Snow man Fun

"Frosty, the snowman is a jolly happy soul".... is the song on my lips these days. What with the cold weather finally setting in, just minus the snow. Many people dread the harsh winters we experience but for me its a joyful and a happy time. Drinking hot, steaming cups of mocha, eating loads of  Christmas cake , wearing warm cozy mittens  and snuggling in the blanket with a good book surely makes me a jolly happy soul. 

And it is this cold weather that inspired me to write a post on all things snow and snowman.Since I consider books as the most important teaching tool, I am first going to share the latest Eric Carle book I have fallen in love with.

  The story is set during Christmas time and revolves around a farmer and his five animals. Only there is no snow, till the night before Christmas. So what does the farmer do when snow finally falls? Find out in this beautifully illustrated book that will surely win over young hearts.

My favorite snowman craft that I love to do with kids every year also incorporates a little bit of literacy. I let them cut circles with white paper and prompt them to write each letter of their name on a circle. 

Its fun to see little kids comparing the length of their snowmen.

And what is Christmas without gifts. Turn a simple chocolate into an adorable snowman and see  bright smiles adorning your little angels faces.

"Snowman, snowman, where's your nose?", is a group game that will have your kids asking for more. Let children sit in a circle and ask one child to be the snowman. Give a small carrot to another child and ask him/her to hide it behind his/her back. All the other children also pretend to do the same and they say a chant: Snowman, Snowman, Where's Your Nose? Somebody took it from your home.

Upstairs, Downstairs, by the phone...Wake up Snowman, Find your Nose.Encourage the child in the center to guess which child he/she thinks has the snowman's nose. The 'snowman' gets up to three guesses. Keep playing till everyone gets a turn.

And finally if you want to do up your surroundings with some snowman decor, check out my door decoration.

I will leave you with my favorite song for this season...

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all my followers!

Alphabet Books

I am ecstatic to share my first set of alphabet books that got published last week. I have always wanted to do dabble in content writing and when I got the opportunity to write for a publishing house, I was super excited. And surely my happiness knew no bounds when  the content materialized into a book. I want to take this opportunity to thank all the people who read my blog and purchase learning material from my TPT Store. It was TPT that got me hooked into writing lessons and activities for teachers across the world and that little start in November 2013 helped me believe that my content was meaningful and useful for teachers and aided the students learning process.

My books would be used in some 500 schools across India and I am glad that I will be making a small difference in the field of education.

This is the first set of books and there are more levels in the making.

If you are interested in getting the books for your little ones you can drop me an email at nc70277@gmail.com and I would happily send them across by mail for a minimal sum.

However a version of the book is also available on my TPT store. You can check it out HERE.

Friday Fine Motor Activity Fun!

This post should have been made last Friday, but my hands were full and I just couldn't bring myself to post on that day. So pardon me for it and I hope this activity(which was supposed to be the last fine motor activity for the month of October) will be enjoyed by you and your little ones.

It will take a little effort on your part to make it for your kids, but trust me it is worth the effort.All you need is some Elmer glue or fevicol as we call it in India and some paper. Make dots of glue on a thick paper in shapes of letters or numbers. Let it dry. Children can trace the invisible dots with their fingers.

A great way to get little children to practice writing letters and numbers and a fun way to develop those small muscles..

Diwali Craft- Diya Making

Do you always get your kids to paint diyas every Diwali? Well, do something different this year with this fun idea. Get small wax diyas and gather some play dough and little decorative pieces.

Ask children to mold the play dough around the diyas and stick the little shapes around the play dough.

Sorry for the picture! Its a little unclear but I know you got the idea :)

Fast, effective and fun! And you have beautiful diyas to adorn your house on Diwali.

Diwali Activity

I am sharing a fun, non messy way to make rangoli for Diwali, with little kids this year. Just give them some foam shapes and let the magic unfold. 

I like children to get creative and come up with their own designs but if you want to give some scaffolding, you can draw the design with a marker and let them fill it up with shapes.

It is also a great way to quickly review shapes and colors and working with soft foam shapes will provide tactile experience for the little ones.

So go ahead and make rangoli with a twist this year!

Halloween Literacy Activities

Halloween is only a week away and I am sure all of you have been busy doing a lot of fun stuff in your classrooms for Halloween. I am a tad bit late in posting this but I did manage to post it earlier on my TPT store. So if you are a follower on TPT, you would have been able to grab this unit. But its never too late to get fun activities for your little kiddos. So scroll down to read further about this unit.

This Halloween pack comprises of literacy activities that you can use for independent work or even send for home revision.

Alphabet puzzles.

Rhyming cards. Give children clothespin to attach to the correct picture.

Word wall cards. Put  them in a pocket chart. Let children match words to the pictures.

