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.

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!



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!

Tiny Book of Colors

Learning the colors is one of the first skill sets achieved by little people.

Colors are everywhere which makes them so easy to teach. 

 

Freebie Alert Here Only! 

I have a variety of color activities in my store, but have decided to post one here as a

freebie for blog readers only!

Tiny Book of Colors
Here it is in my store, but the free pages are posted below!

This is a quick and easy way to introduce or review colors and color words. Plus each child will have a great take home read and review booklet to keep!

Included in this activity are the colors; red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple, brown,

black, white, and pink.

Here are some example pages shown!



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

 

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 color words maybe traced or colored during introduction or review.

 

 

 

 

Pass out the set of ten little pictures to each student.

They cut the ten pictures apart and glue them in the box on the correct color page. 

The little color boxes can be in color or black and white.There are links in the product description linked above to many other color activities and products!

Enjoy this free activity!

 



Earth Day

Earth Day is an annual event, celebrated on April 22, on which day events worldwide are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It was first celebrated in 1970 and is now celebrated in more than 192 countries each year, coordinated globally by the

Earth Day Network.

 

I am sharing two free pages of my reading and writing activity

Earth Day Stationery.

 There are also blank pages for the students to write on, using no lines.  The littlest learners can dictate their story to an adult.

 There are three different writing grids pages, so you can pick the right one for your age group. They are in colors and gray shades.

 The students love to share their stories! They can be made into a class book or posted for all to see.

There are other pages in a variety of colors in the complete product.

Here are 21 pages of Earth stationery in a variety of color and gray shades. Each color and gray shade has differentiated lines for a variety of grade level writing assignments.

Earth Day Stationery

Enjoy!

Happy New Year!

 

Free! Happy New Year Resolutions

This thought provoking creative writing assignment is a fun way to bring in the New Year. It is designed to stimulate positive thoughts and actions for the coming year for a 

variety of ages!

The littlest learners can have the questions read to them and someone write down their answers. They truly have some interesting suggestions!

New Year Skip Counting Cut And Glue

This activity has four odd and even counting pages to 20 and two skip counting page by 10s to 100. One set is color and the other black and white.

Cut apart the strips and glue them down on another piece of paper in the correct sequence. If the order is correct the picture is correct, then color if in black and white.

For continued practice, just send the cut pieces home, instead of having them glued down.

These can also be laminated and used in a center. For example, glue magnets to the back of each strip and use on a cookie sheet. Put a colored dot on the back of matching pieces to keep them from getting mixed up!

 

Best Wishes for a Happy New Year!

Santa Express Geometric Christmas Train

There are so many great stories about trains for children! A very special story for the holiday season is the classic "The Polar Express" by Chris Van Allsburg's. This fun product incorporates 5 geometric shapes into the building of a train engine,
plus a creative literacy activity.

 

 Santa Express Geometric Christmas Train

 

 There are 3 complete train engine choices; 1 has red and green colors, 1 is grayscale colored, and the last is black and white. The train can be made as a stand-alone, but that is better printed on heavy paper. It can also be made by gluing the pieces down on another piece of paper.

This project is excellent practice for the fine motor skills of cutting and gluing. It is a good idea to give each child a baggie to hold their cut pieces until they have glued them all.

Introduce or review the five shapes; circle, square, triangle, rectangle, and hexagon. Decide if posting the picture of the finished Key that is included, so the children may use it for reference. When doing the black and white or grayscale engines, the children can color or decorate them when finished.

This activity can also be used in a center, but it is better if the pieces are laminated first. Some of the pieces are small so a baggie helps to keep any from getting lost.

 

The literacy activity has a black and white train paper with lines for writing and reading their creative stories. There is a cover sheet to make these stories into a class share book the students can read and reread again and again.

 

 The Geometric Train can be used for other stories about trains.

Some examples are:
1. Smokey by Bill Peet
2. Crack in the Track (Thomas the Tank Engine Story)
3. Little Train by Lois Lenski
4. The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper
5. Steam, Smoke, and Steel: Back in Time with Trains by Patrick O’Brien
6. Big Book of Trains by DK Publishing
7. The Goodnight Train by June Sobel
8. The Potty Train by David Hochman
9. Dinosaur Train by John Steven Gurney
10. Freight Train by Donald Crews

 

I have another train product that can also be a Christmas train activity,

but can be used at other times of the year too.
Christmas Train Do Together Parent/Child Homework Activity

 

There are many other geometric activities and money saving geometric bundles in my store.
Geometric Activities
Also See:
Christmas Activities
Puzzles & Games
Colors & Shapes
Free Activities

Enjoy this holiday season!

Halloween is Coming With ABCs

There are so many fun activities for Halloween, especially using the letters.

I love to make books that are child created by using pages made by little learners. Those pages are then laminated, bound together in the book and able to be

shared again and again!

 

A favorite one for Halloween is

 Halloween Trick or Treat ABC Class Book Trace Dotted Letters & Illustrate

I've made a Halloween Trick or Treat ABC Book with 26 pages of A thru Z words. All the words are made with dotted lines that the children need to trace! Have each child pick a letter and draw themselves in that costume or draw how they might look as that example. They will illustrate and color a picture that goes with the words.

BUT if you don't like the words I've picked, I have added other choices for most of the letters. Just print the one you want for each letter to change the original story or have the child pick the one they want. The extra pages are listed after the ABC Story.

Print the 26 A-Z pages you want for the book.

Don't print them all!

Here are some examples of the other B letter choices.

