Creating Stories with Your Children

When my daughters were born

I wanted to get them excited about reading, writing and learning,

so that they would have a lifelong love of and desire to learn!

 

One of the ways we did this, was that my husband and I started reading with them from birth, plus we created simple Little Learner Books with their pictures to be shared over and over again!

 

This is a front cover of the color book.

 

It was a time when the instant pictures were popular so it was easy to put a book together.

Computers and phone cameras today, also make it easy peasy!

 

We did a variety of different topics; colors, numbers, shapes, letters, family, etc. anything to help make the learning process fun!

 

The books were not fancy, just pieces of cardstock that were stitched or

bound on the left side.

 

So for the color book they would find something of that color for each page, then we would talk about what they would say and want us to write down.

 

It wasn't long before they were "reading" these little stories and

sharing them with everyone!

 

This one was a favorite story!

 

Melody loved bunnies and had a large collection of stuffed rabbits! So as the story

progresses a new bunny was added until the very last page 11,

"Melody has too many bunnies!".

 

As I looked back on them over the years,

 I realize that they have many things I could have/should have done differently.

But....there isn't always enough time in the day to make it perfect,

 just enough to make it fun! 

 

Take the time with your children to create stories and memories that can be shared and

well loved with the passing of time.

Tiny Books!

Do you need some activities to make your teaching year successful or have items in your TpT wishlist, that have been sitting there? 

 

Try this new educational activity, Tiny Books!

 

Christine Maxwell Hand to Heart

 

Well, I have added a new search label in my CUSTOM CATEGORIES!

Tiny Books

I have several different topics of booklets listed and I plan on adding many more!

 

Tiny Book of 2D Shapes Print, Fold, Cut and Glue.

 

This is a quick and easy way to introduce or review shapes. The six shapes included are circle, square, triangle, rectangle, rhombus and hexagon. Simply print, fold, cut and glue.

Directions: Run the two booklet pages, printing on the front side only. The six colored shape examples can be run colored or grayscale. There are three sets to each sheet, but each child only gets one set of six pictures for their booklet.

Activity: Pass the two pages out to each student. They are to fold each sheet in half on the dotted line and again in half on the dotted line. Place the two pages together with the title on the front and The End page last. The booklet then gets stapled or glued together on the left side.

The booklet shapes maybe traced or colored during introduction or review. Pass out the set of six pictures strip to each student. They cut the six pictures apart and glue them in the box on the correct shape page.

 

Tiny Book of Solid Shapes Print, Fold, Cut and Glue.

 

Another easy way to introduce or review solid shapes. The six shapes included are sphere, cone, cube, cylinder, pyramid, and rectangle prism. Again simply print, fold, cut and glue.

 

These two booklets can also be found in a money-saving bundle too!

 2 Tiny Books of 2D and 3D Shapes Print, Fold, Cut and Glue.

 

 

There is a money tiny book called

Tiny Book of Money.

 

Here is a simple intro or review of money. The six money pages included are penny, nickel, dime, quarter, half dollar and dollar. Plus there is a money poem for each one, to help them remember the amount it is worth!

 

The tiny book of colors which I have talked about in a previous blog post called

Tiny Book of Colors.

In this activity are the colors; red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple, brown, black, white, and pink.

 

The newest tiny book is  

Tiny Book of Numbers, Counting, Writing and Ten Frames.

 

The quick and easy way to introduce or review numbers. Plus each child will have a great take home and review booklet to keep! Included in this activity are the numbers 1-10.

 

Each of these books can also be cut apart and used in centers, magnetic boards or with Velcro! 

As shown in this picture!

 

 I always like to give my Followers something extra for following my blog and social media! All my media links are included in the blue strip line under the Blog header picture too!

 

So be sure and Follow, you never know when I might post a new freebie to enjoy!



Best Year Ever

If you teach in a classroom, homeschool, preschool, daycare, afterschool, roadschool, worldschool or are a parent, grandparent or sitter and need fun educational activities and products for children. you need TeachersPayTeachers!

Visit my

Christine Maxwell Hand to Heart TpT Store.

I have a wide variety of activities for all subject areas,

plus decor for your educational settings!

Click on the drop down menu and go to "Most Recent" to see the new products I've added.

 

This makes me smile!

I realize this poster doesn't include the homeschoolers or roadschoolers,

but it is very real for

PreK, first grade, second grade, third........ 

 

I just uploaded a new

Tiny Book of Numbers

which is becoming a popular line of activities in my store!

