Tuesday, April 9, 2024

How Does Your Garden Grow? Resources for in the Classroom or at Home Learning and a Freebie!

     
    
  How does your garden grow? Do you garden with your students? Whether you are growing beans on the window sill, flowers in a pot, studying different seeds, the life cycle of plants, or go all out with a school or family garden, here are some resources to support your gardening adventure! Introducing gardening and the love of growing plants at an early age is so important. As students are involved in digging in the soil, placing and watering seeds, and waiting to see what will emerge, their love for gardening will also materialize! 


                                   

                         Cut & Paste Emergent Reader
         This cut & paste emergent reader is a perfect way to introduce garden or plant themes. It talks about seeds, soil, watering, and growing of plants. Students can practice their cutting skills while matching the pictures on each page of the book they create. Students love to create their very own books that they can read again and again. 

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     I love the different ways teachers have used these seed packet crafts! Some have used them as plant markers or in their dramatic play area garden shop. Others told me they used them for ABC order or for their word wall. How can you use these seed packets to increase learning?



                               Seed Packet Craft

One teacher said she printed them out, got a few beans seeds, and mailed them home to her students last spring during the beginning of distance learning. For added learning there is a poem on the back of each seed packet!
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Spring planting ties in perfectly with plant life cycles! These plant life cycle activities give you many options to implement.
 

Learning Cube & Graphing Activities
 Plant Life Cycle Cut & Paste Reader
                            
                                          


Plant Life Cycle Posters & Write the Room Activities


Plant Life Cycle Math & Literacy Bundle
These resources can be purchased alone or in the bundle. In the bundle you will find an emergent reader with cut & paste option, a learning cube with graphing activities, a poetry word search and posters with write the room writing activities. These activities will harmonize perfectly with your garden theme or unit!
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Before you get busy growing and learning about plants with your students check out these resources to compliment your garden studies. Click below for more garden themed fun and a couple freebies! One of the things you will find here is positional word readers with garden themes. Each reader comes in three versions, a full color, a black and white, and a cut & paste! 


I hope this sparked some gardening ideas for you or you found some resources for your gardening or plant unit! Let's keep learning! Follow my store below for newest resources and freebies!
                                Let's Learn S'more!



Sunday, March 3, 2024

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. 



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!



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







Saturday, March 2, 2024

Solar Eclipse Craft Hat .....Includes April 8th 2024

The total solar eclipse spreading over a portion of North America on April 8th, 2024 is a perfect time to talk about this event with your students. For younger students, your conversations might be quite simple and adding a craft is an easy and safe way to help you explain this wonder.

This hat craft comes with and without the date. Students will love coloring the black/white option. Laminate the bookmarks to make a nice memento to remember this special day.


                       Solar Eclipse Hat Craft

The next total eclipse will not cross the United States until 2044. I hope you enjoy teaching about this rare event with your students! 




 
 


Thursday, February 29, 2024

Spring Themed Resources

 

Spring Themed Resources


 Spring is such a fun time for learning with the anticipation of plants and flowers busting through the ground, beautiful colors all around, weather to talk about, kites flying in the wind and let's not forget about bugs and butterflies!  Let's look at some spring themed resources that will support your classroom or at home learning!

Kites Positional Word Reader

                            
This kite themed emergent reader is a fun way to learn about positional words! Where will my kite take me? This comes in full color or students can make their own reader with the black and white version.


The cut & paste version adds an additional challenge as students select where the kite goes. They will love creating their very own books to read again and again.
                  
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Spring into some math fun with these monthly themed math pages! 

These are geared toward kinders and made with the standards in mind.
Perfect for morning work, daily review, math centers, or at home practice.
                                                                      



The monthly theme is a great way to keep students engaged. Students look forward to seeing the new monthly themes.

Life Cycle Resources

What would spring learning be without the talk of life cycles and butterflies? 
This math & literacy resource includes so many different ways to incorporate learning about butterflies into your spring themed learning.
Place these butterfly posters around your room for write the room and other writing activities. 


Emergent Reader Cut & Paste


Keep the theme going with this reader. Students can complete each page of this reader as they learn about the butterflies life cycle.

