Honor The Crayons!

Hello Friends!

It is time to get colorful in your classroom, and teach teamwork at the same time!  It's Jennifer from Stories and Songs in Second  here with two great story suggestions, a fun collection of complimentary Pinterest ideas, and two FREEBIES to help you!

I hope this post will encourage you to plan your own classroom celebration that spotlights the sassy, colorful, humorous, and very outspoken crayons featured in Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers' playful picture books, The Day the Crayons Quit and The Day the Crayons Came Home.

Written by Drew Daywalt

Illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

Published by Penguin Random House

Both books are perfect mentor texts to use when introducing a letter-writing or persuasive writing unit, and are written and illustrated in a spunky, delightful style that will engage and entertain readers of all ages!  In The Day the Crayons Quit, young Duncan's box of twelve crayons have just had it with each other and their stereotypical roles.

Black is tired of just outlining.

Blue is done coloring oceans.

Yellow and orange are always quarreling about which one of them is the true color of the sun.

Life inside their box is a battlefield, and the disgruntled dozen decides to go on strike!  They write letters to their owner to share their worries and woes, and hilarity ensues!

In The Day the Crayons Came Home, you'll find that life outside the box has not been all that grand for Duncan's crayons.  Their plan to run away and see the world has backfired, and they've mailed a series of postcards to their owner explaining their whereabouts and the reason he needs to come rescue them.  Each page of the story reveals the hysterical scenarios each crayon has experienced in his or her travels, and will make you laugh out loud.  Grey has had his point bitten off by Duncan's baby brother.  Brown has been eaten by his dog.  Orange and yellow were left by the pool and have melted together in the hot sun.

Pea Green, who has donned a superhero cape and renamed himself "Esteban the Magnificent," sums up his own woeful experience and admits that there is "no place like home" with this simple statement....

Dear Duncan,

I've seen the world.

It's rainy.

I'm coming back.

Esteban the Magnificent

Because the prodigal crayons are worn out, broken, and weary, they won't fit in the original box they once lived in.  Duncan then decides to construct a new home for his creative friends out of a variety of boxes, making sure to meet each color's unique needs and adaptations.   He makes a special space where they can all co-exist together peacefully and happily,  Imagine what wonderful "Crayon Forts" your students could design and build using their own ingenuity, shoeboxes, cereal boxes, and a whole lot of glue and tape !?!?!!  Talk about a great exercise in teamwork and problem-solving!

You'll find more wonderful ways to enrich and extend your crayon-themed learning activities here in this FREE pack of writing templates!  Your students will surely enjoy using the prompts to write their own crayon postcards and letters! Thanks in advance for leaving thoughtful feedback!  It is truly appreciated!

Download this resource from TpT {HERE}!

While you are browsing through my store, be sure to check out this

other fun and FREE booklet that compliments The Crayon Box That Talked!

Click {HERE} to download!

Be sure to follow me on PINTEREST for more creative and colorful ideas for your classroom!

As always, thanks for allowing me to share my story! Stay creative, and be sure to honor your own unique and colorful talents!

PIN FOR LATER

Continue to teach your children well,

Be sure to follow me on social media!  You will find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Visit me at my blog, Stories and Songs in Second for more great ideas for your classroom!

A Lucky Linky from The Primary Pack

Top O' The Morning To You!

Welcome to our March Lucky Linky party!  We are rounding up all things St. Patrick's Day-related here at The Primary Pack this week!  We thought we'd make it easy for you to find all things green on our blogs and in our stores!  May all Irish eyes smile upon you as leprechaun fun infuses the learning in your classroom!

Please hop through the resource and blog links below to find fun holiday resources and activities that are sure to keep your little leprechauns engaged and excited about learning!  Be sure to grab this complimentary FREEBIE from the list!  It includes bag toppers for rainbow-colored snacks like Skittles, Twizzlers, or Starbursts, as well as cute bookmarks!

I created them for the "ShamROCK and READ!" party that my second graders are hosting for our fifth grade buddies next week!  I can't wait to share my newest addition to my favorite folktale collection with our friends, What Leprechauns Do by Eve Bunting!

