Grade School Archives - Page 19 of 27

Teaching Kids to Code – The Snowy Day Algorithm Coding Printable

January 18, 2018 By Deirdre

Sequencing the events in a favorite childhood book like The Snowy Day is a great way to teach children how to code. Why? Children build algorithms or a series of steps to get from the start of the story to the end. They can refer to the pictures and text in a children book to verify the sequence of events in a story. Teaching kids to code through children books really is fun!

This teaching kids to code printable was designed to use with my kindergarten classes in the computer lab. It would also be great to use with preschoolers and first graders. The Snowy Day is a book that children in grades PreK thru first grade really enjoy.

Getting the Teaching Kids to Code Printable

The Snowy Day Algorithm Coding Activity is free to download. While it was designed to be printed out in color, you can print it out in black and white.

Other Supplies You will Need for This Activity

Your children will also need a least one copy of the book The Snowy Day. They can use it to check to make sure that their algorithm has the events in the right sequence. The only other thing your children will need is pencil!

Getting Started with the Activity

You can start by telling your children that an algorithm is the series of events needed to complete or come to the end of a task. Today they will be creating an algorithm that will connect the events in the story The Snowy Day. They will start at the beginning of the story and go all the way to the end.

Next, your children will need to place an up arrow in the box in the bottom left-hand corner of the printable. Then they will need to decide if the next event mentioned in the book is making snow angels or making footprints. You can have them look in the book to remind themselves which event comes next if they like. The next event is making footprints so they will draw an arrow pointing up in the box above the start box. Then they will need to draw an arrow pointing to the right in the box two boxes above the start box.

Your children will continue placing an arrow pointing up, down, left or right in the boxes that connect the events in order. They will discover that there are several different paths that can be used to connect some of the events. You will want to encourage them to create the shortest paths possible. Why? In real life, coders try to create algorithms with short rather than long coding sequences.

Here are some more story themed coding printables:

Little Miss Muffet Coding Activity and Printable

Coding Activity- Going on a Bear Hunt

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Algorithm Activity

Gruffalo Coding Sheet

Coding for Kids- The Day It Rained Hearts

Brown Bear, Brown Bear Coding Printable

Adding Two Digit Numbers – Snowman Number Spin Addition

January 17, 2018 By Deirdre

This is the second snowman activity I am sharing with you this week. (There will be a total of four snowman posts.) The first activity was a snowman building activity that featured a paint bucket lid snowman. Today’s activity features a set of four math worksheets that focus on adding two digit numbers.

My friend Cassie of 3 Dinosaurs inspired this printable set. She has created a number of activity sheets that feature paper clip spinners. I thought you would enjoy seeing some here.

Getting Ready to Use the Adding Two-Digit Numbers Sheets

The first thing you will need to do it download the set of Snowman Number Spin Addition sheets. You can print them out on a black and white printer. Each of the four worksheets has different two digit numbers on its spinner.

Then you will need to put out enough paper clips and sharpened pencils for each of your children.

Using the Adding Two-Digit Number Sheets

Your children will need to place a paper clip so that one end of it is in the center of the spinner.

Then they will need to place the sharpened end of the pencil in that end.

Next, they will spin the end of the paper clip with their finger. They will record this number on the top line of the addition problem.

Then they will spin the spinner again. This time they will record the number they landed on the bottom line of the addition problem.

Children will then add up the two numbers the spinner landed on.

They will repeat this process for each of the addition problems on the page.

If you like this addition printable, here are some more free math printable your children will enjoy.

Number Exploration Activities

Subtraction Matching Game

Two-Digit Addition with and without Regrouping

Addition, Subtraction, Division and Multiplication Printables

Olympic Activities for Kids – Ski Lift Paper Plate Craft

January 11, 2018 By Deirdre

This is the third in a series of five Olympic activities for kids. Each features a craft element and an interactive part. The first activity is an interactive snowboarding craft. The second activity is a figure skater themed activity uses a magnet to make the skater move. Today’s activity invites children to create a wooden peg skier, a moveable ski lift, and a painted paper plate background.

Olympic Activities for Kids- Creating the Skier

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There are several activities children will need to complete to put this interactive craft together. The first thing they will need to do is create the skier. Each of your children will need a wooden peg doll. The skier will need a coat, goggles, and hat. Your children can choose to add more details to each of those elements if they like. (We kept ours pretty simple.)

Olympic Activities for Kids- Creating the Paper Plate Background

Your children will need blue and white paint to create the sky portion of the plate. A large section of the plate will need to be painted blue to make it appear that the ski lift is high off the ground.

If your children want to they can add small houses or skiers to the white section. (We chose to keep that area blank.)

