With the schools quickly closing, teachers have been working hard to keep up with the changes COVID-19 has caused for education. Teachers are amazing, and have come up with many resources in little to no time at all!
I want to help educators, students, and families during this unexpected time off from school, so I’ve created several resources to help maintain consistency for kids.
FREE Tic-Tac-Toe Boards
These FREE Tic-Tac-Toe boards include reading activities to match a YouTube read-aloud, writing activities, math challenges, art/science fun, phonics ideas, and more! It involves little to no prep for families helping to facilitate learning at home, and NO PRINTER is required! These Tic-Tac-Toe boards would be easy to download and send to families via email, ClassTag, ClassDojo, SeeSaw, Google Classroom, etc.
Currently, there are 30 days of Tic-Tac-Toe Choice boards available. Depending if the closures last longer, I will create more of these boards.
IGTV K-2 Story time
I remember as a child I loved to watch Mr. Rogers on TV. I have tried to embrace my inner Mr. Rogers for the kids this week and have shared a daily read-aloud on my IGTV Series: K-2 Story time.
Each Monday-Friday while my school is closed, I share a picture book with low-prep activities, and an open-ended math challenge designed to get kids thinking.
Last week, I shared the stories:
- The Night Before St. Patrick’s Day and made a directed-drawing leprechaun
- How to Trap a Leprechaun and made leprechaun traps
- Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late and made our own pigeon books
- How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow and made our own rainbows
- Not a Box and made our own NOT a box
For the first day of Spring on Thursday, we joined in on the amazing idea that originated in Italy, but has traveled to Spain, Portugal, and now the USA. After reading the story, How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow, we made our own special rainbows. We used home DIY watercolor paint with markers, tinfoil, some water, and a Q-tip.
You can find the tutorial here:
Children everywhere created rainbows to hang in their windows with positive messages on them for neighbors to see and brighten their day!
It would be truly amazing to see these beautiful rainbows appear in neighborhoods everywhere. What a pretty sight to see out your window!
On Friday, we read Not a Box by Antoinette Portis. Check out our Fun Friday read-aloud here:
If you know of any families, educators, or kids that would enjoy a story and activity for the next few days or more, please feel free to share the link above! I have been getting so many photos of kids all around the US doing the story time activities, and it has helped the kids feel connected to watch other kids doing the same activities at home during this confusing time. The NOT a box fun was perfect for a “drive-in” movie at home over the weekend!
With all the positive feedback from the Story time, I partnered with Kayla Topper from Move Mountains in Kindergarten to create lesson plans to go with a book each day.
Lesson Plans for Distance Learning
We put together a daily read-aloud that includes low-prep plans for reading comprehension, phonics, math choice board, writing and art activities, STEM challenges, movement break ideas, and even healthy lunch ideas for home learning. We wanted more than just a read-aloud, so we put this comprehensive pack together for teachers to share with families, or for parents to use at home. This Week 1 Bundle Includes the following stories:
Monday: The Bad Seed
As part of my IGTV series, you can find the read-aloud here:
I also modeled the STEM activity to make catapults for kids to enjoy some force and motion fun!
Tuesday: Ada Twist, Scientist
On Tuesday, I will also share the read-aloud on my IGTV for you to follow along at home! I will be sharing a BONUS science activity that kids wont’ want to miss! Make sure to watch around 10:30 with some cups, a piece of paper towel, and food coloring.
You can find the lesson plan for Ada Twist activities for science, math, reading, a craft, and more by clicking here.
Wednesday: The Giving Tree
If you don’t have this classic story by Shel Silverstein, don’t worry! There are many youtube versions of this read-aloud. You can find the link to the lesson plan here. Below is an animated version of the story:
Thursday: Snippets
I am so excited to share this fun shape story on Thursday! I will be reading the story on my IGTV series and then sharing how to create a 2D shape city with scraps of paper! Make sure to have some colorful scraps, scissors, and a glue stick for this art project! You can find the Snippets lesson plan by clicking here.
Here’s the story for you to watch at home:
Friday: The Grouchy Ladybug
If you’re looking for an online read-aloud of this classic Eric Carle story, here’s one below:
Kayla and I plan to make weekly plans for as long as we may be out of the classroom. We are working hard after online teaching to create the resources, so we hope to have them available at the end of each week, or at least the weekend.
I hope these resources are helpful to you as an educator or parent during this switch to distance learning!
