these days. My goals for a Calendar Time post are:

1) educate you about the day and give you ideas of things you could tell your class about the day

2) share a list of resources that you can use in the classroom

3) sometimes provide links to freebies by me or other sellers

I’m currently working on a post for December 4th – National Dice Day! This will be a fun one!

DECEMBER

Congratulations to the giveaway winners & October Calendar Days

Congratulations to Lorena, Mary L., Cheryl J., Heather S., Rose T., Robyn G. Emily L. Michelle S. They are the winners of the Fabulous Fall Friends Giveaway! Emails have been sent to notify the winners.

Can you believe it’s October???? Wow! I am ready for some crisp, fall days! Following is a list of some of the unusual National Days in October. I will feature some of these days and have some resources for you. Clean Your Virtual Desktop Day may be a good one for me! Am I the only one who works with about 30 tabs/pages open and has a very crowded desktop? Windows 8 took care of some of that for me by eliminating the desktop (not a fan!). Stay tuned and I’ll be posting about some of these special days! Let me know what ones you would really like to see featured.

Happy Friday!!

September Days and Classroom Tour Part 1

 Wow! Where did August go?

I’m posting a look ahead of the September National Days. There were a few days that didn’t really have much that was usable in the classroom for students.

*VOTE* Look at the calendar and let me know if there are days you would really like to see me feature here on my blog. I am trying to only feature days that would be fun and/or meaningful to celebrate in the classroom and I usually only cover the days that fall on a weekday. I try to find freebies and fun ideas from around the web for you to use that day. I sometimes even create a special freebie!

Back-to-school!

Our first day back-to-school (with students) was on Tuesday. This week we have a BBQ and an informal Open House to welcome back the students and parents. The classrooms are open and the parents can see what we’ve so far (in a little over a week!). There is always the pressure to have some wonderful things finished and displayed, but I think parents understand that we’ve barely even started. I always tell my parents at Orientation that the year starts out slowly as far as difficulty level. We’re reviewing many of the things that they learned in Kindergarten and may have forgotten over the summer. This is definitely helpful when they are starting off with basic math pages that have you color a certain number or reading sentences that have about 3 words. It progresses quickly though and before you know it we’ll be zooming through new material!

I’m still setting up some things in the classroom and working on a display for the hallway (Our 1st & 2nd Grade Neighborhood). Here are a few pictures that I have to share with you now.

1) Our Best Work Wall – The supplies are all from Wal-Mart. I used the scrapbook paper pack that was shown. I did have to a black/white (numbers) page that I had from somewhere. You may need a few packs to have a good mix of the styles that you want to use. I put the mini duck tape over the top of the clothespin and hot glued a tack to the back. I am still going to add a small picture of each student to the clothespin so we know who did the work! 🙂 I made the letters and used a variety of paper backgrounds that coordinated with the paper. 

*Here are the words: Our Best Work

2) Noodle Pictures – The first day of school we read the book, The Night Before First Grade by Natasha Wing. In the story, the students make pictures our of noodles and both girls (the new friends) make noodle poodles. I haven’t had anyone ever (successfully!) make a noodle poodle, but we make a unique creation with a variety of noodle shapes. They have fun and it gives them something to bring home on the first day.

3) This is a little decoration that I made for the door. I don’t have this one ready to be shared. I still need to add credits to the file and then I’ll list it as a free or paid product. I wanted a silver background (like a baking sheet) and thought wrapping paper would work better than aluminum foil. The good news is that it went over the door very easily. I just had to tape it to the top and let the roll gently down. I then used double sided tape to underneath. You can see a seam to the right. The roll of wrapping paper basically only covered the left side (I had a little leftover, but not enough to finish the door) so I had to buy a 2nd roll. My husband bought the 1st roll (from Wal-Mart) and I was shocked to see that this fancy Hallmark paper cost nearly $6. So, 2 rolls was a bit pricey! I do have leftovers that I can use for wrapping. I even thought about salvaging the paper and doing some other cookie themed doors (Christmas cookies, etc.) but I used double sided tape to attach the pictures so they are not moving at all. That is why the lettering in the middle isn’t centered – there was no way to get it to budge without tearing the paper. Live and learn! 🙂

4) An apple for the parent – The poem is a TPT freebie by Bethany Miller. The adorable ribbon is from Wal-Mart (surprise! it’s the only big store that is really close) and it only cost $1 a roll. You’ll probably need 2-3 rolls. I left this on the desks for Parent Orientation meetings. 

