Fun Low Prep Lesson for Spring!
Investigate sunrise and sunset times with a calendar. Have students look at the sunrise and sunset times to see what they notice. Does the sunrise at the same time every day? Is it earlier or later than the day before? How much time does it change by each day? You can ask the same questions about sunset and see what children discover. We are doing this since the children are being pretend meteorologists. Ask questions like, how do you think this will affect the temperatures in the spring or winter? Discuss seasons. If you go to this website, you can produce a calendar for different cities at different times of year.
Who needs Good Will? Do this!
As you can see from some prior posts, I decided to add some warmth to the room with lamp lighting. I also purchased some florescent light covers. I’ve noticed that when I need a break from a computer screen and the anxiety of the day’s demands, it is calming to look at lamp light. I purchased a few from Good Will and another from a thrift store. I recently found a hanging lightbulb socket which I had bought for one of those paper lantern globes, which I never could quite get to hang like it should. As a result, I used some old fabric to cover up an eyesore in my room and hung the light socket inside. It made a wonderful new lighting solution over an area I use to complete much paper work! Sometimes with a little thought, using what you already have makes the best…yet unexpected solutions!
Old Candy? Do this!
What teacher doesn’t love clearance items? After Christmas I scooped up some clearance candy canes…you know the cute little ones. With candy you will always hold student attention. While I didn’t promise candy canes to the children, they were still very attentive.
1.Here’s what I did in one of my favorite lessons.I taught SCAMPER (an acronym to help creative thinking) and what it stands for. (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Rearrange.) Click link for a free worksheet. I had already made a similar one.
2. I show the children this video which explains SCAMPER. (sometimes I’m not sure if the man intentionally included a “pun” on the word “nuts” to mean something inappropriate to children, but I’m pretty sure young children don’t pick up on this, so I show it anyway.
3. You could do SCAMPER with any item, but I hold a large candy cane and ask students to help think of ideas for what we could do with the candy cane to increase sales. We do two examples together–usually substitute and combine. If someone has a great idea, I give the child lots of praise. Then the ideas keep coming. I even ham it up and tell the children they are advertising executives trying to make a company money with their original idea. I have them practice (pretend) walking like an executive, straightening out their tie and business suit as they walk back to their chair.
4. After children get started, I allow them to create their own ideas. I only read the word like ADAPT, MODIFY, PUT TO ANOTHER USE etc. and have the children write their idea in a complete sentence. I pause after each word to allow the children time to think and write.
5. I have children draw their favorite idea and students share their ideas in closing.
At the end of the lesson, yes, the hard workers did receive a small candy cane. 🙂
Happy New Year 2026 Drawing Starts
I always love to give kids drawing starts and see what the imagination can create. Here are some 2026 number drawing starts for you completely free for download! (If you aren’t familiar with drawing starts, students add lines to the figures and make a new picture. They can use all of the numbers to make a picture or make all of the numbers into one picture.)
Happy New Year 2026!
Happy New Year 2026 from Teacherblog.co!
Ready to Listen: Necessity the Mother of Invention
Since I teach push in classes for 30-45 minutes to all primary classes, I tried this trick one day, and it worked. We have had a crop of especially unruly kindergarten students this year. I can only reiterate the expectations and take points from multiple children so many times before needing another solution. This day I showed my posters of “Ready Freddy” which normally work to redirect students, but this day the posters didn’t work as well as they needed to for silence. With the posters I said, ” I will count everyone who is sitting the right way on the carpet.” When I got to a student who wasn’t sitting the right way on the carpet, I would go back to counting at one. It went something like this. I would point to a student doing the right thing and say, “one”. Then I would follow with “two, three, four.” Each time I saw a student sitting correctly, I would continue counting. When a student stopped following directions, I would stop counting. I would continue in this fashion until I could count the whole class one by one. When I arrived at 20, for example, I would lead the while class in a silent cheer (scream) where students act like they are yelling and waving their hands in the air yet it would be silent. I found counting students who were behaving would calm the class. I hope this works for you!
