Happy New Year 2026 Resources and a Freebie

As we are quickly approaching 2026, I wanted to highlight a few resources that many students have found engaging for the New Year celebration!

New Years Hat Craft

This hat craft is quick and easy. It comes in both full color and black and white for students to design their own hats. 

Add a little glitter to the fireworks for some extra bling!

New Years writing prompts were recently added to this resource. These are a great way to give your students some extra writing practice as they look ahead to the coming year!

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New Years Cut & Paste Emergent Reader

It's time to count down with this cut & paste emergent reader. This book talks about waiting for the new year! Students will love creating their very own books that they can read again and again. This reader is engaging practice for either before or after the holiday!

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These free New Years themed bookmarks are a perfect way to encourage reading or as a reward for a job well done!  

New Years 2026 Freebie

I hope that as you head back into the classroom that you feel refreshed and that your new year gets off to a great start!

Let's Learn S'more

       

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Let's Celebrate Christmas with a Hat's Craft and a Freebie!

Christmas and the Holiday season are approaching quickly.  Here are a few resources that are quick and easy to use during this busy time!

What student doesn't love to decorate a gingerbread house! Get out the glitter and sequins and let them design their very own to wear home!

Gingerbread Hats Craft
This hat craft is quick and easy. It comes in both full color and black & white for your creative students. You will also find included a set of bookmarks!

If you are looking for a hat craft that is perfect for Sunday School, at home learning or the Christian classroom you might like this Nativity craft! 

Nativity Hat Craft

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These December themed math worksheets, are geared toward Kindergarten and made with the standards in mind!

These are fun for daily math practice or review! Students love the themes, including gingerbread, and snow men!

Adding, subtracting, comparing, positions and word problems are some of the skills included!

 These are a great way to give your students some extra writing practice as they look ahead to the coming year!

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New Years Cut & Paste Emergent Reader

It's time to count down with this cut & paste emergent reader. This book talks about waiting for the new year! Students will love creating their very own books that they can read again and again. This reader is engaging practice for either before or after the holiday!

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These free New Years themed bookmarks are a perfect way to encourage reading or as a reward for a job well done!  

New Years 2025 Freebie

I hope that as you head back into the classroom that you feel refreshed and that your new year gets off to a great start!

Let's Learn S'more

       

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All Things Pumpkin - 9 Ideas for Pumpkins in the Classroom

Nothing reminds us of fall like the touch, feel, smell and sight of pumpkins! Pumpkins are a great medium to use for teaching in the fall. Here you will find 9 crafts, videos, resources, and activities to get you started on your pumpkin adventures this fall!  

1. This video is about the life cycle of a pumpkin. It really gets the students thinking about the different stages a pumpkin goes through before it is harvested. 

2. Wow, games using a pumpkin that practice sight words, spelling words, and math problems! They really give the students a chance to touch and feel the pumpkin as they roll it back and forth.

3.  Try this recipe for Pumpkin Pie play dough! Your students will love the Pumpkin smell!

4. A Pumpkin Hand print craft is a perfect way to save some fall memories. 

5. For science and sensory try out this pumpkin slime! Your students will love getting their hands oozing with a real pumpkin.

6. Grow a pumpkin in a pumpkin! What a great way to watch the sprouts grow!

7. Making an anchor chart like this one will help your students as they investigate and describe a pumpkin. For example, they can list how many seeds, how many lines, what's the inside of the pumpkin is like, and what the outside is like. So many questions and things to talk about. 

8. Create some sparkle with this pasta wheel pumpkin craft.

Positional Words Cut and Paste Emergent Reader

9. For more pumpkin themed fun, this cut and paste emergent reader works on positional words. Students love creating their own books as they cut and paste the pictures of a pumpkin!

I hope you learned some new ideas to utilize pumpkins in the classroom this fall. While putting this post together I learned some new tricks with blogging that I hope will help me create a more useful page. Keep on learning!
Let's Learn S'more!

Get to Know the Alphabet - 9 Fun Ways to Teach Letters

Here you will find some new or maybe old ideas for introducing your students to the letters of the alphabet. Use these for letter of the day or week or incorporate them into your theme studies! 

1. Students enjoy letter of the day crafts, they are perfect for letting them visualize what the letter looks like and to start thinking about what words start with that letter.  



2. These simple A to Z Animal Hats are a perfect addition to your letter learning. Just cut them out and add the band. On the black and white ones students can color the animal, trace the letter on the front and the side band, and then trace the name of the animal. You can use these when you are working a certain letter or incorporate them into a animal unit! Just imagine the parade you could have! 



3. Having visuals around the room is important to help students to see the letters and seeing words that start with that letter is a plus. You can get so many different Alphabet posters to go with your class theme or change them up throughout the year. 

These  flip charts are perfect for hands on learning and are a great way for students to see the letter as they practice the alphabet!


4. Touching and feeling is such an important part of learning! Tape the bag shut and then tape it to the table and it will help to keep this activity from getting messy. 



5. Sorting letters is a hands on way for students to  recognize letters as they group them together.

6. Letter spotting in big books with transparent counters is a wonderful activity that students really enjoy!



7. What Starts With A-Z?  These emergent readers practice several skills. Students love the fact that they are creating their very own book and the repetition of the text allows them to soon read on their own. 