Click on Tiny Books in my CUSTOM CATEGORIES to find others, 

plus I will be adding many more!

This is a quick and easy way to introduce or review numbers. Plus each child will have a great take home and review booklet to keep! Included in this activity are the numbers 1-10.

 Directions: Run the three booklet pages, printing on the front side only. The ten little number examples can be run colored or blackline.

Activity: Pass the three pages out to each student. They are to fold each sheet in half on the short dotted line and again in half on the long dotted line. Place the three folded pages together with the title on the front and The End page last. The booklet then gets stapled or glued together on the left side.

The booklet numbers and ten frames can be traced or colored during introduction or review. Pass the set of ten little pictures to each student. They cut the ten pictures apart and glue them in the box on the correct number page.

Other ways this can be used is to laminate, cut the pages apart, put Velcro on the number boxes and the little picture cards so that children can match the number of objects to the correct pictures or set it up on a magnetic board.

 

Tip: How to get TPT credit to use on future purchases by leaving feedback on Paid products!

 To do this, go to your My Purchases page, you may need to login to TpT. Beside each purchase you'll see a Provide Feedback button. Simply click it and you will be taken to a page where you can give a quick rating and leave a short comment for the product.

I truly appreciate your feedback!  



WORLD TEACHERS' DAY

I celebrate all types of teachers on this special day!

 

 

 

I have many activities for fall and Halloween, just use the CUSTOM CATEGORIES on
 the left sidebar of my store to help find what you are looking for!

 Also notice in the top of my store under the four featured activities is a dropdown menu with five choices to click on; Best Seller, Most Recent, Rating, Price and Alphabetical. In Most Recent you will find the newest products and activities that are working their way up to best seller!

Christine Maxwell Hand to Heart

 Good luck and happy shopping!

Picture Frame Attachments for the First Day, 100th Day, & Last Day Of School!

A popular way to create special memento pictures of each child during the year is to use picture frame attachments! I have a wide variety of themes in my store and I am always making more!

This one is called

School Picture Frame Attachments

There are pieces for the First Day of School (shown), 100th Day of School, and Last Day of School. The quickest way to use this activity to put Velcro on the empty picture frame corners and on the back of the picture attachments. Then just add or change them as needed. There are extra pictures for added decoration. You can use the extra pieces to write your name or grade level to add to the frame! 

 

Decide what size empty picture frame you are going to use. The 8” by 10”, 11” by 14” or 16” by 20” are great sizes for these attachments. The example frame shown is 11” by 14.”

Picture Frame Themes 

Have the child hold the empty frame with the pictures attached, centered in front of their face and smile! You take their picture and they will have a wonderful remembrance keepsake! 

This activity is fun for teachers, parents, homeschools, daycares, preschools, and even roadschoolers!

Back To School Stress

Feeling overwhelmed with back to school, especially as a first year teacher or a new homeschool educator. Reach out to another staff member or homeschooler for help!
A good peer is always willing to come to the rescue and
help you keep your head above water!

 If you see a teacher or new homeschooling teacher "drowning" in the classroom, maybe you can throw them a few lifeline tips to help them tread the educational water.

b and d Reversals Posters Visual Cues

Sometimes lowercase b and d can be confusing for children and some adults, knowing the direction of each letter, especially when doing reading and writing activities! I have created an activity to help give a memory trigger for the letters.

 

This cute new product is a set of visual cue posters to help with letters

b and d Reversals Posters Visual Cues.

Visual cues can be helpful with remembering the correct ways the letters are formed.

Lowercase b has a baby patting his belly. This is to help remind students that lowercase b has a belly. The circle for the letter is on the right side of the stick and belly starts with the letter b. 

Lowercase d has a baby with a diaper. This is to help remind students that lowercase d has a diaper. The circle for the letter is on the left side of the stick and diaper starts with the letter d.

 

Enjoy these two freebie posters in color or black and white!

 

To find other parts of this product or to purchase the smaller student sizes for individual reference, click on the link above!

 Click on the Preview to see the complete activity!

Puzzles, Puzzles and More Puzzles

Puzzles are such a fun way to introduce, practice and evaluate learning skills! I have many available for different learning concepts, but the most popular one is

Antonym Puzzle Match-30 Opposite Matches.

 

 They can easily be adapted for a variety of ages. Start the littlest learner by only using concepts introduced and starting with very simple examples!

The instruction page has several games to play using these pieces. For example, give each child a puzzle piece, making sure that another child has the matching piece. The students then scramble to find their match.

 

Print, laminate, cut apart, and use year after year!