When the paint is dry, you will need to punch a hole on the right and left sides of the plate with a hole punch. A length of yarn will need to thread through both holes. The end of the yarn will need to be tied together on the back of the plate to form a loop. Children will need to make sure the loop is loose enough so the yard can be pulled to make the ski lift move.

Olympic Activities for Kids- Creating the Ski Lift Chair

Your children will need the following to put the ski lift together:

Cardboard from a jello or pudding box
Bendy Straws
Glue Sticks
Scissors
Paper Clips

First, children will need to cut out the corner of the box to create the seat for the ski lift.

Next, they will need to glue the top of the bendy straw to the seat section of the cardboard. The straight section after the bendy part of the straw will be glued to the back of the seat. The remaining part of the straw will be attached paper clip. Once the paper clip is attached, they can cut off some of the straw if needed.

Then children will need to cut two slits in the straw to attach a paper clip. (The paper clip will slip easily over the yarn and help the straw stay rigid.)

The paper clip will then need to be attached to the yarn.

Finally, the skier will need to be glued onto the chair.

Making the Ski Lift Chair Move

By slowly pulling the yarn upwards the chair with the skier will move slowly to the top of the lift.

Magnetism for Kids- Making a Figure Skater Skate

January 6, 2018 By Deirdre

Your children are going to have such fun exploring this magnetism for kids activity! They will color their own figure skater, decorate their own skating rink and then make the skater move around the rink.

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Before your children explore the magnetism for kids activity, you may want to read them a book about figure skating. The booksA is for Axel: An Ice Skating Alphabet, Little Red Gliding Hood, or Dream Big, Little Pig! They are all focused on figure skating! Each would be fun to read to or with your children.

Getting Ready for the Magnetism for Kids Activity

Printing Out the Skater

The first thing you will need to do is print out Making the Figure Skater Skate Printables from the download. You will find a colored version and black and white version of the figure skater. The black and white version will allow your children to decide the hair and skin color of the skater.

Gathering Supplies for the Magnetism for Kids Activity

You will need:

Skater Printable
Crayons
Metallic Markers or Traditional Markers
Brass Fasteners
Magnetic Wand
Light Weight Metal Pan
White Card Stock
Packing Tape

Getting Started with the Magnetism for Kids Activity

Decorating the Skater and the Backdrop

Your children will need to color their figure skater and the backdrop for the skating rink. They can use crayons or markers

First, they will need to decide what color of their skater’s skin, hair, dress, and skates. They may decide to make a skater that looks like them or one that looks like a skater they have seen on television.

Next, they will need to decide on the location of their skating rink. They create an audience sitting in the stands for an indoor rink. If they want an outdoor rink, they could create trees or a field. It would make it look like their skater was skating on a pond.

Finally, they will need to color the backdrop. We used crayons to color ours. When it is finished the backdrop can be taped to one side of the metal pan.

Making the Skater Skate

Your children will need to break off a prong from the brass fastener. Then they will need to glue it to the back of the ice skater. The metal prong will attract the magnet and allow it to make the skater move.

Then your children will need to place the skater in the pan.

Next, they will hold the magnet wand under the pan. When it is the skater, it will make the skater move. They can make her jump, spin and glide around the skating rink.

Hint: If your children are having trouble with the magnet wand under the pan. They can hold the wand on top of the skater. They will be able to guide her around the pan that way.

This is part of a series of winter sports activities that your children can do before or during the Winter Olympics. Below you will find a list of the other activities in the series.

Interactive Paper Plate Crafts -Snowboarding Downhill

Paper Plate Ski Lift with a Pulley

Interactive Paper Plate Crafts- Snowboarding Downhill

January 2, 2018 By Deirdre

Kids will have fun creating these interactive paper plate crafts during the Winter Olympics or as part of a winter sports unit. Your children can decide how steep or flat to make the ski slope. If they want to, they can create an obstacle for the snowboarder to go over.

Getting Ready to Make the Paper Plate Crafts

Gathering the Supplies

Paper Plates
Blue and White Paint
White Foam Sheets
Paintbrushes
Scissors
Popsicle Sticks
Glue Sticks
Scissors
Crayons or Colored Pencils

Printing Out the Snowboarders

The Interactive Paper Plate Crafts – Snowboarder set includes pictures of snowboarder that are already colored in and some that your children can color. You can decide whether your children will craft with the color pictures or the black and white. Each printable page includes six snowboarders.

Making the Paper Plate Crafts

Making the Path

Your children will need to cut out a path for the snowboarder to follow on the paper plate. If you think it will be too hard for them, you could create the path for them. We created our path by slightly folding the plate in half and then cutting a wavy line in the late.

