Happy Birthday Doc!

"A person's a person, no matter how small." - Dr. Seuss.  

I've been having a lot of fun introducing my daughter to the world of Dr. Seuss.  Here are a couple Dr. Seuss themed activities and snacks we did this past week.  

Count and Match

This was an easy game to put together!  I picked up the Dr. Seuss cards at the Target Dollar Spot, and made the mat with construction paper and a sharpie.  I gave Isla one card at a time.  She counted the number of Seuss characters on the card and then put the card under the matching number.  The card set came with numbers up to 20, so this game can easily be differentiated.  I plan on laminating the cards before we use them again.  I think we will get a lot of use out of these and I don't want them to get destroyed!  

Green Eggs and Ham Counting Games

Target conveniently has 12 packs of green plastic eggs in their Easter section, which is where I got these.  We tried out different ways to play with them.  In the picture above Isla is opening up the eggs and counting how many hams are inside.  I only put between 1-5 hams in each egg.  The hams are from some clip art I had.  (My clip art collection is so big now I never know what I may find!)

The beginning of the video is cut off, but she did start at one.  I'm working on my video skills!

The biggest hit was simply transferring the eggs back and forth between the egg carton and a bowl.  She LOVED this game!  She is very into "I do it!" these days, and this was a game she could enjoy independently.  It went on for quite a while.  A great way to practice one to one correspondence!

 Cat in the Hat Pizza

I knew I wanted to make a Cat in the Hat Pizza, but couldn't find an example with a cat anywhere online.  So, I made up this pizza design myself!  I used a crescent roll for the the dough and cut it into the cat in the hat shape.  Then I added tomato sauce, some Italian seasoning, and covered it with mozzarella cheese.  I used pepperoni for the hat and olives for the face.  When I showed Isla she knew exactly who it was, so I guess that means I did a good job.  It was easy to make and didn't take long at all!

Cat in the Hat Snack

I saw these cat hats somewhere (I don't remember where), using a lollipop stick to hold the strawberries and bananas together.  I had pretzel sticks so I used those instead and added a blueberry for the face.  Then added a few colored goldfish crackers to it and it was done!  

I hope you have a great time celebrating the great Dr. Seuss!

Johnny Appleseed & Apple FUN!

September 26 is Johnny Appleseed Day!  Every year I do some thematic teaching about apples and Johnny Appleseed.  I do some in September because September=apples right? I also do apples when we get to the Johnny Appleseed story in our anthology books later in the year. There are so many things you can do with apples!  Here are some pics from an 'Our Favorite Apple' graphing activity we did last year.

For this activity we used red, green and yellow apples.  

That handy dandy contraption is the best! Why did I ever try to slice apples without it?

Students getting their apples for the big taste test!  Then they got to vote for their favorite apple.   We recorded, graphed and discussed our apple data. 

I took a picture of each student wearing a Johnny Appleseed hat while holding their favorite apple.  The idea for this picture was something I found on Pinterest last year.  (I don't remember where it came from but if you know please comment so I can add the link.)  The poster this little Johnny is standing in front of is one I made for vocabulary in our anthology story about Johnny Appleseed. 

I ended up having a few extra apples left over so I turned them into "Golden Apple Awards".  Boy oh boy did the students want those apples!  It was a great motivator for everything that day :)  If you're interested in the "Our Favorite Apple" activity I included it in my latest unit Johnny Appleseed & Apple FUN!  It includes fun writing, math and science activities.  Take a closer look below.

  

Click on the pictures to check it out in my Tpt store.  Have a great weekend!

Recycling a Panda Plate

The moment I saw the new paw plates at Panda Express I knew there were endless possibilities for using them in my classroom!  The people at Panda were very kind and gave me enough plates for a class set.  But you could just use a few for a small group or center activity.  Here are a few ideas:

CVC Word Building

Number Order

Art Lesson with Primary and Secondary colors

Put each primary color in the top three spaces and use the bottom for mixing up secondary colors.

The plates also come with lids which would make it easy to store the letters or numbers with the plates.  When school starts up again I will post pics of these plates in action!  Have a great day :)



Alice in Wonderland Math Graphing FREEBIE

Last week the students in our district saw a Children's Musical Performance of Alice in Wonderland put on by Sol Treasures.  All of the students who participated in the play did an AMAZING job!  It was so fun to watch all the familiar faces and former students on stage. To continue the Alice in Wonderland theme (and fun), I created a math graphing activity with Alice in Wonderland characters.  My students had a great time with the activity.  Click on the link below to go to my Tpt store and download - FREE!


Click this link to download FREE Alice in Wonderland Math Graphing Activity

   Here is a student and classroom sample:

My students' favorite part of the activity was gathering their data.  They sure do love to talk :) - with language frames of course!