As always, thanks for continuing to support our colorful and collaborative group of bloggers!  We hope that you'll stop back often!  May this Irish saying brighten your day and guide your way!

Before you hop over to visit the blogs of more Primary Pack members, be sure to check out my
Pinterest board for more St Patrick's Day ideas!


Follow Jennifer Boney-Reynolds's board St. Patrick's Day Ideas on Pinterest.

An InLinkz Link-up

Flurry of Freebies - A Winter Ebook and Link-Up

Happy 2016 everyone!
We over at the Primary Pack are excited to start a new year together and with all of our readers! We'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for stopping in and supporting us!

With school starting up again for the new year, we know that it can take a little extra to get motivated. We know you have new ideas and things you want to try out, but that takes time and energy!

We wanted to help YOU out with a special winter surprise for you and your classroom! It's our Flurry of Freebies Winter Ebook!

In this FREE ebook, you will get an amazing collection of printable resources from us at the Primary Pack. They are ready for you to use in your classroom TODAY!

Just download and print...you're all set!
Simply click the image below to download your FREE copy.

But that's not all! We would love for you to show us your winter resources as well.
Do you have any winter products are freebies to share with our readers? Let's see them!

To link up and share, please follow the instructions below. 

Thank you for joining us!

We hope you enjoy our freebie booklet and that you grab and discover many great winter freebies and products from the link-up. Please check out our full products and stores, included within the booklet.

An InLinkz Link-up

Dove Peace Foldable Writing Craftivity

Happy November everyone! 

It's Elyse from Proud to be Primary. 

I'm popping in today to share some activities for you to use in your classroom this month. On November 11th, it is Remembrance Day in Canada and Veteran's Day in the US. To prepare for this important events, I like to teach my students about peace.

Last year around this time on the Primary Pack, I shared this post that includes FREE peace writing templates. Head HERE to read about it and grab your freebie.

This year, I've created a dove foldable craftivity that will make a beautiful display in your classroom. To learn how to create this craftivity in your classroom and grab the templates for FREE, head to my blog HERE.

How do you teach your students about peace? 

We'd love to hear your ideas!

Parent Teacher Conference FREEBIE!

Hi everyone! Alisha from Missing Tooth Grins here! If you were to see me right now, you would probably see me sporting some ROYALS gear ALL DAY EVERY DAY. Well, except today and last Monday because of conferences! But, right when I get home... It's back to Royals gear! Because we are all excited about the WORLD SERIES BABY. 

Anyway, enough of that. Like I said, it's conference time and I'm here to bring you some fun freebies and such. In my previous school, our whole school implemented student led conferences. I wrote about how I did student led conferences in my classroom here. 

Today, I'm sharing a few freebies that I hope will help you with your conference prep. 

At conferences, I use this little checklist to help me keep track of conference times, along with who attended the conference and what I need to do for next steps. For example, if the parent requested that I send home sight word cards or flash cards, I would write that down on this form so that I don't forget to actually do that. Goodbye post-its all over my conference folders and table! Hellllllooooo organization at it's finest. 

We needed to set up a table for parents to take a school survey outside our room. In addition to the survey, I left a big bowl of mints and a notepad for them to leave a sweet little note for their firstie. My kids whose parents had a conference Monday night were oh so excited to come in on Tuesday morning to these sweet notes. 

Click on the pictures below to grab your freebies!

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy your freebies! Happy conference time, peeps!

BOO-yah! You've Been BOOed! [FREE!]

Happy Halloween! It's Dianna here with you today from Sassy, Savvy, Simple Teaching! Click my button below to follow me along my journey!

It's the season to spread some BOO! So get started SPOOKING a few! Start a little fun this season, put smiles on faces & TREATS at their places!

It's a great activity to build school morale with the entire staff! You can also play with your friends or neighbors too! Keep it a SECRET, nobody will ever know who BOOed who! 

It's simple to get started, just BREW your SPELL! Take a day to make 2, 2 treat bags & 2 copies of each! 

