Everything Easter

Here's a quick photo blitz of our Easter activities!  Both Hunter and Colban's projects are included in this post.

Colby did an awesome job with this Easter Bunny Application Craft by Marta Almiron.  

Have you ever seen a bunny jumping competition?  We loved watching this video of furry little athletes!  

After watching the video (twice, at Colby's insistence), Colban completed this adorable, FREE Bunny Competition Writing Prompt from Little Bird Kindergarten.  

Colby named his imaginary bunny Thunder, and as you can see, Thunder is blue, skinny, furry, and a great jumper!  He drew Thunder's portrait and a picture of him in competition, and also some of his awards.  This was a favorite activity!

Maria Manore has Interactive Sight Word Readers for every occasion!  We complete at least one of these each week.  This one, "Jesus is Risen!", which focuses on learning to spell the name "Jesus", is a FREE download!  

It goes over the week leading up to the Resurrection, which fit right in with our Easter lessons.

This is the Protestant version; she also offers a free Catholic version entitled "Jesus Had a Holy Week".

This one cost only $1, and focuses on the word "that".

It has an Easter egg theme, and is not religious.  You can find a copy of "Look at that Egg!" right here!

Rita Mitchell's Bunny 10 Frames activities were a huge hit.  Something about the colorful vegetable clip art really appealed to Colban.  

We found so many ways to use this 40-page resource.  We practiced making teen numbers, and did some addition and subtraction too.

Throw in some manipulatives and a dry-erase marker and the possibilities are endless.  The best part?  It costs $1.00!

Colby loves adding mini-books to his "Colby library", so I knew he'd be thrilled with this one from Lil Country Librarian.  It was a cute way to practice simple subtraction!

"Five Little Bunnies" is only $1.50!  You can buy a copy here.

This simple non-standard measurement activity from Teach With Laughter was a lot of fun, although Colby found the estimation part a little frustrating!  It's a skill we'll continue to work on.  You can find this activity right here!

It's the inevitable Marsha McGuire I-Spy!  If you follow this blog you know that these are a staple in our classroom.  Check out Crazy Rabbits Love I-Spy Addition and Subtraction; Colby really loves these activities and they're differentiated in a way that works well for homeschoolers.

Another great resource we found is Spring Bunny Initial Sounds Learning Center Activities by Teaching With Nancy.  In addition to the clip cards shown (which we like to use with a dry-erase marker), there are three other activities and some practice pages.  It's a great bundle and SO inexpensive!

We read several books this year, but this one was our favorite by far.  Dan Goeller's adaptation of The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde is absolutely fantastic.  The story and artwork are beautiful, and the book comes with an audio CD of the narration set to orchestra music.  My boys loved the book, but when I played the CD for them they immediately began acting out the story, performing their own impromptu interpretive dance.  It was really amazing to watch.  They had such a good time that they ended up practicing  and performing for family members on Easter Sunday.  I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Another fabulous version is this one, illustrated by Ritva Voutila.

   

We also recommend The Very First Easter by Paul L. Maier and The Donkey Who Carried a King by R.C. Sproul.

Hunter's schedule is so much more rigorous than Colby's, and we're almost always involved in several ongoing projects or assignments, so we don't do as many holiday activities.  He did complete this lapbook about the Easter story after a lot of reading and discussion.

The lapbook includes vocabulary words such as "hypocrisy" and "disciple", and interactive flaps for the key moments of Easter week.

I did have some trouble turning these components into an actual lapbook; there was no obvious design or intended layout and I had to wing it.  They would probably be fantastic in an interactive notebook, if you keep one.

For many, many more FREE and DIY Easter ideas, check out these Pinterest boards:

Easter Crafts and Activities For Kids

FREE Easter Printables {Educational}

We hope you had as wonderful a holiday as we did!

Blogs and Shops Mentioned in this Post:

Marta Almiron (TpT)

Little Bird Kindergarten (TpT)

Maria Manore (TpT)

Rita Mitchell (TpT)

Lil Country Librarian (TpT)

Teach With Laughter (TpT)

Marsha McGuire (TpT)

Teaching With Nancy (TpT)

Practice Makes Perfect (TpT)

Valentine's Day! Links, Freebies, and Our Favorite Products

We worked Valentine's Day activities into our schedule throughout the whole month of February.  I wasn't able to get pictures of everything, but you'll get the idea!

This cookie sheet addition activity was Colban's favorite!  We found the idea and the free printable at the Chalk Talk kindergarten blog.  The post is just full of adorable ideas and freebies for Valentine's Day.  Check it out!

