January is one of those months that seems to drag on and on and on. There aren’t any big holidays to look forward to, and the weather is usually cold and dreary. As a teacher, inclement weather typically means indoor recess, and depending on your class, that could mean extra chaos. If you need something to keep your kiddos entertained in such an event, look no further! Attached below are two Winter Find & Count worksheets– one in color, and one in black and white– that you are welcome to print off and use in your classroom. (Parents, also please feel free to use in the event that the dreary January days get a little extra long and you need a quiet minute!)
** This resource is strictly for classroom or personal use. Do not resell it, repost it, or claim as your own. **
Winter Break is fast approaching, and while that means a break for teachers, it also means lots of time at home for the kiddos. If you live in a place that has colder temperatures, Winter Break can be tricky. Cold, wintry weather makes it less likely kids are going to want to go outside and play. Screen time is great for a minute, but too much of that usually means grumpy kids afterward. Indoor activities can be a life saver for times like this, but sometimes coming up with ideas is difficult.
But no need to worry! I’ve got a handful of ideas for you to use that will keep your kids entertained AND keep their minds active.
Snowflake Math
Draw and cut out several small snowflakes (or any other winter shapes you want). Use the cut out shapes as math manipulative by having kids create various math equations and to experiment with addition and subtraction.
Indoor Scavenger Hunt
Using the free file below, print out the Winter shapes and hide them around the house. Give kids a copy of the list of pictures to find. As they find the hidden pictures, they can removed them from the hiding place and check them off their paper. This game can be adapted to your kids’ ages, needs, and abilities.
Use the file below, or draw a blank Christmas tree on a piece of paper. On a separate paper, draw several ornaments. On each ornament, write a word that contains the sound your child is working on in speech. Cut the ornaments out. You can hide them around the house, in a sensory bin, mix them up in a bowl, or just lay them out on the table or floor. As your child finds or chooses each ornament, have them say the word on the ornament before they can place it on the tree.
Don’t want the mess of real gingerbread houses? I don’t blame you there! Rather than graham crackers and frosting, use construction paper shapes and glue to create a gingerbread house. You can put the pieces/shapes into a bag and have kids reach in to pull one out a time and build the house piece by piece.
Another fun option is to “Roll A House”, where you assign a house element to each number on a die, and when that number is rolled, your child can add or draw that element on to their house.
Christmas Puzzles
Using the free file below, print and cut out the Christmas strip puzzles. Mix up the strips and have kids put the pieces in the correct order to make the picture. These are great quiet activities and are a good way to help kids with spatial reasoning.
My kids excitedly reminded me yesterday that we only have TWO weeks until Christmas! How did it sneak up so quickly?! As promised a few posts ago, here is a Christmas Find & Count activity page in black and white. You can find a color one here.
Teachers, print this out for your students if you need a festive but quiet activity as we get closer to Christmas Break. Parents, print this out if you need a festive but quiet activity once the kids are out of school and at home for Christmas Break! These Find & Count pages also make great activities for long car rides, quiet waiting rooms, or for early finishers in class.
Please only use for classroom or personal use. Do not resell, repost, or claim as your own.
Cooking with kids— you either love it or you don’t. The spilled ingredients, eggshells in the bowl, and general chaos in the kitchen mixed with family bonding time and making memories can make for a grand adventure. Memorable, yes. Potentially stressful, also yes. But mixed in with all the heartwarming memory making and chaos, there are teaching and learning opportunities a plenty.
How can cooking with kids provide learning moments, you might ask? Well, first, there’s math involved with all the measuring, and if you are sizing up or down a recipe, there’s the math needed to recalculate how much of each ingredient you will need. This is when you’ll need to pull up the “fractions” file that’s been stored in your mind since 8th grade algebra— you know, the one you didn’t think you’d have to use much? Cooking and baking provide ample opportunities to dust off your fraction knowledge and put it to work!