5) Picture props! I made a poster for my 1st graders to hold on the 1st day and then emailed the parents a copy. They really enjoyed it. This makes a special memory for the parents. I made them for preschool and PK-5th grade. It’s a free download here at TPT. 

Well, that’s all for now! I’m off to enjoy some family time on our holiday weekend. Enjoy your day!
~Melissa

National Lemonade Day ~ August 20th *Freebies, charity & entrepreneurs

Nothing says summer like a refreshing glass of lemonade! So, why is this day celebrated as my summer is ending and I am going back to school? Cruel irony!

Actually, National Lemonade Day isn’t about the drink. It’s about kid entrepreneurs. There is a website, lemondadeday.org, that will help you learn more. Here is how they define this holiday: Simply put, Lemonade Day is about providing kids of all ages the opportunity to EXPERIENCE entrepreneurship by planning, starting, owning, and operating their own business:  a lemonade stand!

Another important organization to recognize on this day is Alex’s Lemonade Stand. Alex Scott battled cancer throughout her short life. Not long after she turned 4, Alex voiced the desire to start a lemonade stand to raise money to help other kids who are sick. She had this thought as she was in the hospital courageously fighting her own battle with cancer. Later that year, she did have a lemonade stand and earned the first 2,000 for this cause. She lost her battle with cancer when she was only 8 years old. Word had spread about her lemonade stand and many had contributed. Children around the world were starting their own lemonade stands to raise money. By that time, her little lemonade stand and those of others around the world, had raised over 1 million to help find a cure for childhood cancer! ALSF (Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation) has chosen to celebrate National Lemonade Days in June and thousands of events and lemonade stands have fundraising during those days. You can have a lemonade stand anytime and support this effort. Just check out all the resources on their page and register the dates for your lemonade stand. You can watch a video of Alex’s story here or click on the picture above to purchase the book from the gift shop. Here are some really cute free printables to host your own lemonade stand to donate to ALSF. If you love all things lemon, you may want to follow this Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation pinterest board, which is full of yummy looking recipes.

As you head back to the classroom, you might be interested in these refreshing lemonade freebies!
1) Read and Sequence worksheet for making lemonade by Snippet’s by Sarah
I love Sarah’s creations and use her monthly centers every day in my 1st grade classroom. I’m always delighted to find a freebie by her! This one has super cute clipart by Creative Clips, too. 🙂 You can download this worksheet for free at Sarah’s blog. While your there, follow her blog and even leave a comment to let her know you appreciate the free page.
2) Lemonade Time Scoot by Mrs. Humphries Class
My class has so much fun with Scoot games (I have several of them in my TPT store) and this game has time to the hour and half hour which will be a perfect review for my firsties at the beginning of the year. Score!! Thank you, for this great freebie Mrs. Humphries! The clocks in the middle of the lemons are super cute. 🙂
3) The Lemonade Stand, a thematic reading mini unit by Creative to the Core
Wow! This is a wonderful freebie! It has a list of books about lemonade stands, 3 graphic organizers, writing stationary, a writing booklet and comprehension questions.
4) Lemonade Math Centers by Buggy for Learning
This one is geared more towards second grade, but there are some things I can use with my first graders now or I could save it for the end of the year when I could use the whole pack as review activities.
5) Lemonade Graphing by Brooke Eagerton
This pack was made to go with the book Lemonade for Sale by Stuart Murphy. There are a few colorful graphs that correlate with the book and then some task cards. It’s great to find some free graphing activities!
6) Lemonade Digital Papers by Ashley Hughes
If you’re looking for some bright and sunny digital papers then don’t miss this freebie by Ashley!

Coming soon….

Enjoy your weekend! Don’t forget to drink lemonade next week – you have the perfect excuse! 🙂

National Relaxation Day is August 15th!

In today’s post, I’ll be sharing ways for the teacher to relax and things to help relax or calm your students.

What do you like to do to relax? Some popular ideas are:
*read
*sit in a hammock
*go for a walk
*enjoy the water (lake, beach, etc.)
*get a manicure or pedicure
*watch a sunset
*listen to music
I’m sure there are MANY more that I could add to this list! I think the important thing to remember is to take time for you! The beginning of a new school year is a great time to commit to “time-out” for the teacher and schedule it.