We tweaked the idea a little bit and used these super-cute heart cookies!  If you want to use them too, you can download them here.  There are two sizes; we used the larger ones, but if you're not using 12x12 paper they'll be too big.  

He completed another of Maria Manore's Interactive Sight Word Readers for his "Colby Library".

You can find this one right here, for only $1!

He also made this sweet little "Things I Love" book.  You can find this freebie at the Frog Spot blog!

As you can see, one of the things Colby loves is pickles!

I love this little art project.  Colby filled up his Heart Map with the things that are important to him, and I helped label them when he was finished.  You can get a Heart Map for free from Seusstastic Classroom Inspirations!

Here's a close-up of a section of Colban's map.  It shows his dog Baron, his stuffed bunny, his Grampa and Grampa's cat Livi, a game, noodles, and of course his beloved pickles!

This pocket chart activity was really great.  Colby matched each numeral to the number word, and also to the corresponding set of hearts.  He was able to do this independently, with a number line for self-checking.

Here's a picture of the completed activity; we left it up for the next couple weeks and Colby used it as a reference for several other activities.  You can get this fabulous freebie from KinderKids' TpT shop!

A lot of our favorite activities come from Marsha McGuire; we use something of hers pretty much every week!  Colby especially loves her I-Spy activities.  This one is Valentine's I-Spy Addition and Subtraction.  We used both addition and subtraction activities, but I only got pics of the addition part.

Colby uses a magnifying glass to find the problems hidden in the picture, then solves them on the recording sheet.  It's a really fun way to practice, and with his interactive number line (find this freebie here!) he can solve the problems himself.

We also really like her Write the Room activities!  Usually I hide the cards for Colby to find and take back to his seat, because he prefers to write at the table.

This is one of the addition activities from Valentine's Math Lovers Write the Room.  We also did one of the subtraction activities but it seems I forgot to take pictures!

Another fabulous I-Spy, but this time for sight words!  This packet has activities for all 11 Dolch lists, so we will be using it for years.  Of all the I-Spy activities I've bought from Marsha McGuire (many!), this one is my favorite!  The pictures are just too cute.

Adorable, right?  Colby loved them too.  After he finished the activity he spent some time learning how to draw these spotted mushrooms.

Colban really likes activities where he gets to draw and color, so this was perfect for him.  This color-by-ten-frame sheet is from Color Me Ten: Color By Number Ten Frame Practice by Danielle Kroger.

There are worksheets for holidays and themes throughout the year, and each theme has worksheets on three levels.  It's a cute product!

All of these candy heart activities are from Talk To Me Sweetheart! Conversation Heart Activities by KinderKids.  This Estimation Station activity was a lot of fun; the boys did it together.  They guessed how many hearts it would take to fill up the big heart on the paper, and then they counted to find the real number.

I gave Colban a baggie of candy hearts, and he graphed the colors.

It's tough to see parts of his completed graph because he used light colors, but you get the idea!

This is a simple but (as you can see) fun counting activity.

Candy heart ten frames!

Using candy hearts for non-standard measurement, too!  

These are just a few of the ten activities included in the packet, and I'll be able to use the others next year!  Included are different options depending on which brand of candy you use, so that the colors will match, and also an ink-saving black and white version.

We made very good use of Caitlin Clabby's Valentine's Math and Literacy Centers.  There are twelve great activities in the pack; we used most of them, though I didn't get good pictures of everything.  This one is "Teddy Bear Ten Frames", which we decided to do with paint and q-tips.  We made a mess but Colby had a blast!

Here's a moment of triumph as Colban completes the "Heart Attack" activity.  I try not to intervene when he gets stuck during math; he's great at figuring things out on his own, and when he does, the reaction is priceless!

Here's a closer look at the activity.  

I'm bummed that so many of my photos came out blurry; I really wasn't able to do justice to a great packet.  I really recommend checking it out, and browsing the rest of her store while you're at it!

For more Valentine's Day freebies and ideas, check out my Pinterest boards:

FREE Valentine's Day Printables {Educational}

Valentine's Day Activities For Kids

Blogs and Shops mentioned in this post:

Chalk Talk

Maria Manore's TpT shop

Frog Spot

Seusstastic Classroom Inspiration

Kinderkids TpT shop

Marsha McGuire's TpT shop
Danielle Kroger's TpT shop
Caitlin Clabby - Kindergarten Smiles TpT shop

Free Alphabet Activity & More Kindergarten Fun

The holidays are behind us, and kindergarten fun is in full swing!  Here are just a few of the activities we're enjoying: 

I was lucky enough to snag a fantastic pack of winter-themed kindergarten math activities on sale over Christmas break.  It was something of an impulse purchase, but it turned out to be a great decision!