Second, cooking and baking can teach real life, hard skills. Everyone is going to need to know how to cook and bake at some point in their lives, so why not start as a child? Keeping tasks within your child’s capabilities and keeping things age appropriate is always a good idea to keep the experience safe for everyone. I’ll be forever thankful for parents who let me help in the kitchen from a young age. Now as a mom with my own children, I can do the same for my kids in hopes that they will have at least a fundamental understanding of basic cooking skills by the time they are living on their own.
As kids get older, they also become able to read and follow a recipe. This skill can transfer over to many other areas, as a recipe is basically an “instruction manual” of sorts. Learning how to read and follow step by step instructions will help them as they grow up and become adults. They will learn the importance of following the order of instructions to achieve a desired result.
Cooking and baking also open the door for discussions of what to do if something doesn’t go as planned. Was the gravy too runny or too lumpy? Talk about why and what can cause those problems to happen. Were your cookies flat as a pancake and crispy rather than soft and fluffy? Together, research and talk about the circumstances that might create flat cookies. Beyond that, it becomes an excellent problem solving opportunity as you work together to figure out how to solve the issue and create the desired result.
Lastly, but certainly not least, cooking and baking together provides parents and children opportunities to bond by working together and making memories together. This helps create a sense of love and support that gives children confidence. Children also feel a sense of accomplishment and pride as they see (and taste!) the result of their hard work. This confidence and sense of pride can carry over into other areas of their life, such as school, sports, music, and even social interactions.
So while baking and cooking together might not seem like an opportunity filled with moments of learning, it really is. This helps to confirm what I already believe to be true— there are opportunities for learning and growth in everything we do, no matter how mundane and simple the task. Learning doesn’t just happen in the classroom; it happens all around us, often in the most unexpected places.
Learning to count is an essential skill for kids to learn, so why not make it fun?! Last November, I created and shared a printable Thanksgiving themed I-Spy page. You can find it here. Since last year’s page was only in color, I thought I’d share a black and white I-Spy printable this year!
These I-Spy/ Find and Count pages are great for early finishers, class parties, fun math activities, or even as a game. Parents can also print them for their kids for long car rides, waiting rooms, quiet time, or to be used to keep kids entertained while the turkey is cooking!
**Printable is free, but is intended for classroom or home/personal use only. It is not to be sold, reposted, or claimed as your own.**
We had Parent-Teacher Conferences for my kids last night, and I was so excited to go. I love hearing updates from teachers, and my kids love to show me where their desk is, their cubby, and take me to see their work that is hanging in the hall. With five kids all at the same school, those nights can get pretty long, but they are worth it.
I enjoy hearing how they are doing academically; it’s fun to see beginning of year test scores compared to present scores— there is almost always improvement. It’s encouraging to see the forward leaps they make as they learn. I also really enjoy hearing how my children can improve. If there is an area (or multiple) that need attention, I like to know so that I can give my full support to my child as well as to their teacher.
Though I do enjoy hearing about the academic progress that is being made, I love it even more when I get a report from a teacher telling me that my child is helpful, kind, friendly, and respectful to everyone, adults and kids alike. Knowing that my child is being a good human means so much to me. We try so hard at home to teach our children to be kind, to include, and to respect others. We do our best to teach them good manners and what a good friend looks like. When I send them to school each morning, I just hope that what they have been taught sticks with them, and it is so reassuring to hear that they indeed did hear us and remembered!
I think so often parents worry about their children getting good grades, especially in upper grades. There seems to be so much pressure on kids today to be the best in their class, get the highest score on the test, or that any grade below a B is unacceptable. Obviously, parents aren’t out there wanting their kids to fail, but I think there could be more flexibility when it comes to expectations. That’s not to say for parents to just let go and stop encouraging their kids, because there is definitely value in pushing your kids to do and be their best. But when it becomes all about grades, I think we’ve missed the mark.