For some graphing fun students can create a learning cube to use for these graphing activities. There is also a bonus   poetry word search.

          
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               I love poetry and with April being 
        poetry month it is good time to incorporate 
                    it into your spring learning!  

Poetry Word Searches for Spring


 Each spring themed poem has highlighted words for the student to find in the word search. These can be laminated to use in centers again and again. 
        
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Students love readers and these are another way to celebrate spring. The first is about spring words, students can fill in the picture on each page that matches the spring word.


The second reader is about flowers and is a positional word reader.









I hope you found just the right spring themed resource for your classroom or at home learning to add to your spring time fun!
Let's Learn S'more

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

The Easter Story Emergent Reader Freebie & Easter Story Crowns


As we approach the Easter season, I wanted to share with you a couple of resources that are perfect for your Christian classroom, Sunday school, or at home learning.

The Easter Story is a free emergent reader that comes with three different options for various  levels of learning. The first is a colored version that you can read to the classroom or add to your reading center. The second version comes in black and white. Students will love coloring their very own reader and adding it to their book boxes to read again and again!

The Easter Story Freebie

The third option turns the reader into an interactive cut & paste activity. Students will be challenged as they cut out pictures to add to each page. 


One user left this rating..    
"My students and I loved this! The squares were easy to cut even for my most challenged child, and the message was clear and easy to read. Thank you! "


I hope you find this free resource helpful in teaching the real meaning of Easter.


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If you are looking for a craft to add to your Easter learning, you might find this hats craft a fun addition. This can be purchased alone or in a bundle.

Easter Bible Story Crown
This crown comes in full color or a black & white for students to color and create their very own. The side of the hat include words that can be used to retell the story of Easter.



Bible Story Crowns Bundle

This bundle includes 6 different crowns.. The Easter Story, The Nativity, Noah's Ark, The Good Samaritan, Zacchaeus, and the Great Catch of Fish.

I hope that you find just the right resource to help you celebrate Easter with your students or children!




Saturday, February 10, 2024

DIY Farm Themed Crayons Made With Old Crayons and Silicone Molds

When life gives you old and broken crayons....create something new! I love crayons and I have to admit I even have my very first box of crayons. So over the years of raising kids, old or broken crayons went into a shoe box.........just waiting for a time like this!



I needed a farm themed gift for a sweet little one who loves his farm animals! So I thought I would try melting crayons into farm shapes. I dug out my box of old crayons! I did read that the name brand crayons work best for melting, so I stuck to using those for this project.





I took a trip to the local Hobby Lobby and found this silicone mold on sale for 50% off. When looking for molds, the thicker ones are the best. 





The hardest part of this project was peeling the paper off the crayons. Some of these crayons were over 35 years old. I have heard that soaking them in water helps, but I just kept peeling. 






I broke the crayons up and filled the molds, overfilling a little in those that needed to spread. I mixed the colors in some. The chunky crayons like the barn are best for littlest hands. Be aware that small details might break off of some molded crayons.







Putting the mold on a cookie sheet really helps  keep the melted crayon from spilling.  Melt at 300 degrees for about 10 to 15 minutes. Some colors take longer to melt than others. After it is melted, you can take a toothpick to both swirl and mix if you like and fill in areas that seem thinner.......like the legs on farm animals.

Let cool for about an hour before pushing out of the molds. This was very satisfying! I found a very cute box and some filler at the dollar store to complete this gift. 





I loved creating these and was thrilled with how they turned out. They were a perfect gift but would also be good for a farm theme in the classroom or at a party. Think party favors!

If you are doing a farm theme in your classroom here are a few resources that I created just for that. Here you will find math worksheets, emergent readers, cut & paste, pocket chart cards and writing activities.


Farm Themed Math & Literacy


These resources can be purchased separately or save money with a bundle. 






Farm Themed Rhyme and Read Emergent Reader


Grab a freebie here that includes a page from farm themed math worksheets! 


Sample Math Worksheets







I hope you enjoyed this farm themed post and learned something new!
Let's Learn S'more