It's Snowing Symmetry!

There's no snow here in central Florida, but that doesn't mean I can't draw a flurry of line symmetry designs, right?

Snowy Symmetry has designs for Winter and Christmas such as a penguin juggling snowballs, silly snowflake and star characters, a walrus, a teddy bear, a gingerbread boy, girl, and house, and Santa holding a gift. There are 16 designs with 3 levels of difficulty, making 48 designs in all.

Teachers have left enthusiastic feedback on my fall and spring symmetry packets such as: 
Great symmetry lessons that scaffold for younger students.
My kids love these and the differentiated variety meets everyone's needs!
Loved this activity. The kids wanted to do it all afternoon

If you would like to combine math and art in a seasonal project, please check out Snowy Symmetry. There is a FREE sample to try in the Preview.

Click cover to view Snowy Symmetry!

Another chilly option is one of the first classroom resources I made, Ready, Set, Snow! Printable Snowflakes to Match Pairs and Halves:

Click cover to view Ready, Set, Snow!

I wish you a very happy holiday season!

Loreen
My web site

Label a Sea Turtle, Woolly Mammoth, or Allosaurus!

An example of one of the Common Core State Standards that pertains to learning vocabulary is CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.2.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases in a text... Labeling a diagram requires linking the word with an image, which activates multiple pathways in the brain—always a good thing!

Another relevant standard is CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.2.7: Explain how specific images (e.g., a diagram showing how a machine works) contribute to and clarify a text.

I've created three printable labeling activities so far. As shown below, the artwork for these activities is realistic which I think is important for this kind of nonfiction material. Cute images are fun but can be misleading in a science education context.

Sea turtles are one of my favorite animals—it's truly amazing that these reptiles have been around for millions of years. The Label a Sea Turtle! diagram includes the vocabulary words head, eye, nose, beak, neck, flipper, shell, scute, tail, and scale. A second diagram of the sea turtle life cycle is also included with the words eggs, hatchling, beach, nest, female, tracks, adult, ocean, juvenile.

Click cover to download the preview in my TPT shop

Answer keys are included, naturally. It's perfect for Ocean, Marine Animal, and Reptile units. The species of sea turtle is the loggerhead, by the way.

The Woolly Mammoth is another wonderful creature that is included in Ice Age and Prehistoric units as well as ancient North American history. Label a Woolly Mammoth! has the words hair, eye, foot, leg, tail, tusk, trunk, ear, back, and head.

Click to find in my TPT shop

Last, but definitely not least is a fearsome meat-eating dinosaur diagram. Label an Allosaurus! can be used with Dinosaur, Prehistoric, or Predator units, and includes the words arm, back, claw, eye, head, leg, neck, tail, teeth, and toe.

Click to go to my TpT shop

I hope these activities will be useful to help kids learn about animals past and present.

If you're interested in an entertaining book about prehistoric life, please take a look at My Teacher Is a Dinosaur and Other Prehistoric Poems, Jokes, Riddles, & Amazing Facts. The School Library Journal review says: ...the tantalizing facts and pictures in this book will stimulate readers' curiosity.

More information is on this page on my web site, or visit the book's page on Amazon: My Teacher Is a Dinosaur and Other Prehistoric Poems, Jokes, Riddles & Amazing Facts

These FREE activities to go with the book are in my TpT shop at this link.

Thanks for stopping by!

Loreen
My Web Site

New Classroom Resources + Freebies!

While on a trip recently, I doodled this idea for a poster activity:

The purpose is to help kids focus on descriptive sensory language in what they are reading. When they find an example of a sight, sound, taste, smell, or touch-related detail, they will record it in the corresponding area of their poster.

The poster can be used with any text of reasonable length such as a magazine article as well as fiction or informational books. Here is a sample of the poster already filled in:

As they read, students will record words or phrases that relate to the 5 senses— rough fence; everyone stares; flavor of grass; sniffs the air; listens for the cow bell— or write a short summary as shown above to give more context.

