Mother's Day Resource Round Up

Here are some fun ways to honor mothers on Mother's Day.  Those who have worked tirelessly at motherhood, created maternal bonds or have been an influence on mothers in society can be celebrated with some fun quick writing activities:

Mother's Day Quick Writes

Students will have an opportunity to choose from 5 quick writing tasks.  They can be compiled into a fun booklet or be turned into cards or scrolls.  These include:

- Mother’s Day Similes

- Mother’s Day Rhyming Couplets
- A Mother’s Point of View Letter
- Writing about Then & Now
- Helping Hands Checklist

For those students wishing to create their own written masterpieces, they may appreciate some themed writing paper:

Mother's Day Writing Paper

Here's a fun free download. Have students create their own pop up card:

Mother's Day Pop Up Card Free Printable

So You Have to Teach Stem and Leaf Plots

I remember changing grades one year and reading over the curriculum.  I envisioned a plant when I saw the words "stem and leaf plots".  I quickly ran to my same grade partner and asked her "What on earth are stem and leaf plots?"  She laughed out loud because I drew one on the board thinking the "stem" was the "stem" and the "leaf" was the "leaf" of a plot.

This concept is a tricky one but can be explained easily if students see it as a bar graph turned on its side.  A good stem and leaf plot shows the first digits of the number (thousands, hundreds or tens) as the stem and the last digit (ones) as the leaf.

Always using topics students are familiar with helps.  I've often turned to things students like:  bus trips, ice cream, bowling scores.  Ending the unit with a game also keeps students aware of place value when it comes to teaching stem and leaf plots. 

For extension activities, think of ways to incorporate the measures of central tendency into stem and leaf plot practice.  Why not take the data and determine the mean, median, mode and range?  Below is a sample of the unit I developed to assist my students in comprehending stem and leaf plots. 

Stem and Leaf Plots - Guided and Independent Practice

Everything Earth Day

April 22nd marks the anniversary of a modern environmental movement.  Explore Earth Day and what students can do to help our environment.  Here are a few activities to prepare for this.  You will find Media Literacy, Language Arts, Math and Science activities to keep your students engaged.

Here are some great Earth Day activities to keep your students engaged in Language Arts, Science, Media Literacy and Math curriculums. There are several ideas for large group, small group and individual activities. These include: sorting parts of speech, letter and poetry writing, oral communication activities, Science experiments, tips for Media Literacy and managing data from everyday garbage/compost/recycling materials. A vocabulary list is also included.

Earth Day Math games are a fun way to celebrate April 22nd. This package includes 3 games. The first game involves adding two numbers to generate a sum and then multiplying the sum by 3 (representing the 3 R's of recycling) . The second game involves using 3 numbers to generate an answer as close to 22 as possible (representing the 22nd). Students have the opportunity to use any of the basic operations to produce an answer. The final game involves place value. Students use 4 or 3 digits in the 1000,100,10 or 1's place to represent the number 2204 (for 22 April) or 224 (differentiated). Full instructions, game cards and playing boards are included.

This package of writing paper contains friendly letter writing paper, emergent journal paper for half pages and full pages, as well as established journal paper for half pages and full pages with an Earth day Theme . Images include a recycling bin, a garbage can, planet earth, bear holding an earth balloon, earth day pencil, bear holding a recycling box and bear holding the earth. 

Celebrate Earth Day with 5 quick writing activities. You will find an Earth Day vocabulary list, specialty writing paper and templates for each of the following tasks: 

- Earth Day “To Do” List
- Earth Day Slogans
- Earth Day Guess the Word
- If Earth Could Speak Letter Writing
- Earth Day Rhyming Couplets

These may be used for writing stations or as part of a choice activity.

Students will be prompted to tell or write story with an Earth Day theme. This unit includes a story prompt sheet, graphic organizers, word lists (Earth Day & transition words), rubric and specialty writing paper with full and half lined pages.


Earth Day Free Craft Instructions


Here's a fun way to get your students involved in ways to make earth friendly choices. This freebie gives you directions on how to design your own light switch covers for your classroom or for the entire school. This is a great activity for your earth friendly school clubs or even a classroom project for Earth Day. Step by step instructions are included.

Celebrating Canada's 150th Birthday in the Classroom

People are celebrating the 150th anniversary of Confederation across the country. Ranging from local and community events to national celebrations, Canadians have been celebrating in 2017. There are plenty of ways to get involved and celebrate with students in the classroom.

Since it's National Poetry month, why not have a Canadian themed poetry cafe?  Here's a pack I created to celebrate Canada:  

Celebrate Canada Poetry

For some math activities, Canadian coins are showcased.  Students will learn to make change and make change for a loonie or a toonie.  The student who reaches his or her coin choice is declared the winner.

Counting Coins Game

Another activity to extend the learning about money involves Counting Coins Using Canadian Currency, Using Canadian coins, students will have the opportunity to create money amounts up to $5.00 in challenging ways. On each task card, there are two ways to represent the amount: using the lowest possible coins and then using the number of coins stated. Money amounts range from 5 cents to $5.00.\

Here's a free download to write about Canada:  

Canada Acrostic Poem Freebie