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Animals are a natural fascination for children. They're often cute, cuddly, and do fascinating things. Beyond sparking engagement and interest, learning about animals can help your children learn about science, the natural word and be a catalyst for writing.  I have a big collection of coloring pages and crafts in the Pond Coloring Club - and many are animals. If you're looking to incorporate some fine motor practice into your day a paper craft is a great place to start! After reading, watching and talking about an animals you can provide a craft activity through the week.  ..read more

Elephants are strong, social and playful - just like your children can be during a creative art or drawing activity! Talk with them about elephants and discover some interesting facts in some books you read. Just as they are learning to grasp a crayon to draw, elephants can grasp objects with their trunk! They can use it to smell, make sounds, blow air, drink water, communicate and express emotions too. Plan your writing-fluency warm up for today with a line of loopy elephants.    first do a page full of loopy lines give a verbal prompt to match - up and around, up and around or ..read more

Do you find that your children love to learn about ocean creatures? Share a few books or informative websites with them and they'll be captivated! The ocean has some of the most fascinating and mysterious creatures on Earth. They come in all shapes and sizes, and they live in a wide variety of habitats, from the shallows of the coastal waters to the deepest parts of the ocean. Why not learn about a new marine animal each week with your class. Over in the Pond Coloring Club I have a free drawing page for a Flashlight Fish. Draw it after you've done some shared reading about this very cool l ..read more

Integrate some ladybug themed activities into your week to engage your students and support their curiosity for the natural world.  You could: watch some short videos that include ladybug facts - ask your students to remember a few to present to the class in a later discussion count ladybug spot in math draw and paint ladybugs make a ladybug craft in fine motor activities read books and tell stories about ladybugs explore the ladybug life cycle A printable pennant banner is available in my store to help create a classroom learning center, display header or spark interest in the top ..read more

Encourage your children to write about ladybugs this week! They could write a: Ladybug Life Cycle:  Write a story about the life cycle of a ladybug, from egg to adult (this pack has a page for drawing and writing labels on a life cycle). Ladybug Habitat:  Write a poem about the different places where ladybugs live. Research some facts about ladybugs, isolate some keywords and make a chart for students to use as a word bank in their writing. Ladybug Helpers:  Write on and draw a poster about how ladybugs help the environment and plants by eating aphids. Ladybug Friends:  ..read more

Tracing and Painting Are Great for Kindergarten on a Friday! Have a little Fun Friday session to help your students wind down the week and review some of their learning activities.  You'll integrate plenty of learning opportunities - but they'll just think it's all fun and games!  There are hundreds of stations you could set up in independent-learning style activity centers - here are just a few: They could: draw and make with paper scraps and glue choose anything to read from the class library play some math games you’ve taught through the week in a relaxed, independent learnin ..read more

Here is one game from our Ten Frame Activities pack. Your learners will: subitize numbers to ten on a ten frame count objects develop an understanding of the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality use a rectangular array to count 'how many' How to play Make It Mouse have a teacher set of ten frame flashcards and briefly show these to your group, giving them time to look at the number decide if you'll ask your students to call the number right away, or remember it in their mind (depending on their math skills) have your students re-create the number ..read more

Here is another game to use in math groups using any of the mats in the Play to Ten pack! Here we are using the robot cards but you can use any of the 20 different themed cards to engage and motivate your students. Students will count to make a number on the robot add or take away to make another number How to play Robot Remake place the numeral cards in a face down pile players flip a card and make the number  - e.g 7 flip another card and then remake the set to show the new number - e.g. taking one away to make the new number 6 Here we've flipped a number 8 card and have ta ..read more

Here are the new Pig Pairs math activity cards from the Math Kit! They are ideal for reference during any math activity - where students can easily be supported to learn the addition facts that make ten - but they can also be used for interactive games too! Here is one idea: Pig Dig the pigs are digging for food and when they find a pair can eat (line up cubes as food) students take turns to choose a number to 'dig' for example, a student might choose the number 7 (uncovered) and say '3' before digging (sliding the cube off) if correct, the cube is kept by the student until the end of the ..read more