Don’t have time to cut puzzles? You may have a valuable, untapped resource, in your student’s parents! Many parents work and are unable to help with activities or projects in the classroom. This is their time to shine! Simply send home the puzzles after laminating, with directions about how you want them to be cut. The puzzles come back with both the student and parents proud to be involved in helping the teacher!

 

Most of my puzzle activities have curved corners to keep children from being poked. I know it takes longer to cut them out this way, so if you are in a hurry simply cut them straight across for square edges!

I have a free product that give you a chance to use some of the different puzzle activities I have available.

 

FREE! Puzzle Match Sample Pack

This free product has 42 puzzles that include the concepts of solid shapes (cone, cube, sphere, and cylinder), hour time (12:00-5:00), antonyms or opposites, rhyming, homonyms/homophones, time sequence, size sequence, and things that go together. 

Enjoy!

I have many other types of activities like this, just look under
Puzzles and Games.

Looking For Educational Activities and Products?

Visit my store!

Free! 1-10 Booklet Of Number Forms for Review or Introduction!

This is the most popular free activity in my  

TeacherspayTeachers Store!

Free! 1-10 Booklet Of Number Forms

It includes these various number forms;

Dice, Fingers, Tally Marks, Ten Frame, Ordinals, Counting Kids, Number Line, Coins, Number Formation, Formation Poem, Number Word, and Counting Cubes.

Run the booklet, printing on the front side only. The cover pages can be run on heavier paper to make the project sturdier.

Pass the six pages out to each child. They cut them apart on the dotted middle line, then put the pages in the correct sequence with front cover, pages 1 thru 10 and back cover.

The pictures can be traced or colored during introduction or review. Many other forms of the number can be added by the students on the blank left page across for the number page.

There are links in the description to other number sense products and activities in my store!

Summer Practice Activities!

These two activities are recent additions to my store and would make great summer practice!

 Bees and Hives Letter and Sound Matching for Spring and Summer

What a fun way to practice letter matching and beginning sounds with adorable bees and bee hives! They look really cute completely cut out separately, but if you don't have time they can be cut on the box straight and curved lines. 

  

 

There is a set in color and a set in blackline for less ink use.
Introduce or review the concepts of letter matching first and then add beginning sounds.

 

The other activity is

 Summer Baseball and Mitt Letter Matching Color or Black and White

 What another great way to practice letter matching with a baseball theme of mitts and baseballs! Just laminate and use over and over every year!

There is a set in color and a set in black and white for less ink use. Plus the black and white lined set can be run on colored paper to add more creativity to the activity!

Introduce or review the concepts of letter matching. This activity can be used, even if only a few letter concepts have been introduced. Then add the other pieces as they are learned. 

 

Enjoy!

ABCs End Of The Year Review or Summer Practice

It is the time of year when many schools, homeschools, daycares, preschools and childcares are winding down for summer break. Plus many parents are looking for activities and products for practice and review over the summertime to keep their children's academic skills from regressing! 

Aa to Zz Letter and Sound Banners

This activity is a fun way to review the letters and sounds from Aa to Zz! It includes simple vocabulary words for the beginning reader, plus cut and paste activities for fine motor skill practice. The whole project creates a wonderful banner of ABCs or can be made into an ABC Book!

I have a wide variety of products and activities in my store for summer practice and review!

Christine Maxwell Hand to Heart

My Fun Shines of Summer

Getting children to write during the summer can sometimes be a challenge!

So the goal is to make it simple, fun and creative!

Need an activity to promote creative writing over the summer and exciting enough for your students or children to want to do it? This project can be used to write down those moments that truly shined for them over vacation. Those special times that put a smile on their face because they enjoyed it so much!

My Fun Shines of Summer Creative Writing and Art Activity!

The black and white blackline set can be run on yellow papers or for more fun, print on designed papers. See example above! This is the cheapest way as it uses less ink. The yellow colored set has rays in two shades of yellow or mixed colors.

Print the pages out on the front side only. The thicker the paper, the more durable they will be. The sun is big enough that it can have two pages of rays shining around it! The rays can also be flipped the opposite direction so the skinny side is shining out.

The littlest learners can dictate their ideas for someone to write them down. Older children can write a more detailed small paragraph.

This is an activity in my

TeacherpayTeachers Store.

As a special treat for only my blog Followers, I am posting two pages of this activity for your personal use only.

Here are two blacklines for this activity! I have posted the sun and a set of rays!

 When you go to my store if you look under My Products, you will see a Sort Menu and if you click "Most Recent" all of my latest activities and products are listed.

