easter
Holy macaroni!! Can you believe it's April already? In less than 70 days the school year will be over! How exciting and sad is that?? I can never get my emotions straight at the end of May. I don’t know whether to cry because my students will officially be out of my classroom and on to another one, or to jump for joy because there'll be no more lesson planning and grading until August 🙏🙏 *SIGH* #storyofateacherslife

Moving on. Easter is right around the corner and we still need to keep the classroom spirit alive so here are a few goodies you can implement in your classroom for a little extra fun.

First up, Easter Gift tag.

I want to keep my Easter treat simple this year because O-M-G, my students and their chocolate/candy consumption this year is off the chart! (Not really, I'm just being dramatic HAHA.) But seriously, have you guys noticed that this year almost every monthly celebration that involves sweet and sugar always fall on a Sunday before a school day or ON a school day. *palm to the face* This year, to keep my sanity the day after Easter I am choosing a simple candy for my students.

For this little treat, all you need is a bag of lollipops from the Dollar Store and my Easter gift tag. Cut out the Easter gift tag along the gray line and attach it to the lollipop with tape or glue. Done and done! They're a great little treat for your students or something to send with your own kids to school. They're also super easy to put together and inexpensive!! #teachersforthewin

The Easter gift tag works with other candies as well if you don’t want to use lollipops. You can stick the gift tag onto a bag of popcorn and give it to your colleagues, or attach the gift tag with a cute ribbon to a goodie bag. However you decide to use the Easter gift tag your students will love your treat regardless because it’s from you, their TEACHER. To download the Easter Gift Tag just click on the picture below.

Just a reminder, the Easter gift tag is part of my FREE MONTHLY Gift Tags growing bundle made exclusively for you. Please subscribe to my blog and follow me on TeachersPayTeachers (Classroom Shenanigans) to get a monthly update on next month's gift tag freebie.

Next up, Easter Match-up.

Twelve Easter egg cards and one worksheet are included which makes this the perfect little small group activity or partner activity. It is perfect for reviewing the famous consonant digraphs in Kindergarten: sh, th, wh, ch. This activity works perfectly for the month of April so no need to put them away after all the Easter excitement has died down!

To start the activity, students will take turn matching the picture and word to make an Easter egg. The students will share the word they found with everyone in the group or to their partner. Then everyone will search their worksheet to identify it and write the beginning digraph on the line next to the corresponding picture. Everyone will take turn matching the pictures and words until all the eggs have been paired. Once all the eggs have been paired correctly, students can color the worksheet (border, picture, and "Missing Digraphs" word) for FUN!

Click the picture below to download your copy!

Enjoy your freebies and have an AH-MAZING April!! If you have any questions, please let me know. Til next time ✌️✌️

Easter Freebies! - Gift Tag + Digraphs Game

Tuesday, April 4

Oh boy, I can’t believe we’re already 5 days into March. I just celebrated Valentine’s Day with my husband not too long ago. Wasn’t yesterday the 100th day of school? Didn’t my daughter just turn 10 months a few weeks ago? We just had a field trip last week and now you’re telling me there’s another one in 2 weeks? See what I mean HAHAHA.

If you’re anything like me, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. When you’re a teacher and a mother there are 100 million things running through your mind at the same time that it seems impossible to sit down and relax. But when you do, you finally realize what time and day it is. This year is going by so fast that I could barely keep up with the months. I still experience times when I would write the date as January or February. #brainfart #mommymoment #lifeofateacher I know tell me about it!

With the start of a new month already, I thought today would be a great time to talk about what I have planned for March in my classroom. Right now my daughter is sleeping next to me while I blog, so this is my “sit down, relax, and soak in the moment time.”

March is one of my favorite month (aside from April) because it’s the time when there are sooooooo much to celebrate and learn about in the primary grades. There’s Dr. Seuss/Read Across America, St. Patrick’s Day, Spring season, Easter, Spring Break, and if you teach TK like me, a lot of March Birthdays.
Just writing this right now my mind is already spinning and thinking of new activities to incorporate into my March lesson plans. But I love teaching my little ones about those celebrations because they are always excited to learn new things and curious to see what the hype is all about. That being said, I always hype my students up one week or a few days in advanced to get them eager to learn and come to school.

Just the past week we celebrated Dr. Seuss/Read across America all week and my TK students can literally tell me: 1) Dr. Seuss is an author, 2) an author writes the story, 3) the 5 read aloud books written by Dr. Seuss, 4) the Dr. Seuss activities we completed in class during literacy and math centers, and 5) read –at words. I am not kidding, y’all. These are 4-5 years old in my classroom telling me all that.

Below are a few photos I was able to capture of how we celebrated Dr. Seuss week.

 
The 5 read aloud books we had fun reading about.

 
The Cat in the Hat Number Sequence

 
-at word family Cat In the Hat

We also did a directed drawing of the Cat in the Hat, but I forgot to take a picture of how cute they turned out.

For the upcoming weeks in March, we will be learning about St. Patrick’s Day, the Chicken Life cycle, Easter, and celebrating Good Friday. My Spring Break is the week after Good Friday and I already made a list of fun activities to have a GOOD FRIDAY on Good Friday. HAHAHA!!


These are some of the activities I will be doing with my little TK’s.
 

For St. Patrick’s Day we will complete a 3D rainbow craft like this one I found on Pinterest. Click HERE to go to the direct craft itself. If you're like me, I like to incorporate writing with arts & crafts so my TK’s will be using a writing template to write about the colors of the rainbow.

3d-over-the-rainbow-st-patricks-day-craft-for-kids 

I started STEM early for my TK’s because I believe STEM works for all ages. Not only that, but the critical thinking, creativity, and technology aspects of STEM deepen as children gets older because their thinking process changes. This month we will complete 3 stem challenges with slight modifications: building a bridge with coins, creating a leprechaun trap, and creating a rainbow with color dyes. Those 3 stem challenges are from my March STEM Pack for free from my TPT Store. You can download my March STEM Pack HERE or by clicking the picture below.  

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/STEM-March-St-Patricks-Theme-Pack-FREE-2390222

I will also include some fun St. Patrick’s Printables for my Literacy and Math centers. I am a hands-on learning teacher, but I like to throw in printable here and there to help my students with their fine motor skill.

 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/St-Patricks-Day-Printable-Activities-for-Literacy-and-Math-2425921
You can buy the full St. Patrick’s Packet from my TPT store by clicking HERE.

Lastly, to celebrate Easter and learn about the Chicken Life cycle we will paint magic eggs on a piece of paper to reveal sight words we’ve learned. To complete this activity, you need an egg template (link below), a white crayon, and watercolor paint. You can write words inside each egg using a white crayon or have your students do it instead. Then the students will paint each egg with a different color to reveal the words inside the egg. For this activity, I will personalize each student’s worksheet because my students are at different levels on sight words. All they do is paint each egg different colors and read to me the sight words.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5gjQZZ3SeF1VVhZR1lkV3hWa3M/view?usp=sharing
You can download the template HERE or by clicking the picture above.

It’s already MARCH?!?!

Saturday, March 5

© Classroom Shenanigans. Design by Fearne.