Easy Lantern Craft for Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is coming and I have the perfect, simple craft for your students to make in the classroom in celebration of this annual event: paper lanterns! When I taught first grade, we celebrated Chinese New Year in the classroom and this was one of my favorite crafts to
Interactive Readers for Martin Luther King Day

Next week, the nation will celebrate the birthday of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. In addition to reading some of my favorite picture books about the real-life American hero, I will have my students work to complete their own emergent reader about MLK. My Interactive Sight Word Readers have become a weekly
Books about Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is coming up soon! (This year we will honor Dr. King on Monday, January 19). It’s important to teach young children about the impact Martin Luther King, Jr. had on our lives today. What better way to teach about this great man than with high
Christmas Parent Gift Idea for Kindergarten

For the past several years, I have done a directed drawing lesson with my students as their parent Christmas gifts. The children paint their drawings with watercolors and I frame the completed art projects in inexpensive frames from the dollar store before wrapping them up and sending them home. I have
25 Books About Santa

The Christmas countdown is on! If you are looking for some great stories about Santa to share in the classroom with your students (or at home with your children), here is a list of 25 books about Santa to get you started. This post contains affiliate links. I receive a
What Your Child’s Teacher Could Really Use for Christmas

The Christmas season is upon us and everyone is working on their holiday shopping lists. Before you buy that apple mug or school themed Christmas ornament for your child’s teacher, you may want to make a few minor adjustments to your list and purchase a more practical item that he or
St. Nicholas Day Shoe Coloring Page & Resources

I teach kindergarten in a Catholic school and every year on December 6 all of the classrooms in my school prepare for Saint Nicholas to visit. Students decorate a shoe or stocking of some type that will hold a special S. Nicholas Day treat on the morning of December 7. Last
Waste Free Lunches in Celebration of America Recycles Day

America Recycles day is November 15. In the spirit of “going green” my students created some posters to hang around the school promoting our lunch program’s “Waste Free Wednesday” campaign. The idea behind Waste Free Wednesday is simple: students that pack a lunch from home are encouraged to pack only
Big Green Monster Kindergarten Watercolor Paintings

My students had a BLAST in our kindergarten classroom for Halloween last week, yet they were amazingly well behaved. We didn’t have a week full of candy and silliness. We had fun, but it was more academic in nature and it really helped my students to remain in control of