Join the fun, the season is here. So spread the BOO & keep the CHEER!

Click on any of the photos or HERE to grab this for yourself!

Happy BOOing!

Fun and Creative Ideas for Your Classroom Halloween Party!

Hello friends!  Happy October from Cara Taylor at Creative Playground!  I have to be honest... Halloween is my favorite time of year because of my birthday.  But this year, I'm turning a "milestone" age, and it's getting me down.  So I'm trying REAL hard to get out of this funk and what better way than to have a party!  A classroom Halloween party that is!

     Year after year, I've come to do the same ol' thing when it comes to parties... Have snacks and watch a movie.  Very easy and manageable, especially when you have no parent help.  But with the birthday this year, I decided to celebrate a little different this time and have a party around a theme.  And what better theme than candy corn?

     After doing some research, I discovered that October 30th is National Candy Corn Day!  So it makes sense to use this as our "featured" candy for our theme.  It also lends well for classrooms that don't really celebrate Halloween or have students that don't participate in this holiday's festivities. 

     I decided that centers would be awesome and easier to run with so many different activities.  If your students are used to centers, it will be easier for them.  But if they're not familiar with the center "do's and don'ts" I might not try this set-up.  It's supposed to be a fun time; not a time you're pulling out all your hair!

  

  Prepare by getting your candy corn... There are a variety of different types, colors and flavors.  So think ahead about your use of them and that should help with what kind to get.  For example, if you'd like to do a sort, choose the Fall Holiday Mix of candy corn that has various types of shapes in it.  If you'd like to do a taste test, choose different flavors of candy corn.

 

   I'm an artsy-fartsy type of girl, so craftivities are right up my alley!  I wanted to use the Halloween monster theme and candy corn, so I came up with this cute craft monster!

     Is this the cutest monster or what?  I'd suggest having all the templates made for your kiddos; I like doing it on white paper so the kids can color it the colors they like.  The last step would be to glue on the candy corn teeth.  This can be done in a pattern or randomly.  You can even make it into an addition and subtraction center, with adding more and taking away teeth.  How fun!  Students could write their own story problems as well.

     I have many center activities planned, like this game above.   Each student in the group has a game board and they spin using the spinner to find the sum of the numbers.  If they have that number on their board, they cover it with a candy corn.  The first player to cover their board is the "winner".  What a fun way to practice addition and incorporate candy corn!

     Another center game is this candy corn shape find.  Again, students have a board similar to this one.  A shape card is pulled and if the student has that shape on their board, they cover it with a candy corn.  Perfect way to practice shapes!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Halloween-and-Fall-2116543

     To throw in a little writing, classroom books are a great idea!  This is the cover for a book about when we all become pieces of candy corn.  The students have a sheet to write and draw about their adventures.  It can then be put together into a book for the classroom library.

     Grab and Guess is a fun way to pull in estimation, which is an easy skill to focus on with a bunch of candy corn.  I put a little twist in this activity, with having the students estimating how many are LEFT in the bag, forcing them to think about missing addends!  Sneaky, we teachers are!  The recording sheet is seen below.  If you'd like a copy of this center and printables, click here.

    Another way to pull in estimation is to have an ongoing Estimation Station activity in which the students make estimates as to how many candy corn are in each jar.  I like to have more than one jar, so they can practice various skills.  Try to have different sizes of jars and have two jars with the same amount.  Great way to talk about volume and using mental strategies for counting and estimating!  For a copy of this printable, click here.

     I have all these centers in a Candy Corn unit that can be found in my store.  There are many different games and activities, along with recording sheets.  

     There's also craftivities included in the unit, along with all the templates you need to make the candy corn monster above!  I've also written a candy corn big book, that explains all you need to know about candy corn and more!

      

     I have this unit on sale right now, so it's a great time to grab it!  Make sure to get the free printables by clicking here!

I'd love to hear how you celebrate Halloween in your classroom AND how you overcome those "milestone" birthdays!

Until Later my Friends,