Beginning and ending sounds sheet.

A sheet for spelling  CVC words.

'Help the spider reach his web' activity.

Grab this unit from HERE.

Friday Fine Motor Activity Fun!

Today I am going to share an activity that I have used for time immemorial. I learnt about it from Dr Jean and instantly fell in love with it. And so did my kids. The activity was a hit with the little ones and they kept asking for new shapes to work with.

All you need to do is to draw a shape in the center of the paper and ask children to enlarge the shape. They can use different colors to add to the fun. You can even use seasonal clip art if children have finished working with basic shapes.

 This activity helps develop small muscles and eye hand coordination. It is also great to use as a 

pre- writing activity.

Try it out and see even your hesitant writers enjoy this activity.

Halloween-Friday Fine Motor Activity Fun

This Friday, I am sharing cutting strips (Halloween Theme) for your little ones. All you need is a child friendly scissor and the printable of the cutting strips which you can download from HERE.

  Sorry about the picture being upside down! Sometimes blogger gets very stubborn with regards to images. ;)

Cutting strips of paper with a scissor is great for developing fine motor skills. You don't have to give children directed lines to cut. Simply put scrap paper out for them and let them cut the paper. You can even let them cut play dough with scissors to begin with.

If you are introducing scissors for the first time to your child you can use this fun chant which I found on  TPT.

So grab the free printable and let kids have fun cutting.

Fall- Friday Fine Motor Activity Fun!

This Friday, I am sharing lacing cards for the theme of fall. Lacing cards needs no introduction. They are great for developing fine motor skills and all you need is a thread/yarn/shoelace and few pictures which have been punched on the edges.

Children love lacing pictures and though it seems like an easy task, a lot of children can find it difficult. So prompt your little ones initially, lace one card and show it to them till their little fingers get a hang of it and they turn into pros.

Download this freebie from my TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS STORE.

Pumpkins-Friday Fine Motor Activity Fun

This month, I will be sharing some fine motor activities which you guys can use with little kiddos. And since this is the onset of fall, today I will share free pumpkin number cards which you can download and use in a variety of ways. I used them to help build the fine motor skills of my students apart from the number correspondence skill.

The kids can use tongs/chopsticks to pick up pumpkin seeds or any other manipulative. I used small orange colored pom poms. The kids put the pom poms on the number card and then transferred it to the pumpkin bowl. They can use their fingers or the chopsticks to transfer. I asked them to do this because I was also working on counting as a skill. They got to count the total number of pom poms at the end of the activity.

This is a super simple activity but it works beautifully to develop the finger muscles.
Try it out and let your kids have some pumpkin fun.

Get the number cards from HERE.

Three Little Pigs- Weekly Wednesday Book Talk

The story of  "Three Little pigs" is a classic which no one needs an introduction to. This was my favorite story as a kid and I loved playing the big bad wolf. And whenever I tell this story to little kids I get to relive all the fun memories of my childhood.

I love the ladybird collection of these old tales. The illustrations are bright and fresh and the text is simple to understand.

This story book provides a fantastic chance for role playing and retelling.

We ended up doing a lot of craft work too with this book.

First the kids made the 3 houses of the pigs. For the straw house, they used noodles/spaghetti. For the stick house, ice cream sticks came handy and for the brick house, I simply cut some red paper.

Then the kids made the big bad wolf!

We made the pig snouts with pieces of egg carton. The kids just didn't want to take them off!

They also matched the right pigs to the correct house type. I got the cards from HERE.

We ended this story unit by retelling the story. We cut the pictures and stuck them in the correct order.

Get this Printable from Teachers Pay Teachers.

Hope you liked the activities. Weekly Wednesday Book Talk will take a little sabbatical from the month of October. I would be starting "Friday Fine Motor Activity Fun" soon. So do come back for ideas and printables to develop those little finger muscles of your kiddos.

Dinosaur Ideas

My Dinosaur unit is ready for all you guys out there! It has literacy, math and science activities and is full of hands on learning.

 

There are various math games which your little kiddos will enjoy playing.

The unit also includes a lot of writing activities.

There is an emergent reader in colored and black and white. You could either use it as a book or in a pocket chart.

There are dinosaur life cycle cards and a herbivore and carnivore sort too!

Grab all this fun stuff in one pack by visiting my TPT STORE.

Dinosaur Craft and Writing Activities

After discovering various dinosaurs through books and videos, the kids made crafts of each dinosaur and wrote a fact about each one of them. The dinosaurs turned out to be very cute and my little kids are turning into expert writers,

I found the templates for the crafts from Thecrafttrain.com

The writing sheets are from my own dinosaur unit which I would be posting soon.

Check out my other dinosaur posts for more ideas.