There's also a vertical version included which you can see in the lower right of the cover:

Click to see 5 Senses Read & Write in my TpT shop.

Another new item is this Owl Combo Pack of Whooo's In Our Class? get-to-know-you foldable plus Owls Are All Write! Graphic Organizers and Writing Papers.

Though this is discounted already, it will be included in the sale. The same goes for the Similes Classroom Books Combo Pack:

Similes & Meanings has 30 familiar similes for kids to illustrate, while Simile Starters has 30 prompts for students to write new, original similes.

We're Nuts About Goals! is a fun craftivity for kiddos to learn about setting goals as early as Kindergarten. They don't even have to be able to write, they can just draw pictures on the acorns. Learning how to set and achieve goals can make all the difference in life so it's an important concept for all students.

Age-appropriate goals could include:
Learning a specific new skill
Meeting a particular Common Core State Standard
Following a class rule
Improving a certain behavior
Trying new things
Reading X number of books
Practicing something a certain length of time per/day or week

As always, my classroom resources including the graphics are original creations by me. Speaking of graphics, this Apple Frames FREEBIE has gotten a ton of downloads and great feedback already:

To make it easier for teachers to find my freebies, there is now a Freebie Category in my shop. To find the newest resources, click on the Most Recent link on the main store page or the NEW! category.

These are most of the "newbie" resources in my shop. I love making classroom resources so more are on the way!

Loreen
My web site

Falling for Symmetry...Autumn Pictures to Draw and Color!

Ever since working on my picture book Seeing Symmetry, I've had an ongoing obsession with symmetry. My Pinterest board with teaching ideas on the subject has over 1,500 followers, so at least I'm not the only one! Because my Spring/Easter egg activity has been so popular, it seemed like a good idea to make a similar one for fall. It's called Falling for Symmetry: Math + Art for Autumn, Halloween, & Thanksgiving. The feedback has indicated that teachers and students LOVE to be able to combine a math lesson with an art activity.

As the image below shows, there are 3 levels included: Color only; Trace dashed lines; Draw the missing half. It's easy to choose the right one for students with different abilities.

Two of my lovely nieces were able to help "demo" Falling for Symmetry, using the most advanced version. Kids can draw the missing half by eye (scarecrow) or can use a ruler to measure and mark key points first (owl.) One of the girls measured the width of the owl's head, chest, leg, and so on.

Using the ruler definitely made it easier for her to draw the 2 halves as matching mirror images.

After the lines were drawn, she went over the lines with a black marker. Next the owl was partly colored in ...symmetrically, of course.

And here is the scarecrow in progress. I asked the girls what their favorite coloring tool is...markers, colored pencils, crayons? They like using crayons the best because they don't bleed like markers and give a more vibrant result than colored pencils.

Here are all of the pictures the girls completed. One of the fun aspects about these symmetry pictures is that each student chooses their own colors so they all turn out differently.

The packet has 20 images in all: 10 general autumn, 6 Halloween, and 4 for Thanksgiving. To download the Preview with more info and a free sample page to try from my TPT shop, click here or on the cover image below.

Click to visit my TPT shop

The Common Core State Standards include line symmetry in 4th Grade geometry (4.G.3) but the underlying concepts of equality (matching), halves versus wholes, unit fractions, and so on appear in earlier grades. Thanks for reading!

Loreen
My web site
Click link below to check out my newest picture book on Amazon:

Jack and the Hungry Giant Eat Right With MyPlate

New Place Value Activities for Fall

For some reason I've had place value on the brain...is that a bad sign? The various color-by-code pictures have always appealed to me and an idea for making puzzles with a place value angle popped into my head a couple of days ago. Here's a close-up that shows how they work:

These puzzles review place value up to Thousands so students will find the underlined number and determine if it is in the Ones, Tens, Hundreds, or Thousands place. They will use the key on the bottom of the picture to choose the correct color for each space.