Painting the Plate

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Your children can paint the top of the plate blue to represent the sky. That is what we did. If they want to you could have them paint the bottom half of the plate white. You could sprinkle silver glitter in the paint if you want the snow to sparkle or you could use Washable Glitter Tempera Paint if you like. We left the bottom of the plate unpainted.

Hint: You can place painters tape across the middle of the paper plate to separate the snow from the sky area.

Adding Snow

Your children will need to cut curved strips out of the white foam. They will then glue the foam strips onto the paper plate. They will give the snow a three-dimensional feel.

Coloring the Snowboarder

If your children are going to color the snowboarder, you will need to have a variety of crayons or colored pencils available. They can decide just what areas of the snowboard and snowboarder they want to color.

When they have finished decorating their snowboarder, they can glue a popsicle stick to the back of it.

Interacting with the Paper Plate

Your children will need to place the popsicle stick into the slit on the paper plate. Then they can slowly or quickly move the snowboarder up and down the slit in the paper plate.

If they want the snowboarder to lift off the snow, they can lift the popsicle stick up higher in the slit. It will make it look like he is lifting up into the air.

If you like this snow craft, here are some more snow crafts you will like:

Snowglobe Snowman

CD Snowman Ornaments

Snowman Hole Punching Activity

Snowglobe Painting with Photo

New Year’s Eve Traditions Around the World Printable Book

December 21, 2017 By Deirdre

Several years ago I shared with you a printable chart of New Year’s Eve traditions and customs from around the world. The chart was designed to be printed out in color and shared with children during a family New Year’s gathering or maybe a circle time at school. Children could have fun learning about things countries around the world did on New Year’s Eve. I recently created a printable book that your children can color that features many of the New Year’s Eve traditions displayed on the chart.

New Year’s Eve Traditions Around the World Printable Book

Getting Ready

Before you can share the book with your children at home or school, you will need to print it out. New Years Traditions Book was designed to be printed out in black and white. Your children will add the color to the booklet.

Once you have printed out one book per child, you need to cut each of the pages in half hot dog style. That will separate each of the pages of the book.

Then you will need to staple the page of the book together. You can decide the order of the pages. Of course, you will want to put the cover in the front of the book.

Decorating the Book

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Your children could use a variety of different tools to color the book. We used crayons, but markers or colored pencils would be great to use too.

Children can color in the object of each page as well as add a border of things associated with that country. You could share the book Children’s Illustrated Atlas with them before they start coloring. It features facts and pictures of countries around the world.

On the page, that talks about white clothes your children create a logo for the shirt based on a place or animal in Brazil. A picture of a toucan or the Brazilian flag would be really cool.

If you like this New Year’s activity, here are some more you will love:

Paper Plate Countdown Ball

Zipline New Year’s Ball Drop

Countdown Stars Game

New Year’s Eve Countdown Craft

Sparkling New Year’s Eve Slime

New Year’s Thaumatrope Printable Set

December 17, 2017 By Deirdre

Thaumatropes feature a different picture on their front and back. When children spin a wooden dowel or chopstick placed between the pictures, they seem to blend together. Yes, you will see that it looks like one of the pictures has joined the other to form one picture. Your children will love watching the decorated images become part of a New Year’s themed optical illusion.

Creating a New Year’s Themed Thaumatrope

Getting Ready the Supplies Together

Downloading the Printable

You will need to download the New Year’s Thaumatropes Printable Set. Once you have downloaded the set, you can place a single word or the year of your choice on the back of the thaumatropes on pages five and seven. They have an editable space on them.

This set was designed to be printed out in black and white onto white cardstock. Your children can decorate or outline the pictures on their thaumatrope any color they like.

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Decorating Supplies

We used metallic marker pensto decorate each thaumatrope. If you don’t have any available, your children could use any of the following drawing tools to decorate theirs.

Magic Markers
Crayons
Color Pencils
Gold Foil Star Stickers
gel pens

You will also need wooden skewers or chopsticks for each child.

Putting the Thaumatropes Together

Once your children have decorated the designs that that will use on their thaumatrope, they are getting to glue them onto the chopstick. Then they will glue the back sides of the design circles together.

Explore Their Thaumatropes

Children will need to place the chopstick between their hands. Then they will need to rub them together. Rubbing their hands together will cause the thaumatrope to spin.

Some experimentation will need to be done to figure out how fast the thaumatrope needs to spin for the two pictures to blend together.

If you like this New Year’s activity, here are some more you will love.

Printable New Year’s Eve Countdown Clock

New Year’s Eve Fizzy Baking Soda Science

New Year’s Eve Wishing Wall

Paper Plate Countdown Ball

Zipline New Year’s Ball Drop

Reindeer Antlers Number Recognition Match

December 14, 2017 By Deirdre

Your children will have fun finding the antlers that match. Each pair of reindeer antlers displays the same number of points or branches off of the central area of the antler. They also display the number representation of that number of points or branches.

