Dinoasurs Thematic Unit

 I recently created the Letter D- Dinosaurs unit and did those lessons with my 4 year old and some activities with my 6 yr old when he got home from kindergarten.

 

If you are interested in purchasing this unit you can find it here. It has 51 pages and it is much cheaper than my other units because dinosaurs are so common in the teaching world. It's a bargain!

Below are a few of the things we did with this lesson.

Here we used plastic dinosaurs from Walmart to make different footprints. The larger toys are much better as far a differentiated footprints than the really cheap bag of ones you can get from the dollar store.

Then since we were doing footprints we made a life sized footprint using newspapers to show the real size.

FYI- in doing research on dinosaurs I learned that the brontosaurus is no longer called that. It was found they used the wrong skull to the body. So now one that looks like a brontosaurus is called the apatosaurus.

Coloring pages

* Another great activity I did (that I forgot to take pictures of) was I took 5 different plastic easter eggs and put different weights in them. He then had to sort them from lightest to heaviest.

Earth Day

Earth Day is coming up and I thought I would show you my Earth Day Centers bundle which is great for 3rd grade.

4 Centers!! 32 pages of Earth Day themed centers aligned to Common Core and TEKS.
Check it our here at Teachers Pay Teachers or here at Teachers Notebook. :)

Earth Day Math Center Includes:
*Student Directions Page
* 16 math word problems with an Earth Day theme
* Recording Sheet for accountability * Answer Key

Earth Day “Being Green” Science Center Includes:
*Student Directions Page * 24 cards * Sorting Mat
* Recording Sheet for accountability * Answer Key
(Facts about conserving, recycling, etc. where they sort what is good for the environment or what is bad for the environment).

Earth Day Value ($) Words includes:
*Student Directions Page * Money Value Alphabet
* Recording Sheet for accountability * Answer Key
With Earth Day themed graphics

Earth Day themed Irregular and Regular Plural Center includes:
*Student Directions Page * Sorting Mat *32 word cards
* Recording Sheet for accountability * Answer Key
Skill: adding s, es, or ies to make words plural

Beginning Math Skills & Free Printable Beginning Sounds Game

It has been a busy and sickly last few weeks. Needless to say, preschool has been put on the back burner. It's bad when your son asks to do preschool. (I never said I was perfect, nor do I ever pretend to be). Since I had not really been making lessons and nothing was printed and ready to go, I had to get creative.

I remembered seeing this little gem online somewhere. So I whipped that up for him. He did it so quickly and easily. I was blown away!!!!

I made this for my 4 year old. He is the one who would get frustrated when counting when he got to 13-19 and completely shut down and not do ANYTHING and refuse. With the help from his Daddy (who is obviously not Mommy so its different) he let Dad help him count through those teens and next thing I know he is counting to 50. All this time I thought he could only count to 12. In reality he can count to 50 now. Sometimes it take someone else to help get them over a bump in the road.

To take this idea even farther I created a beginning sounds games for him.
On one side of the plate I used blue and picked clipart that begins with different letters. Then with blue I wrote the matching letters on the clothespins. 

 THEN on the back I added more letters using red. Notice the letters on the clothespins are red. 

*Also this is self checking. Red for the red side & blue for the blue side, but when you flip the plate over the clothespins also match the letter on the back. Pretty neat huh!

Most of the clipart I have taken from a free clipart site called: mycutegraphics.com   It is worth checking out!!

How to get it for Free:
I have given you the clipart I used HERE that you can download through "DropBox" Or if you have an account through Teachers Pay Teachers you can access it Here for free.
Or if you have an account through Teachers Notebook you can access it Here for free.

Don't forget to sign up as a follower at either of my stores for other Free items or notifications about sales. 

Math & Number Recognition Game

Remember that old card game called "War" or "Battle" where you flip over two cards and who ever has the biggest number wins those cards? 
This has been a really fun game for my boys (ages 4 and almost 6). Surprisingly, my 4 yr old caught on really fast at comparing number values. We played this a lot during our Texas off and on winter...I don't know how you Northern people have even survived the "polar vortex" this winter! Kudos to you!!!!


Directions:
Deal ALL the cards face down to the two players.
At the same time, each player flips over a card.

 

The person with the highest value card collects both cards.
If two of the same cards are displayed, then 3 more cards are placed face down. Then flip up one more card to compare values. Largest value collects all the cards.

 

Once cards in your hand run out, collect and reshuffle all your cards. You can continue playing until one person has no more cards left. Or for my 2 boys we set a timer and whoever has the most cards when the timer goes off wins. 

* I first began with number cards only, but we quickly moved to the J,Q,K, A cards and they have learned which beats which face card.

Get FREE Math Centers for the LIFE of my store!!

I've had this great idea! I have bundled ALL my math centers (for 3rd grade) together and I am selling that as one bundle now.

BUT, the great thing about it is that once you buy this bundle, you will get every other math center I create for FREE. Yes, FREE! 

This is how it works, when you purchase this bundle you will have it listed in "your purchases" section from the website when you buy it from either TPT or TN.
As I make more math centers, I will be adding them to that zip file. You can then check "your purchases" section for an update. All you have to do is download the file again for the newest math centers. So log on to Teachers Pay Teachers or Teachers Notebook to see this MEGA Bundle.

As I create more centers and add them to the zip file, I will slowly increase the price. So grab it now while the price is at its lowest.
* Since I have originally posted this bundle, it is up to 24 centers and 150+ pages.

The most recent additions are 3 new fraction centers which I have pulled from this fraction packet I created. This packet includes 3 centers, 2 activities and 1 fraction multiple choice worksheet.

My Inner Martha Stewart

I have been sick of my kitchen drawers!! I happened to cut down the kitchen aisle at Walmart and spotted this adorable red and white shelf liner. I'm still on the search for good drawer dividers, so cut me a little slack if this drawer still looks messy. You should have seen it "before". :)

BUT, I thought I'd go ahead and show my my ahh-haa moment.

I had a drawer overflowing with these straws. I tried to think what I had on hand that might contain these unruly things! I remembered  using toilet paper tubes for help hold  extension cords. So I thought this would be great for my straws.

I pulled a TP roll from my craft stash, hot glue gunned some craft paper onto it and viola!! A cute straw holder.

Countdown to Valentine's Day Activities

I pulled my Valentine file out today (2/6) to see what I needed to be getting ready for our upcoming lessons.  I pulled out this:

I realized I needed to get going. I made this last year, it is my "Countdown to Valentine's Day" pocket of activities. (Obviously, I was gung-ho last year. I had a bunch of strips). :)

What was on the strips? Easy and fun activities like:
* Read a valentine book  *Make a valentine wreath (paper plate with center cut out and construction paper hearts glued on it)   *Make cinnamon rolls in the shape of hearts   * Go on a treasure hunt for hearts in the house(I hid paper hearts)   * Make a Valentine for the grandparents   * Color a valentine coloring page  * etc.

Each day they pull the corresponding number and we do the listed activity. This gives us something to do together and it is free and simple.