 

The first word listed is in the story, and the other words are pages to choose from.
A-astronaut, angel, alien
B-ballerina, bat, bunny, baseball player, basketball player, bride, butterfly
C-clown, cat, cowboy, cowgirl, cupcake, candy
D-doctor, dog, dinosaur, dragon, diva
E-elf, elephant, engineer
F-fireman, fairy, football player, farmer
G-ghost, gorilla, gladiator, gnome, gypsy, genie
H-horse, hiker
I-Indian, ice cream cone, imp
J-jack-o-lantern, jester, jellyfish
K-kitty, king, knight
L-lion, leopard, ladybug, lamb
M-monster, monkey, mummy, mermaid
N-nurse, ninja
O-owl, ogre, octopus
P-pirate, princess, prince, policeman, policewoman
Q-queen
R-robot, rock star
S-superhero, skeleton, scarecrow, spider, superstar, soccer player,
T-teacher, T-rex, tiger, troll
U-unicorn, umpire
V-veterinarian, Viking
W-wizard, warrior
X-x-ray, eXtraterrestrial
Y-yoyo, yellow duck, yellow bee
Z-zebra, zzzzzz Trick or treat is over. Good night.

 

This is also a fun activity for a child to work on between now and Halloween,

doing just a couple pages a day with a finished book to keep and reread!

 

Another good learning activity for a variety of ages, is to see how many words can be made using the letters for the words Happy Halloween!

Halloween Words to Make

Students, especially younger ones love to be able to arrange and rearrange letters to make different words. The activity includes the letters in two sizes to manipulate during play.

There are different versions in this product, see the link. There are two sheets with the letters large enough for a chart or group work in color and black & white. They can also have magnets put on the back for magnetic play.

Also included are two worksheets with little Happy Halloween letters at the bottom to cut off for arranging the letters into various words. Color and black & white copies in my TpT Store. Snack size baggies would help students keep track of their letters.

 Even beginning readers can make simple words like: A, he, we, all, etc.

 The only extra thing needed is a pen or pencil!
Excellent activity for fast finishers or when there are a few extra minutes in the day.

So enjoy part of this activity FREE, only on here on my blog!

 

Be sure a visit my

Christine Maxwell Hand to Heart TpT Store

to see other products I have for

Halloween!

 

Don't forget to Follow, you never know when I will add another free activity!



Teaching Time!

Time is such an important concept to teach children,

since we use it 24 hours a day and 7 days a week for our entire life!

 

I have a free puzzle activity sample that includes a puzzle page of

matching time on the hour.

FREE! Puzzle Match Sample Pack

 

Practicing with a clock is the very best way to introduce the concept of time.

I have a paper clock included in all of my time products. These can be glued to a paper plate with the hands attached with a brad to allow them to move around the face of the clock.

 

The first puzzles set is for the hour and half hour clock times.



 Time Puzzles 1 Show Hour and Half Hour Practice Clock Included

 

 The second puzzle set is for the quarter hour and three quarter hour clock times.

Time Puzzles 2 Show Quarter and Three Quarter Hour Clock Included

 

The third product is a bundle to the first two sets at a discount price.

 Time Puzzles Bundle

 

The last product is one of my favorites. It is teaching about the concept of time using a watch!

Watches for Time Practice

 

These can be cutout, the hands fastened with brads and use Velcro to fasten the wristband.

 

Child love having their own watch!

Christmas in July With Presents!

I. Love. Christmas!

Need I say more!

So I am celebrating......

I posting four free Christmas activities for you to collect and use when it really is December.

 

The first activity was actually in the TpT Christmas EBook!

Santa Express Geometric Christmas Train.

It is a popular free activity!

 There are so many great stories about trains for children! A very special story for the holiday season is the classic "The Polar Express" by Chris Van Allsburg's. This fun product incorporates 5 geometric shapes into the building of a train engine, plus a creative literacy activity.

 

This activity can also be used in a center, but it is better if the pieces are laminated first. Some of the pieces are small so a baggie helps to keep any from getting lost.

 

 The second free activity is

Christmas Santa's Beard Countdown Math Activity.

 

 

This product is a math activity for counting down the days until December 25th Christmas Day. One page is color and the other is black and white. It starts on December 1st by gluing one cotton ball on the #1 spot. Glue one piece on everyday until the big day!

It is good practice for number sequence, plus adding and subtracting the days until the 25th! It can be hung in your classroom or send one home with each child.

I always sent home a copy of Santa's Beard and a bag of 25 cotton balls to each child. It makes a great early student Christmas present! If no cotton is available, the numbers can be colored or marked off as each day passes.

 

 The third free activity is

Christmas Santa's List.

This is a fun seasonal activity for Christmas that can be used a variety of ways.

There are several versions of this in color or black and white download. One has the words “Santa’s List” at the top, one “Nice,” one “Naughty” and the last is blank.

Children can write down things they have done to get them on the Nice List and the Naughty List! It helps to give them an understanding of good behavior and not as good behavior. Plus, motivate positive behavior to add to the Nice List that will last long after Christmas!

Children can write down what they want for Christmas right on the scroll! The list can be mailed to Santa after coloring.

 

The fourth and last activity is a bookmark! 

Christmas Bookmarks "A Very Merry Reader." 

 Here are two pages of bookmarks for Christmas. One page is color and the other is black and white.

It can be used to motivate reading with the words "A Very Merry Reader." The clip art is appropriate for a wide range of groups. 

 

I have a variety of other Christmas products in my store too!

Christine Maxwell Hand to Heart Store-Christmas.

 

So celebrate Christmas in July with me!

Be sure and "Follow" my Blog, you never know when I might post something awesome!

I would love to have some comments below too!

Plus it would be wonderful to leave feedback in my
TpT Store
for the freebies you download! 

Enjoy!