Here you can see Colby completing a ten-frame matching activity.  It was great review, to refresh his skills after weeks of no school.  We haven't mastered recognizing number words yet, so it also provided a bit of a challenge.  (You can see his number line at the side of the photo; it has the number words written beneath the numerals so he was able to check his own guesses and complete the activity independently.)

Here's a look at the completed activity!

Here Colby is working with some clip cards from the same packet.

The two types of cards are shown above.  It was a great way to reinforce the concepts of "more" and "less".

The packet also included some great count-and-graph pages - these are just the two we've done so far!  Colban really likes graphing, and it's easy to extend this activity by asking questions about the graphs and providing simple addition problems.

This Missing Numbers Write and Wipe was one of my favorite activities.  (This is designed for all of the little sections to be cut apart and placed on a ring.  With only one student using them, I simply print the pages out on cardstock and laminate them.)  Colby is still learning those tricky teen numbers, and this is a fantastic way to practice!  We can just wipe them off and do them over and over again!

All of these activities, plus 6 others, can be found in Lavinia Pop's Math Centers - Winter (Beginning Skills).  It has 127 pages of activities, and it's only $6!  I feel almost guilty that I got it on sale!

We have also been loving these Number Sorts {Early Math Sorting Series, Set #1} by Andrea Knight!

Beginning sounds practice!  These clip cards are one of the sets from Rita Mitchell's Phonics: Clip & Record Cards product.  (60 cards, 3 activities for $2.50!  Great buy.)

Colby clipped the correct letter . . .

. . . and wrote it on the recording sheet.  Simple, effective activities are our favorite kind!

We had a blast with these free alphabet bingo cards from Sassy Sanctuary!  Hunter was happy to play with his little brother.  I shuffled a deck of alphabet cards and called the letters.  This is a really fun way to practice letter recognition, and fun for older kids too!

This was a simple, inexpensive activity I cooked up to test Colby on letter identification and sounds.  I wrote each letter of the alphabet on one of these little cups, then lined them up (out of order).  Each one has a little treat hidden underneath.

For each letter/sound Colby was able to identify, he got to keep the treat.  Very motivating!  He's eager to do better next time.  

I haven't done many stamping activities with my little nugget up 'til now, because the only alphabet stamps we had were decorative ones meant for scrapbooking.  I found some reasonably priced sets on Amazon.com; it turned out to be a good move on my part.  Colby finds phonics a little tougher than math, and he's not always in the mood to keep working on it.  Stamping is the exception!

This awesome stamping pages are from Rita Mitchell's Letter Match: Uppercase, Lowercase, & Beginning Sounds Centers.  Another fantastic, shockingly inexpensive product!  Her TpT shop is just loaded with them!  Also from this same packet:

These pages (meant to be cut apart, but it worked just as well for us to leave them intact) can be used with letter tiles as shown, or dry erase markers, play-doh, magnets, etc.

Colban really enjoyed these, which surprised me a little, as he was starting to get sick of alphabet work that day.

He liked the page I gave him so much, though, that he asked for another one when he was finished!  That's always good news, and I was happy to oblige.

See?  He's having a ball!  In case you missed the link above, you can check out these activities right here.

I'd been wanting a nice alphabet display for our classroom wall.  We have a poster up and refer to it often, but it only shows capital letters.  Obviously, this isn't ideal.  I'd found many free posters and display options online, but expensive printer ink is always a consideration.  Colby loved the ghostly number line we made on sentence strip back at Halloween, so I made something similar for the alphabet.  

Each of the cards Colby is cutting apart in the above photo features a letter in both upper- and lowercase, plus a picture of an animal that starts with that letter, to be colored.  Each day Colban colored as many of the animals as he wanted.  When he'd colored them all, he cut them apart.  He put them in order, and we glued them onto the sentence strips.  (It took three strips stapled together, with a little room left over.)

It looks awesome up on the wall!  Colby is so proud of having made it himself.  Each day when we sing the alphabet he uses a pointer to follow along.

Here's a close-up of one section . . .

 . . . and a closer look at the end as well.  We're happy to share these cards with you!  Use them to make your own alphabet display, in interactive notebooks, for flashcards, or other projects.

Click here to download Animal Alphabet Cards!

Leave a comment, and/or consider following us!  More freebies to come!

TpT Shops & Blogs mentioned in this post:

Lavinia Pop

Andrea Knight

Sassy Sanctuary