Here are all three of the images...an owl flying by the harvest moon, a squirrel searching through the autumn leaves for acorns, and a raccoon enjoying a snack of apples:

This packet will be discounted for a few days...right now it's $1.25. Click here to see it in my TeachersPayTeachers shop.

In case you missed it I posted this freebie place value puzzle, It's a Fluke!, a few weeks ago:

Click cover image to visit my TPT shop.

When all the clues are solved, a picture of sun, waves, and a whale tale emerges. It can be downloaded from this page in my TPT shop. Over 200 people have downloaded it so far, so maybe it's not a fluke!

The Common Core State Standards for Math Content start to require "Understanding Place Value" in 2nd Grade.

Hope you're having a great summer!

Loreen
My web site

They're here...Jack & the Hungry Giant Eat Right with MyPlate!

I was rummaging around on Amazon today, and noticed that my new picture book is shipping as of July 1st, so woo hoo! I've only gotten one advance copy thus far, guess the rest of my copies must be on the way. Jack & the Hungry Giant starts out like the traditional fairy tale...Jack gets the beans, they're tossed in the garden, he climbs up the resulting beanstalk and enters the giant's castle. Right away, he runs into a little glitch, or rather, a big furry one!

There may not be a kitty in the original tale, but this orange one demanded to be put into the story. Jack is chased inside a smelly boot, then discovered when the giant arrives home. The giant declares, "I'm hungry!" so the terrified boy makes a dive for it. The giant grabs him by a shoelace, tells him to be careful, and offers to cook him a healthy meal. Waldorf, as it turns out, is a friendly giant and also a wonderful chef.

As they prepare the meal, each spread shows colorful illustrations of the wide variety of foods in the Fruits, Vegetables, Grains, Protein Foods, and Dairy groups. They dish up their plates and enjoy a delicious meal together, along with Waldorf's wife, Zofia. At the end of the book, Waldorf's Tips for Healthy Eating summarizes the MyPlate program and shows many of the foods with empty calories. The last page includes the exercise activities they enjoy in addition to climbing up and down beanstalks.

To look at the book on Amazon, click on this link: Jack and the Hungry Giant Eat Right With MyPlate

Update: During the month of October, the publisher is sponsoring a #giveaway of several copies on Goodreads.

I've posted a FREE activity to go with the book in my TeachersPayTeachers shop. To complete I Can Fill Up My Plate! students will finish writing prompts, make a list of foods in the various groups, then fill up their plate with drawings or cut out photos. Click here to go to my TPT shop and download this resource.

Click cover image to visit my TPT shop

There aren't very many kid-friendly resources to introduce the MyPlate nutrition program, so I hope these will be useful.

Click to visit the Kit Lit blog hop, which has links to over 50 posts about children's books!

Loreen
My web site

A Different Kind of Mystery Picture [Part 2]

Part One of this article is here.

The next puzzle is going to be based on one of my favorite math concepts, symmetry. If you're a new reader of this blog, my most recent picture book is called Seeing Symmetry (see a video preview here.) Anyway, I wanted to use shapes with and without line symmetry for the clues. The kids find the symmetrical shapes to solve each clue. The squares (on the left) have the lines that will be drawn in the grid square.

The photo below shows the clues page with some of the symmetrical shapes circled in orange. The grid rows and columns are indicated by different symmetrical shapes. By the way, line symmetry is introduced in grade 4 of the Common Core State Standards (4.G.3), and it's also taught in 3rd grade in many states. Just a few of the squares have been drawn in so far (see below).

 Once all the clues have been solved and the lines drawn in, an owl with outstretched wings should appear.

As you can see, the owl is also symmetrical. Any glitches in the drawing will be obvious and the student can double-check that square again. Once it looks correct, they go over the lines with a black or dark marker. I like the Crayola® brand  SuperTips because they are a good thickness, are washable, and don't have that awful brain-melting smell that certain markers do (yes, Sharpie, I'm talking about you.)