Check out What Starts With  A? 

8. Letter matching is a favorite activity and so easy to put together. 

9. I love this snack idea. Just give students a hand full of cereal and let them decorate their snack with the alphabet!
 

I hope you learned some new ideas about teaching the alphabet for the classroom or at home. This week I learned some tips on taking pictures for blogs and social media. Keep on learning! 

Let's Learn S'more! 

Poetry in the Elementary Classroom and a Freebie

Poetry in the classroom motivates reading, develops phonemic awareness, practices sight words, builds vocabulary, and the list goes on. I love seeing the face of an aspiring reader when they realize they've read a sentence independently for the first time. These joyous moments are why I create resources that will help these learners... blossom into confident readers. 

Poetry Notebook Pages

You can implement poetry right from the first week of school with these poetry notebook pages. These original poems, written by Let's Learn S'more and designed by The Barefoot Teacher can be added daily, weekly, or as your plans allow. These were so fun to create and the response to them has been overwhelming!

Numbers & Colors Poetry

There are several resources to choose from: phonics, sight words or numbers & colors.  Each resource comes with several different options with and without blanks for students to fill in, both color and black / white. Laminate the full color version to create a classroom book. 

    Phonics or Sight Words Poetry

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For additional Poetry notebook resources or to purchase the bundle visit......

 The Barefoot Teacher

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Another resource that you might like is the Rhyme and Read emergent readers. There are 6 readers to choose from, each one comes in both a color and a  cut and paste version.  Besides rhyming, I tried to include some other skills as well, such as number recognition and positional words. The reader themes are frogs, ocean, farm, bugs, forest animals, and bees. 

Rhyme & Read Emergent Readers

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If your students love word searches.....these ones are mixed with poetry. These are available with monthly themes. Each original poem has highlighted words that student can find in the word search. 

 

Poetry Word Searches

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Bugs on Parade..............spring, bugs, and poetry go hand in hand! Bundle this up or purchase separately. Each page of the reader is a line of an original poem. Students will love to create their own reader with the cut & paste version. In the bundle, you will also find a poetry word search. Let your students create their bug hats and wear them as they have their own bug parade or participate in the write the room activity.

Bugs on Parade Bundle

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Click below to get a sample from the poetry notebook pages!

Poetry Freebie

I have loved poetry since I was a child, and I have really enjoyed creating these resources! I hope that your students enjoy them too and fall in love with poetry as much as I did. 

Let's Learn S'more

                        

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All Things Apples - Fun Apple Ideas for the Classroom

When it comes to fall, what could be more fun to learn about than APPLES? Whether it's an apple classroom theme, teaching the life cycle of an apple, making an apple craft or tasting apples, there are so many ideas one can use when teaching with apples in the classroom!



Look at this cute apple tree door display! It's a perfect addition to your classroom theme. Let students write their names on the apples before placing around the tree!

Adding apple themed number posters will help set your theme and can be utilized as an learning tool for your students!

Numbers 1-20


If you decide to teach about the life of an apple, this video will get you started..

A fun way to learn about the apple life cycle is with this cut and paste emergent reader! Students will love creating their own book as they learn about the life of an apple!

 The Life of an Apple


Encourage your little readers with these free bookmarks!

Freebie

Write the Room is a fun and educational way to learn the life cycle of the apple! It will also give the students a chance to practice their writing skills. Leave the posters up to add to your room decor.  
This bundle also includes apple themed math pages making it a complete resource for your apple unit!

The Life of an Apple


"Let's Learn S'more" and add a science experiment using apples! Students will love this fun little explosion. 




There are so many crafts you can find related to apples but this is one of my favorites! 



No apple unit would be complete without a fun snack. Student love tasting different kinds of apples and it's a great opportunity to talk about and compare the different varieties.. Or, try this snack idea!

Ocean Animals

            The end of the year or summer is the perfect time to learn about ocean animals, since kids already have their minds on being outdoors and water play. These fun ocean creatures are a lot of fun to make and will get your students minds thinking about what lives in the ocean.


           I love this ocean themed bulletin board, you can change up the animals that are caught in the net. This board really pops out at you! Adding each animal as you introduce them to your students makes this a changing and developing board.


              

         These math worksheets are the perfect addition to your unit. Made with kindergarten standards in mind, students will love adding, subtracting, count and color, word problems, positions, classifying, and comparing in these worksheets. 
                                 

Ocean Themed Math Worksheets

               This simple craft comes in both color and black / white. There are 11 ocean animals to choose from! Students love choosing and creating these ocean animal hats and the shark one is great fun for shark week!

Ocean Animal Hats

                                                                      This fun freebie for your ocean unit will encourage your little readers to keep on reading! Bookmarks are a perfect little gift for a job well done!
                           

  Free Ocean Themed Bookmarks

For more ocean themed fun these products come alone or in a bundle!

       

  Pocket Chart Cards & Writing Activities

                                                                                                                                                               

Positional Word Reader

               

I hope you learned some new ideas or found something useful for your ocean unit or classroom. For new resources and freebies follow my store at the link under my logo! 

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