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!
Need a Lesson for Any Holiday?
Are you in a pinch for a holiday lesson…ANY TIME of the year? Do this! This turned out better than I thought and into an amazing critical thinking activity!
STEP 1. Brainstorm a list of holidays as a whole group. Take any holiday the children tell you and write them on the board/ELMO etc. I even had a child tell me Veterans Day. After which ensued a discussion about what Veterans Day is about. Surprisingly to me, I discovered that Veterans Day is about being thankful to veterinarians. 😀 After we cleared that up, we started on the next step.
STEP 2: Pick two holidays you would like to squish (combine) into a new, original, holiday. I used the example of Christmas + Thanksgiving in one class because I knew children would gravitate to holidays that were close to November and December on the calendar. I emphasized being original after I used Thanksgiving and Christmas as the examples..
STEP 3: Think of three details about each of your squished holidays. For example, what type of activities would people do for a celebration? What type of songs would be sung? What type of decorations would there be? What type of foods would be eaten? I have children list at least three details for each of their created holidays. I asked students to create three squished holidays.
STEP 4: Draw a picture of your favorite squished holiday. Children want to do this anyway while they are thinking of the holiday.
STEP 5: Have children show their work on the Elmo or do a gallery walk. They will be proud of their newly created holiday!
Make These Easy St. Patrick’s Day Treats!
I made these little “pots of gold” in no time! The Dollar Tree had nearly everything I needed. I was looking for some cuter cups, but these worked just fine. I found them in the disposable dishes area. I bought some multicolored little cups that hold about four ounces. The packages I bought had multicolors. I bought several packages and pulled all of the green colored ones out. Then I bought some gold Easter grass and put a little in each cup. Next, I bought some Rollo candy…Who doesn’t love to receive a treat for an occasion. Of course, I attached a cute note about begin worth more than gold and ta-da…I made a cute treat to brighten all of the teachers’ day! I hope you get a chance to do something kind for those you work with, too!
Cheer Up Your Colleagues!
When morale is low, I like to surprise my coworkers with a surprise treat in their mailboxes. It doesn’t take much to grab some cookies and candy from the grocery store and put it in a little sack with a kind note. This gives someone something to look forward to eating all day. Here I picked up some pumpkin cookies, threw in some candy corns and attached a cute note. On the note I included a riddle…What makes jack-o-lanterns so smart? A candle makes them bright!
An Excuse to Go Outside! Teach Weather!
In the warm months children love to go outside while at school. I like an opportunity to take them! Teaching lessons like these will be sure to give you some outdoor time. Warning here…I front loaded content before we got a whole lot of outdoor time. I bought a couple of units on TPT to give me some lesson advice, but after the students got the content, I moved forward from there. After having a silly group of kids the year before, I adjusted the way I let children interact. I will give you a brief overview here to guide your steps.
Teach content. I kept the content I taught simple but left a lot of the content learning up to the children’s research. Using ideas from the units I bought along with my own ideas, I taught the following…
1–temperature and how to read a thermometer (a thermometer journal is a good idea!)
2–what are high and low pressure. We built a simple barometer and checked the pressure
3–wind speed. We observed and recorded an anemometer outside on a still and on a windy day. I had a store bought one, but you can make one with plastic or paper cups.
4–The terminology of the weather symbols and fronts. What do the symbols mean on the maps?
5–Learn what precipitation is. How is it calculated? Build a rain gauge if you like. I assigned this as a homework assignment one year. (start saving your water bottles now)
6–I had children watch meteorologists and how they presented the weather. They had to watch at least 10 forecasts from different news channels. One child said this was her least favorite, but I think it was very beneficial. Discuss the forecasters intonation, hand motions, and public speaking.
7–Next, children made a weather map on state maps I ordered. Most state highway departments will mail you free ones if you ask. (Order them now. It can take a while.)
8–Then I followed some of the resources I bought more closely because I had them write a five day forecast. (students had to have 2 weather backgrounds. One had to be the weak forecast and the other was their weather map.)
9–I had them write a script for their forecast.
10–Last step for the children was to have them film their forecast with an iPad mini. If you can trust your students the iPad videos turned out really nicely. If you can’t trust your group with a little independence (I did this with 3rd grade), you may want to have them do their forecast in person.
We showcased these to parents and they enjoyed them!