One of the nice aspects of this different kind of mystery picture is that once the drawing is complete, each kiddo can color it with their choice of colors.

It'll be fun to see the whole flock of uniquely colored, symmetrical owls that will fly in, don't you think? Here is the cover and a link to this puzzle:

Click Cover image to visit my TPT shop

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you like this kind of mystery picture…I'm interested in any and all opinions pro or con. Toodleloo!

Loreen
My web site

A Different Kind of Mystery Picture [Part 1]

Mystery pictures are used for a variety of educational purposes from learning math facts to sight words to geometric shapes. Typically they are based on a 100s or 120s chart and require students to color in the squares or rectangles according to a list of clues. Very useful, but there are a couple of things that kind of bug me about them. First, the image has numbers or words all over it…which is the point, to familiarize kids with those particular concepts. The other issue for me is that the image is blocky, like an enlargement of pixels on a computer screen.

So I've been playing around with a different approach…instead of numbers or other thingies in the squares, how about labeling the rows and columns? It's a kind of simplified coordinate graph as used in the game Battleship.

To find a particular square's "address," the clues can indicate C4, F8, and so on. The next obstacle is the blocky image. I tried drawing a picture in a grid, similar to an art project where you enlarge an image by drawing what's in each square. But drawing curved and other arbitrary lines seemed too difficult for my purposes. It's a puzzle, not an exercise in duplicating an image, per se.

What about straight lines instead? Here is the same image, sans curves:

And not only are the lines straight, they start and stop at key points in the square, such as the corner, midpoint of an edge, or center point (with a few exceptions.) It's definitely easier to draw. So, each clue reveals the coordinates plus has a little square with one or more lines in it for kids to draw on their blank grid.

Since this approach seemed workable, I went ahead and designed the first puzzle. The clues are based on numbers in expanded form, part of learning about place value. Here's a link to the freebie, "It's a Fluke!" (Get it…whale tail…flukes?) Another advantage is that once the picture is drawn, the kiddos can color it any way they like, so each picture will be different.

There may be similar mystery picture puzzles out there in Internetland…in any case, this type is intriguing to me because of the creative options with the image. It will be interesting to see if teachers find these to be useful and fun for students. "Fluke" has had some positive feedback already, so we shall see!

This article is getting long, so I'll post a part 2 soon. Update: Here is the link to Part 2. Thanks for reading!

Loreen
My website

Whooo Likes Owls? From Doodle to Designs

Recently I was doodling some ideas for fall writing templates. (Yes, I know the school year is barely over and summer beckons!) This little owl popped up on the page.

There was something intriguing about him. Eventually, it occurred to me that with the out-stretched wings he could make an interesting 3-section graphic organizer. And as an option, the wings could fold in to hide the contents!

Naturally I went bonkers and made a bunch of them. There's a a KWL chart; Sequencing 1-2-3; Beginning-Middle-End; Are-Have-Can; and a Blank Template. They have primary lines, plain lines, or no lines, for 18 designs in all. They can be used for a wide variety of creative projects such as fall and winter writing, fiction and nonfiction about owls, forest animals, predators, food chains, and so on. Here is the cover of Owls Are All Write!:

Click image to visit my TPT store

After that was finished, I took my almost-90-year-old mother to visit family and old friends in the northeast. While we were on the road, another idea popped up, this time for a "getting to know you" activity. The long image below gives an idea of what Whooo's in Our Class? is all about:

Kids finish the writing prompts, doodle and color, draw or paste in a photo of themselves, and cut out and fold their owl's wings. Students can browse the finished owls to find out fun facts about each other. It will be great for a back-to-school activity or any occasion when kids are getting to know each other. It's a quick print and go kind of thing, which can certainly help in the hectic beginning days of school. This is my newest classroom resource, and will be discounted for a few days. I mark down all new products as a "thank you" to the wonderful teachers who follow me.

But for now, grab a book, relax in a hammock for awhile, and have a great summer! If your school year isn't over yet, hang in there!