I have to say that I am preaching to the choir. If my friends or family read this they will think it’s a joke. I definitely tend to over-do it, work too much, seek perfection, volunteer and all those other “good” things that can cause you to burn out. So, this message is definitely one for me. Take time to take care of yourself. If you aren’t happy and healthy, it will be hard for you to help others and do all those good things that you need to do. Tell yourself that it’s ok to take a break sometimes. The work and the needs will still be there when you get back. But, you’ll be able to handle it all even better! 🙂

You may have students in your classroom who need “calm-down” breaks to control anger, re-focus or relieve stress and anxiety. Some of these are very apparent needs and some are more subtle. Keep in mind that all students could benefit from these strategies at some point in time. Students will usually not recognize when they need to “relax” and won’t have the tools to do so independently. I love this list of ideas that I found for calming strategies. When I come across a need like this, I’m often looking through my professional books or searching teacher forums for new techniques or how to implement a specific strategy that I have in mind. It will be so nice to have these all in one place as a resource. They are ones that can easily be implemented in a classroom. They don’t take much time or money to setup either. One of them is a paid product that I found ($7 at this time), but it had so many products that looked helpful that I decided to include it with this list of free, DIY resources.

1) Blow bubbles or feathers
We all know about having the student take deep breaths. Little Birdie Secrets shares how that having them focused on a purpose (bubbles, feathers, etc.) can help them do this correctly and not feel anxiety or frustration about the process.
2) Balloon Breathing
This is a similar strategy. I like that Kidlutions shares some wording that you can use to help them breathe deeply.
3) Lavender Cloud Dough (I actually started to type Lavender Blue – I can’t say or write lavender without thinking about the folk song Lavender’s Blue, dilly, dilly. 🙂  I think we need a national lavender day!)
Growing a Jeweled Rose has an easy-to-make recipe for some lovely smelling dough. This is great when a student just needs to re-focus or they have calmed down but are still a little “shaken”.
4) Lavender Sensory Rice
This is a similar concept, but a different recipe! Once you make this recipe from the Imagination Tree, you will want to include some things in the rice for them to “play” with as they calm down. It could be a spoon, little cups, etc. They just need something to stir or scoop the rice.
5) Smile Box
This is an idea from Mailbox Magazine. I like the name! The basic idea is to have a box with things to calm and focus – a stress ball, puzzle, etc.
6) Calming Count Box
This link will only take you to a picture – and I have to say that it’s not the cutest box! But, it will give you an idea for a good strategy that would be super easy to put in place. Students just take out all the cotton balls and count as they put them back in the box. This replaces saying “count to ten” with a helpful kinesthetic activity.
7) Glitter Bottles
Lemon Lime Adventures shares how to make a calming jar or glitter bottle. There are many of these tutorials and pictures out there. I like that this one is plastic (the glass jars look pretty, but that does not seem like a good idea!) and it adds a Lego mini-figurine. You can make it without the Lego figurine or just add any lego piece. It’s just a neat little bonus idea!
8) Calm Down Kit by Melissa Toth
While I was searching for things to include in my list, I kept coming across some neat printables and they were all linking back to this product. I really like the breath cards where they can count them out as they breathe. This could help them stay focused on breathing. There are also cards with visuals for what they can do when they are angry or frustrated. It includes a social story, conversation card, choice board (love this!) and more! This kit is only 30 pages and yet it looks like it is packed with great resources.

Giveaway & National Wiggle Your Toes Day

“What a wonderful beautiful thing, to wiggle your toes.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
August 6th is National Wiggle Your Toes Day! Here are some tips that you can use to spoil yourself & some ways to share this day with your students.

I couldn’t find any information about how or why this unofficial day was started. I know as a teacher it’s a good reminder that the summer is almost over! 😦 This is the time to get in your last few mid-week days of sunshine, steal away to a nearby beach or just go to the park with your family. Of course, flip flops or bare feet are a necessity on this day!

