Magic Spelling Wands

Looking for a fun way to practice spelling words? Have your students make their own magic spelling wand! Give each student a small dowel rod (or wooden skewer with the pointy end clipped off), a star made from cardstock, an index card or thick scrapbook paper, and some ribbon or string. Instruct students to tape the star onto one end of their wand. (You can also hot glue these on in advance for a longer lasting wand.) Then have students pick out some ribbon or yarn to add to the back of the star.

When your wands are finished, use them to write your spelling words in the air. I’ve had students spell the words aloud as they write them and then make a magical twinkling sound as they circle or underline their finished words.

You can use these wands as part of your spelling center, a way to liven up your routine during a spelling slump, or to keep your students spellbound at the end of the year.

Happy Spelling!

Mrs. Killion’s Turtles

I have an amazing volunteer named Mrs. Killion. She is constantly thinking of fun projects for my students to do and she returns year after year to help me. Do you remember her popcorn ball spider eggs? This is another one of her creations.

A friend of hers had a ton of baby food containers she was keeping in case she ever needed them. (Sounds like teacher hoarding to me!) When she realized she would never use them, she gave them to Mrs. Killion who turned them into these adorable turtles.

She uses this pattern and copies it on green construction paper, 2 patterns per turtle. As the pattern indicates, she includes pieces of pipe cleaner. When the two patterns are glued together, the pipe cleaners add flexability to the legs and head of the turtle. (How brilliant is that? You could use that trick on so many projects!) Finish off with a pink tongue and wiggly eyes. Then glue the pattern to the plastic lid.

Sometimes we fill the containers with goldfish crackers for a fun snack. Other times we take it one step further and turn it into spelling practice. The students write their spelling words on dot stickers and add the stickers to the “shell” of the turtle. They can keep their new pet on their desk and refer to it all week to review spelling words. You could also practice addition or subtraction facts on the stickers. My students love taking the turtles home and refilling them with other treats, so don’t be surprised if they show up again during snack time!

Easy Writing Pages

A few years our school adopted a new instructional framework that focuses on higher order thinking and writing. Our students have really latched onto this program and are writing more than we’ve ever had them write before.

When some of the assignments got home, they would be slightly difficult to make sense of without the writing prompt, so we had to figure out a way to include it on every student’s paper. At first we tried writing the prompt onto the top of the page but it looked too messy. Then we tried printing directly onto the writing paper so that it would be centered and neat. But a problem arose when my printer broke and was not replaced since we’re going towards centralized printing (yaaaaaaay). When I wanted to print onto the paper I’d have to go into another teacher’s classroom to use her printer or attempt to use the copier to get it onto the writing paper. This usually took 2 or 3 tries after first printing on the back, and then upside down. Cue frustrated sigh.

The problems continued when we realized that, as a grade level, we were going through ream after ream of writing pages and getting close to the end of our supply. So we came up with this idea! We can make our own writing pages that we can type onto and print. We can get the prompt at the top of the page and decide if we want a picture space or no picture space, landscape or portrait, large writing lines or small. What a time saver!!

Here are the writing pages we currently use. We’ve uploaded landscape and portrait formats both with and without picture spaces. These have made our lives much easier and students are really motivated to move on to a page 2, 5, or higher! For easy storage, get some nesting paper trays and store each page number in it’s own bin. Stack them when they aren’t in use, spread them out on a table or the floor when they are. Happy Writing!

Book Bite #4- Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast

Since our Book Bites for Lion vs. Rabbit, Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great and Sam and Dave Dig a Hole have been so popular, we thought we’d share some of the activities we’ve done for one of our new favorites- Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast written by Josh Funk and illustrated by Brendan Kearney.

You had us at the title, Josh, but then we saw the amazing book trailer. A pancake and French toast battling it out for syrup? Who doesn’t love a little competition? This book proved to be perfect for the beginning of school as we could easily relate it to our citizenship unit. Snag our Book Bite here.

Check out some of the activities we’ve already done!

Adorable Apple Craft

This adorable project comes courtesy of our colleague Diane Ramsey. She created this craft to hang on her classroom clothesline. It’s super easy and provides an opportunity for your students to show their personalities through art.

First, give everyone a basic apple pattern and a half sheet of paper. You can vary these colors depending on the color of your apples. We provide green, red and yellow apples and allow our students to choose which color they’d like. Next, pass out white dot stickers for the eyes. Then, make sure you give access to paper scraps, glue sticks, crayons and scissors. Our students cut their own leaves, stems, grass and other props. In the past, students have made apples holding books, wearing glasses, talking to worms, wearing high-heeled shoes and other silly things.

When finished, make sure to allow time to share. There will be lots of laughs to go around.

Pete the Pasting Pirate: A Glue Stick Lesson

Every year, when we glue something into our journals for the first time, I like to watch how the students use their glue sticks. Over the years I’ve noticed the same mistakes over and over. I’ve grouped these classic blunders into 3 categories; I’m sure you’ll recognize them.

1. The Single Dot: One dot, big or little, in the middle of the paper. Nothing else. Never sticks.

 2. The Power Pusher: Half of the glue stick ends up on this page. It’s lumpy, it’s bumpy, but it will never fall off. Ever!

3. Full Coverage: Every single spot on that paper has glue on it. The student will be asking for a new glue stick by the end of the day.

You’ve seen them all before, haven’t you? But how do you get them to stop?! Enter Pete the Pasting Pirate. This short tale will have students gluing their papers like pros in no time.

Long ago, there lived a pirate named Pam. She was fierce, she was strong but she was always losing her treasures. If she could figure out a way to stop losing them, she would be so much happier! On one of her journeys across the sea, she met another ship captained by Pete the Pasting Pirate. Pete shared his secret for getting treasure to stick around. When you bury your treasure in the right place you will never lose it! “But how do you find the right place?” wondered Pam.

“If you land on a small island,” explained Pete, “you can leave after you make your mark. This is no place for treasure.”

“If you land on a larger island,” continued Pete, “send out a man to walk the edges of the island. If you discover it’s not big enough, sail on. This is still no place for treasure.”

“But if the man walks the edges of the island and discovers it to be quite large,” finished Pete, “then bury your treasure and mark it with an X. You’ll never lose your treasure again!”

“And remember, matey, never press too hard to make your X."

While you tell the story, be sure to model the three types of gluing on different sizes of paper. I hope Pete can help you alleviate some glue stick problems in your classroom!

If you like this story, you can download a mini-poster here.

Everything Journal

Our school used to order planners for each of our students. But what we discovered was that they weren’t really being used like they should have been. So we turned them into “Everything Journals”. By the end of the year each journal was filled with colorful and imaginative responses.

We no longer order planners, so we’ve turned our planner prompts into journal prompts! The prompts can be used in pre-K through third grade classes. Emergent writers can use a mix of illustrations and words or short phrases to respond to the prompts. More fluent writers can respond using sentences or paragraphs. This makes differentiation a snap.

The prompts can be used weekly, or cut apart ahead of time and placed at a writing or literacy center. We have made both color and black and white options that you can choose from depending on your printers and copiers.

The prompts are so varied that our students never tire of doing them.