I was always a good student, and my grades were usually pretty good. But I can tell you that not a single person in my adult life has cared what grade I got in my high school math class. No one has asked if I scored 100% on the AP US History test I took as a junior. It simply doesn’t matter anymore. But what does matter is that I am a kind person, who includes others, is friendly, and listens to people.
When it comes down to it, the way we treat others says a whole lot more about who we are as people than the grades we pulled in school. Sure, good grades can indicate that someone is a hard, determined worker, and good grades can get you into a college where you can earn a degree and work toward making a career for yourself. Having a job allows you to have money to pay your bills and put food on the table. But it’s important to remember that being kind is good, too.
So as your children (and your students) grow and learn, be sure to teach them more than just academics; teach them to be kind, patient, respectful, and inclusive. Because one day, it’s the way they are that will truly take them places in this life.
When learning and play collide, magic happens. I’ve seen it happen in the classroom, at home, and out in the wild. As a parent and teacher, not much makes me happier than to see children having fun and learning while they do it.
Last week, we headed out of town for a few days with my husband’s family. We mostly did fun recreational activities— swimming, hiking, playing games, etc.— typical things you might do on a vacation. But lucky for us, there was a children’s museum where we were staying, and we got to spend one of our mornings there. Not only was the museum fun for the kids, it was packed with educational opportunities throughout the entire museum. My kids range in ages from ten years old down to four years old, and all five of them were entertained the entire time we were there.
Each room in the museum had a different theme, providing a plethora of learning opportunities. There was something there for everyone— even the adults in our family played and learned!
In the construction room, there were different kinds of blocks and things to build with. There was a wall with pipes and tubes you could use to construct a path to send a ball through. There was a 3D printer, actively printing something, and a display next to the printer showing different kinds of printing methods and types.
In the farm and animal room, you could learn how to milk a cow or plant a garden. You could also become a veterinarian and x-ray different animals— with real x-ray images displayed on the screen.
In the America room, you could learn all about the constitution and our Founding Fathers. You could also play with an interactive map that showed and taught about different landmarks around the state.
The science room was my favorite! There, we learned how a tornado was formed, experimented with magnetic force, created frozen shadows, played with light refraction, learned about sound waves, and put together a model of the human body.
There was a dinosaur room, full of information and experiences about dinosaurs, volcanoes, and earthquakes. The library room had lots of cozy little spots and shelves full of books to read. The mining room taught kids about pulleys and levers as they moved “rocks” from one level of the room to the other. There was a barrel lift exercise that led to a lesson about levers and fulcrums and how changing the pivot point makes a difference in ease of lifting the load.
In the music room, kids could play on a giant floor piano, play some drums, experiment with different notes and pitches, and learn about different sounds. The art room provided different mediums to experiment with.
They even had a “gym” where kids could practice basketball, throwing, pull ups, rock climbing, balancing, or test their jump height. Parents could be spectators on the mini bleachers they had in the room.
There was a theater room, complete with a stage, costumes, and music. The bank was a fun way to learn about money, and the grocery store was a fun place to learn about healthy food choices. The car shop let kids perform maintenance on a (pretend) car, and the airport let kids learn about flying a plane.
With so many different things for kids to do, it’s no wonder we had a hard time pulling our kids away for lunch, and with so many things for kids to learn about, it’s no wonder the parents were eager to let the kids participate! I’m sure the kids didn’t realize how much knowledge they were taking in while they played— they were having so much fun. But as a parent, I loved letting them run and explore, learn, and experiment as they played, knowing that their minds were working and learning as they figured out how to do things at the museum.
It made me think about how so much of what we learn comes from daily living, where we are experimenting, problem solving, and figuring it out as we go. Sure, we can sit in a classroom for the duration of the school day, and we really can learn a lot while there, but there is definitely something to be said for the learning that happens outside the classroom. So often, people don’t see learning as fun, but in reality, there are so many opportunities around us that can provide fun, engaging, and educational experiences for kids and adults alike. And the magic that happens when those three things intersect is unlike anything else.