Getting Ready to Play Match the Reindeer Antlers

Printing Out the Number Matching Set

You will need to print out the Reindeer Antlers Number Recognition Match set. It includes to Rudolph cards that the antlers can be displayed above. There are also ten matching pairs of reindeer antlers.

This set was designed to be printed out on a color printer. The reindeer really doesn’t look right printed out in gray on a black and white printer.

Playing the Reindeer Antlers Matching Game

The first thing your children are going to need to do it explore the antlers cards. You will want to help them count how many points or branches are on each card. Then you can show them that the number of points matches the number on the card.

Next, you will need to give each of your children a Rudolph card. They will place each of their matches in a stack above the reindeer’s head.

Then you will need to turn the reindeer antler cards face down on a table.

Finally, they will take turns trying to find matching number antlers cards. If they find a match, they can place them beside each other above their reindeer’s head.

Alternative Game

You can give your children a stack containing each of the antler cards. They will need to sort through their stack to find matching cards. When they have found a match, they can place it over their reindeer’s head.

If you like this reindeer printable activity, here are some more you will love:

Straw Rocket Flying Reindeer

Exploring Printable Mazes with Reindeer

Reindeer and Polar Express Printable Puppets

Gingerbread Man Craft- Exploring Shapes

December 6, 2017 By Deirdre

Save some of the cardboard delivery boxes you receive in the mail to create this gingerbread man craft. You can cut the pieces out for your younger children. Older children can cut out the shapes themselves. Children of all ages can put the gingerbread man together and decorate it.

Creating the Gingerbread Man Craft

Getting the Cardboard Shapes Ready

Each of your children is going to need the following shapes cut out of cardboard (You can use cardstock instead if you like. It is much easier to cut.)

One Circle
Two Long Rectangles
One Square
Two Long Triangles

You will need to gather some or all of the decorating supplies below:

White Crayons
Buttons
Glue Sticks
Markers
Ribbons
Pom-Poms
Wiggly Eyes
Stickers

Constructing the Gingerbread Man

Your children may choose to have triangular legs and rectangular arms. They could make the body the circle and the square the head. The gingerbread man your children create doesn’t need to look just like the one we made.

Once they have the shapes arrange the way they want them to be, they can glue the gingerbread man together.

Decorating the Gingerbread Man

There isn’t a wrong way to decorate the gingerbread man although making sure he has eyes, nose and a mouth is probably important.

When they have finished decorating their gingerbread man craft, you can cord or ribbon to the back on it to use it as an ornament.

If you like this Christmas craft, here are some more Christmas crafts you will want to explore.

Five Little Christmas Tree Handprint Craft

Hanger Reindeer

Candy Cane Reindeer

Birthday Hat Christmas Tree

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The Gingerbread Boy by Jan Brett is the Virtual Book Club book of the week, here are some more activities based on the book.

Gingerbread House Glyph – Mama Smiles

Let’s Explore Gingerbread Patterning – My Storytime Corner

Gingerbread Baby Scissor Skills – School time snippets

Foam Gingerbread Christmas Busy Bag- Views From a Step Stool

Gingerbread Man Shape Game – Rainy Day Mum

Fingerprint Gingerbread Man Ornament – The Educators’ Spin On It

Christmas Countdown Calendar and Learning Activity

November 29, 2017 By Deirdre

This set of Christmas countdown calendar printables can be used to work on number recognition or to count down the days until Christmas. You will find two Christmas countdown printables in this set. One is black and white. The other has a green Christmas tree. Let me walk you through how you can explore them with your children.

Christmas Countdown Calendar And Learning Activity

Getting Ready

Downloading and Printing the Countdown

You will need to download the Christmas Countdown Printable SetThen you will need to decide which countdown you want to use.

Gathering the Supplies

Your children can gather stickers, colored pencils, crayons or markers to fill in or cover each number. The circles around the numbers were made large. Your children can cover them holiday stickers, colored circle stickers or color them in.

Using the Countdown as a Countdown

Each day you can have your children color in or put a sticker on the ornament on tree displays the date of that day. The numbers start at the bottom of the tree and work their way to the top of the tree. I wanted the ornaments to lead your children up to the star.

Hint: If your children will not like that the complete circle is covered, you will want them color in the circles. They can make the ornaments circles one solid color or place a design in them.

You will notice that they count down from left to right. Children learn to count from left to right. I wanted the numbers to follow what they have learned about number order.

Using the Countdown as a Learning Activity

You can print out the number cards along with one of the countdown calendars. The number cards can be placed in a stack. Your children can pick up one number card at a time. They can they color in or cover that number.