To get this day started, you’ll need a great pedicure. I like that this pedicure from Ella Pretty Blog is thorough and has lots of products featured that you might like to try. However, one Sephora scrub that is featured is $20. Multiply that cost by all the different products you could use on one pedicure and this turns into an expensive DIY project!  I like this pedicure mixture from While He Was Watching ESPN because it has simple, inexpensive ingredients that you can pick up at Wal-Mart.

If you are in the classroom already, here are some ideas that you can share with your kiddos:
1) Read Dr. Seuss’ Foot Book – click on the picture above to find it on Amazon
2) Make a Flip Flop Puppet
3) Listen to the Foot Book Song
4) Enter to win my new Flip Flop Facts game
It also includes a mini poster and a worksheet. I love using the idea of “flip-flopping” the addends to help kids understand the commutative property of addition. It’s fun and easily for them to visualize.

**Leave a comment with your first day of school. I’ll randomly choose 5 winners from those who leave a comment. Leave your email also so I can email you if you win. I’ll choose the winners next Sunday – August 10th. Thanks for visiting my blog!**

I’m definitely going to update my pedicure today and spend some time in my well-worn Teva flip flops! How will you “celebrate”?

National Friendship Day **Introducing Calendar Time** Holidays

I’m planning a special blog series for this year. There are so many strange, unofficial holidays. Did you know there is a National Cordova ice worm day? Or even what is an ice worm?!! And how and why would one celebrate National Grouch Day? 

When I was a kid, I loved those On This Day…type of books. I thought this would be a fun series to share with your classroom. Not every day will have something that is suitable to share so be prepared to tell them that you won’t have one for every day. There are some (National Missing Children Day, National Mammogram Day) that would not be appropriate for me to share with my 1st grade class. I’m going to focus on the best holidays – ones I like or ones that are funny and strange – and provide you with some information about them. I’ll post a description of the holiday and something that you can use in your classroom. It might be a little freebie that I create for you or a list of books that you can use. It will be fun finding and compiling resources. I’m looking forward to sharing these with my class! I won’t have students until the last week of August, but I know many of you are headed back to the classroom soon so I posted the August ones that you can share with your classroom. 

The first day that we will celebrate is an easy one! National Friendship Day is August 3rd. I love an excuse to think about the friends in our lives and to share with our students ways to be a good friend.

Here are some ways to celebrate this day:
1) Song: A Duo from American Tail 
This YouTube clip is an awesome way to introduce a discussion of friendship. I’ve always loved this song! I had it on a cassette tape and played it when my boys were younger. I was shocked when I searched on YouTube and found someone playing an LP of it! Really??? There were LP’s in use when the American Tail movie was filmed? I feel soooo old….
2) Book: Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend by Melanie Watt
  Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend [SCAREDY SQUIRREL MAKES A FRIEN]

If you have not yet discovered the silliness and sweetness of the Scaredy Squirrel books, you REALLY need to read them. If I were to have a classroom mascot, it would be Scaredy Squirrel. Maybe it’s because I relate so much to his germaphobe ways!! If you haven’t read any of them, I recommend that you begin with the 1st one – Scaredy Squirrel – to introduce your students to this character. Scaredy definitely doesn’t plan on making friends and yet an unlikely friendship happens in spite of his resistance! My firsties love the Scaredy Squirrel books. 🙂
3) The Best Me QR Code Cards for Listening Centers –
I know I just shared these with you, but I’m bringing them up again since they are so perfect for this topic. Most of them aren’t specific to “friendship”, but rather are stories that focus on the character traits of a good friend. It features books like Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon (bullying, being yourself) & Do Unto Otters (the golden rule – otter style!).
4) Free Friendship Task Cards by Rachel Lynette
These cards are for grades 1-5. These cards would be great as a whole class discussion or used as writing prompts. Lower elementary students could even draw a picture to illustrate the idea that is shared on the card.
5) Free Friendship Fun Activity Pack by First Grade Roars 
This pack is full of great ideas! If you use it in first grade, most of these pages would require a great deal of assistance from the teacher. It would be fun to take a few of the interview questions (help the kids practice reading them) and make a video using a smart phone or iPad. One student could be a videographer and record 2 students doing the interview.

I’d love to hear from you! What do you think of this new series? Are these ideas that you would use in your classroom? What unusual holiday(s) do you really want to see me review? Leave a comment so I know you’re there!! 🙂

I’ll be back in a few days to share another Calendar Time with you! Happy August, friends!!