 It makes a great bucket list activity too!

Free Sample Pack of Puzzles!

To introduce some of my activities, I use free samples of the product!

Puzzles are a quick fun way to introduce, practice or even evaluate learning skills.

 

Today, I am sharing my

Puzzle Match Sample Pack.

This free product has 42 puzzles that include the concepts of solid shapes (cone, cube, sphere, and cylinder), hour time (12:00-5:00), antonyms or opposites, rhyming, homonyms, time sequence, size sequence, and things that go together.

There is one whole page for each concept. It has six puzzles each for solids, time, opposites, rhyming, things that go together and homonyms, plus three puzzles each for size and time sequence.

They can be used for introducing, reviewing, or evaluating these concepts one to one, in small groups or centers. They are also fun to use in game activities, like ©Concentration.

Print, laminate, cut apart, and use year after year!

 

Download Preview to see the complete activity.

I have many other puzzle activities in my store and I am always making more!

Enjoy!



Celebrate The End of The Year!

The end of the year is getting closer with each passing day!

So much to do and so little time to do it!

 

To encourage summer reading, I've created an end of the year bookmark that hopefully will be a placemarker in several reading books during vacation!

Free! End of the Year Beach Theme Bookmarks

This has 4 pages of bookmarks for the end of the year with a beach theme. Show someone you care! Great for educators to give to students or staff.

They can be used to motivate reading with the words "Have a super summer! I will miss you!" The clipart is appropriate for a wide range of groups and age levels. There is color and grayscale, which can be colored. I would love feedback if you download this, please!

 

 I also have a wide variety of certificates and diplomas in many colors and designs!
This is my newest one!

End of Year Certificates or Diplomas of Completion For Any Activity.
Plus I have a variety of others!

 These can be found in my

TeacherspayTeachers Store

look under CUSTOM CATEGORIES for

Back to & End School.

There are spaces to be handwritten in for the name, the date, and the signing person.

After printing the certificate out, just fill in the blanks and present to the student. So much more personal when handwritten! They look gorgeous framed and are a wonderful memento!
 

 I also have Picture Frame Attachments.

 

Print the activity out on one side only. The heavier the paper, the more durable it will be. Laminate and cut the pieces out.

Decide what size empty picture frame you are going to use. The 8” by 10”, 11” by 14” or 16” by 20” are great sizes for these attachments. The example frame shown is 11” by 14.”

Have the student hold the empty frame with the pictures attached, centered in front of their face and smile! You take their picture and they will have a wonderful

remembrance keepsake!
I have other Frame Attachments in my store and will be creating more!

Don't forget to Follow Me, you never know when I will post another freebie!



End of School Goodbye Notes!

I am excited to share a fun summer product!

The activity that I am sharing is my 

End of The Year Summer Goodbye Notes,

What an adorable looking little crab! This product has notes or postcards for the end of the year with a beach theme. You can create a personal handwritten note or use as a thank you card.

Show someone you care! Great for teachers to give to students, principals to staff or just from one person to another. 

There are three versions. No fold single quarter sheet, side fold half sheet and top fold half sheet. There is color and gray scale, which can be colored. The clipart is appropriate for a wide range of groups and age levels.

After printing the notes out, just write a heartfelt message and give it to that special someone! It looks so cute and is a wonderful keepsake!

Warm Fuzzies!

I love Warm Fuzzies!

 

Urban Dictionary Definition: notes of praise that gives one a "warm fuzzy" feeling upon reception! As when someone you love or close to you says or does something that gives you a tingling sensation, melted or warmed heart, sends your heart racing to the heavens or even gives that "good" kind of goosebumps!

 

I truly love all the creative drawn pictures and adorable inventive written cards from the children, plus the special handwritten letters and notes from the parents!

It means so much when someone takes the time and effort to show they care!

So as the year ends, two things......

 

As a parent, take a moment to share a warm fuzzy with your child's educator or teacher.

As a teacher or educator, take the time to start a special Warm Fuzzy File for all your
one-of-a-kind treasured keepsakes.

 

I am so glad I did!

 I am so excited to have this post featured on the TpT blog!



End Of The Year Diplomas and Certificates!

The end of the year is rapidly coming, along with the many end of the year celebrations! I have a wide variety of diplomas and certificates in various colors and styles, to make those milestone achievements memorable!

I have Kinder and Preschool Diplomas, as well as non-grade, age and activity specific for up to and including adults!

End of School Products

Click the link to find a variety of end of the year products!