New Year Centers Packet

In addition to running this blog, my RVing with the Rakis blog and homeschooling full time, I also create and sell resources that teachers can use in their classrooms and home schooling parents can use to help out their children.  To be fair, I am not creating nearly as many resources this year as I did in the past 9 years, for 2 reasons.  Reason #1 – I already have over 500 resources available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store, so much of what I need for my kiddos I have created already.  Reason #2 – I only have 3 students this year, so I have need of less resources.  However, I am going through resources that I made while I was teaching in a classroom full time and “cleaning them up” with clearer teacher directions, better fonts, etc.  I am also finishing out groupings or “series” that I have started and putting them into bundles so that teachers who are interested in buying multiple items from the same category have the opportunity to save some money.  For the next few weeks, I am going to spotlight some of the resources I have available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

The start of a new year is a great time to encourage students to look backwards and look forward.  I used this New Year’s center packet when I taught 1st grade and again with 2nd graders to help them celebrate the new year. 

The packet contains 15 activities split into three groups.  I have my students complete one group – 5 activities for three days.  This is perfect for a three day week, but can really be done anytime in January.

The first group of activities is focused on “Looking Back” at the year that has just finished.  Reflecting on time past is an important skill.  The activities for this group include: the ACK family time machine, the way back numberline, the best part of last year writing prompt, jumping through time and Nadia’s Great Year reading comprehension.

The second group of activities is focused on “Looking Forward” to the year ahead.  This helps get students used to the idea of a new beginning.  The activities for this group include: past/present/future tense, self portrait – what will you look like next year?, new years resolution writing prompt, yearly math problems and Rania’s resolution reading comprehension.

The third group of activities is focused on “Party Time”.  The traditional celebrations for New Year are as important to learn about as the traditional celebrations for any other holiday. The activities for this group include:  ball drop, party words, celebrate writing prompt, party problem solving and New York City New Years reading comprehension.

To use this in your classroom, stop by my Teachers Pay Teachers and download all 15 activities - the entire three day packet  - for just $5.00.

 

 

Patriotic Internet Scavenger Hunts

Fourth of July is coming!  If you’re still in school, working a summer camp, or homeschooling your own children and you’re looking for a way to get in the spirit of patriotism – try taking some time to explore US history through these fun internet scavenger hunts. Each scavenger hunt is held in a .zip folder that includes a variety of formats of the internet scavenger hunt.
Format 1 – Type On Version – This is a word document, which can be typed directly on by students. In order for students to click on links, they will generally need to hold the control (CTRL) key on the keyboard while they click the link with their mouse.
Format 2 – PDF Version – This version is meant to be printed and written on. Students can have an electronic copy of the internet scavenger hunt open on their computer with its easily clickable links.
Format 3 – QR Code Version – This version is meant to be printed and written on. Students can use any device with a QR Code Scanner (iPad, iPhone etc.) to scan the QR codes and visit the designated links.

  

Happy Independence Day!

Earth Week Activities

This year I am the luckiest teacher in the world. I get to teach at the best school ever – International School of Morocco, with some of the best, most creative, teachers ever. Each time I walk into someone else’s classroom, I get inspired and we just seem to spiral great teaching ideas off of each other. It’s a wonderful place to teach, and since we are all collaborating, it’s a wonderful place for our kids to learn – a teacher’s dream, right? I have tried and tried to convince the other teachers to create blogs of their own to spotlight and share some of their amazing ideas, but everyone is super busy. Instead, they have each agreed to let me spotlight some of their ideas right here on Raki’s Rad Resources. So, each Friday night, I will be posting an ISM Spotlight.

To celebrate Earth Day, we had an entire Earth Week at the International School of Morocco.  Here are some of the things that we did to celebrate this week:

Monday morning, we gathered for a whole school read aloud of The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.  That afternoon, our Year 3 – Year 6 (2nd – 5th grade) students used this book as an inspiration for their persuasive posters to convince people to take care of the earth.

    

  

 

Monday afternoon, we had a “Energy Free Afternoon” where students and teachers did not use electricity for the afternoon.  It was a great way for students to realize how many things (like internet and iPad chargers) required electricity.

 

On Wednesday, we did Earth Week Rotations where students moved in their “house groups”, which are mixed age groups of students from Nursery (3 year olds) to Year 6 (11 year olds).  Students moved through these four rotations of Earth Day activities:

Rotation 1:  Bottle cap mural – students used old bottle caps (We’ve been collecting them for weeks.) to create a mural of flours and sky.

  

Rotation 2:  Tagxedos & Hand prints – students brainstormed words about ecology and used them to create Tagxedos.  Then, students created “globe handprints” by painting their hands with blue and green paint.

   

   

      

Rotation 3:  Earth Day RAFT – students worked in groups to create something to persuade others to take care of the earth.  Students chose one Role, one Audience, one Format and one Topic using the organizer below.

 

      

 

 

 

 

Rotation 4:  Mrs. Rumphius – students read the book Mrs. Rumphius, planted sunflower seeds and wrote or draw about how to make the world beautiful.

 

       

 

On Thursday, the Nursery students created a picture of the earth with tissue paper. 

We gathered together to watch the animated version of The Lorax and compare and contrast it with the book that we read on Monday.

 

On Friday, we had a whole school picnic and game session where we taught the students games that you could play WITHOUT buying new equipment or by reusing materials.  Some of the games that we played were egg and spoon races, pillowcase races, sponge races and hot potato.

    

All throughout the week, Year 3 – Year 6 students worked on the Level 4 – Earth Week section of my Spring Holiday packet and worked on the words: natural resources, ecology, environment, reduce, reuse, recycle, litter and protect.

     

How did your school celebrate Earth Day?

Earth Day Easter Eggs

This year, Earth Day and Easter fell so close together, that I decided to combine them for my class by making naturally died Easter eggs.  Here is what we did:

 

1.)  Cut old t-shirts into fabric scraps (REUSE)

 

2.)  Collect natural items from the garden: leaves, grass, flowers etc.

3.)  Peel a few onions.  Place the onion peels on top of the fabric scraps.  Then add the natural items on top of the onion peels.

 

4.)  Add a RAW, WHITE egg to the pile.

5.)  Wrap the fabric up into a satchel and tie with a string or rubber band.

6.)  Place the eggs into a pot, cover with water and boil for for 5 – 10 minutes.

 

7.)  Remove from heat, drain water and cool.

8.)  When the eggs have cooled, remove the cloth.  Throw away or compost your onion peels, grass, leaves etc.  Keep the rags to use for cleaning.  Allow eggs to dry.

 

 

The onion skins will die the eggs shades of brown.  Depending on the natural items your students choose, they may also get some green die from the plants or a variety of colors from flower petals.

Happy Earth Day!

Happy belated Easter!