The Connett Connection

We had a pretty light week this week.  My daughter decided to try out the magnet blocks her brother got for Christmas.  They both had fun making shapes, cars, pizzas and trains.  I let them play half the morning with them. My daughter showed me this creation and said, "This is a shape mommy, but I don't know what it is called." We talked about the letter D a little with my 2 year old and made this "D for Dot" craft.   They both loved dotting the q-tip on their letter D paper ! This new activity was by far the highlight of our evening on Wednesday.  I printed a few of these road mat sight words for my daughter drive her little cars on.  She said each letter as she drove the car then said the word as she finished driving on each word. My daughter asked my as I was typing up the " One Hundred Activities for the 100th Day of School " post when she was going to get to celebrate... well we do a number worksheet every morning to practice

Here is a list of 100 ideas that you can do in your classroom or adapt for your home to celebrate the 100th day of school!  Links are provided to the printables needed to complete some of the activities. 1.  Count to 100. 2.  Dress up as a 100 year old person. 3.  Write a story:  If I were 100 I would... 4.  Write a story:  If I had $100 I would buy... 5.  Make 100th Day Hats 6.  Make a necklace out of 100 pieces of cereal. 7.  Flip a penny 100 times and record the results. 8.  Use q-tips to put 100 dots on a sheet of paper. 9.  Put 100 stickers on a hundreds chart. 10.  Hide 100 pieces of candy around the room and have the students find them. 11.  Make a 100th day snack by using two round cookies and one graham cracker stick. 12.  Complete a 100s Chart Mystery Picture . 13.  Do 100 exercises. 14.  Snack: Give students 10 pieces of 10 different types of small snack like foods to total 100 pieces. 15.  Have students bring in 100 items in a bag. 16.  Make a pic

A new product series has been started in my shop and it involves the alphabet!  In getting ready for my son to learn his alphabet next year I have begun making these alphabet packets.  With these packets, you can incorporate letters across your entire curriculum from math to writing to reading to art!  Practice fine motor skills and recognition skills with these letter packets!  When all of the packets are finished, then they will be bundled together to make a whole alphabet curriculum! One thing my daughter loved and I am hoping my son does too are puzzles.  This packet contains 3 types of puzzles!  There are puzzles in each packet where students are expected to match the object to its beginning sound. Another set of puzzles are designed to introduce the idea of spelling words that start with the desired letter.  Each letter has its own puzzle piece and students put the puzzles together by spelling the word.  Since the picture of the word is also available in the puzzle, the

So I did not make a weekly post like week, simply because we went through the whole week and did not take one single picture of anything we did!  I just did not even think to grab my camera! We started off this week with a celebration.  My youngest turned 1!   He would NOT touch his cake.  He wanted to know what kind of torture we were putting him under... My daughter started learning subtraction.  She had a little more difficulty picking it up, but once she remembered the subtraction sign could mean take away, the concept clicked in her head. My daughter does things like this with her sight word papers ALL THE TIME.  She is very artistic and at first it drove me nuts that it wasn't completely done correctly, but I now accept her creativity and as long as I know she knows the word/concept we are practicing, I let the artistic flare slide. We have been working a while on CVC words, especially isolating the beginning, middle and ending sounds.  We used these CVC

Are you teaching your child to recognize or write their letters?  This post will outline several fun and engaging activities you can do with your students in a classroom or home setting! Letter Tic-Tac-Toe I came across this idea in a home school forum I am a member of and it was such a great idea, I decided to use it first on my list of fun alphabet Activities.  Each player gets a letter to use (Choose any 2 letters!) and play the game the traditional way! Where's the Penguin Where's the Penguin is a fun game where you hide a penguin and the student must figure out where the penguin is hiding!  You say a cute poem and see if the penguin is hiding behind your chosen letter!  ( See this video for an example of how to play! ) -- Alternate versions:  Where's the Present   . Alphabet Art There are so many different types of art projects you can do to help reinforce alphabet learning.  I use these capital letter outlines and these lowercase letter outlin

Ever wonder what website you can use to teach your kids or supplement your child's learning?  Check out this list to see if any work for you!  ABCMouse   [AGES 2-8] -- With ABC mouse you are able to access games and learning materials for your students/child.  If you are a teacher in a public or private school, you can sign up for free.  If your state considers homeschooling has a private school, then as a homeschooling parent you can sign up for free as well!  Just make sure you have a good operating system when using ABC mouse as many pages have a lot of graphics and takes time to load. ABCya [PK-5th] -- Games and learning activities for PreK through 5th grade!** CK12 [K-12] -- Learning resources and text books for all level of learners for free! DIY [AGES 6-16] -- I am very interested by this site and am going to learn more about it before writing my summery. Doulingo [LANGUAGE LEARNERS] -- Practice a second language with this program, for free! Easy Peasy [PK-

We have been practicing our reading skills quite a bit lately.  We are focusing mostly on CVC words and sight words.  This is the latest center activity we have been doing. These cards are easy to make and store!  Simply print on card stock, cut out and fold!  You can laminate them if desired. They make a great center for any student learning to read!  My daughter loves that she can check her own reading. This has helped her become more confident in herself.  Before introducing these cards, she was always asking me if she read a word correctly.  Now she can simply open the card to see! These CVC Reading and Blending Cards are available in my TPT store! MORE WAYS TO CONNECT Teachers Pay Teachers Store Boom Store Facebook Page Hands on Activities and Crafts for Kids Facebook Group Instagram Pinterest Youtube Subscribe below to our email list for the latest blog posts, products, sales and freebies! 

We have been off school a while and now trying to get back into the swing of school!  We had one day of school, then BOOM!  The biggest snowfall my kids have ever seen happened! This is just one of the 100s of pictures I took of the scenery and my kids during this once in a life-time storm for us.  Last time this area had a comparable snow fall was in 1989... I was 5 years old.  We got over 4 inches of snow in a few hours.  My daughter (who is now 5) was so excited to build a snowman.  Unfortunately the snow was too dry and would not pack at all. In honor of all the snow, and lack and much of any schooling going on (other than learning all about snow first hand) we made this melting snowman art work. We also made a snowman drawing.  If we were able to build a snowman, what would he look like?  I gave her some chalk and she created this masterpiece! We have been working several weeks learning about the rain forest.  We have been making this rain forest habitat with

After wrapping all of your Christmas presents, you have all these scraps of wrapping paper lying around.  You just ball them up and thrown them away right? NOPE!  Not if you teach small children.  You can use these wrapping paper scraps for several fun, seasonal activities! One thing my kids loved was having these blocks to play with.  I wrapped several of our smaller blocks and added them to our normal blocks and let them have a festive addition to play with! I also cut some of the pictures off the wrapping paper and let my kids create their own ornament for our tree.  They glued the cut out pictures to their ornament template and decorated it. We also save the covers of all the Christmas cards we have.  We sort them according to theme or color.  We also separate out the ones that have a match and play matching games with them! Other Ideas for Wrapping Paper Scraps: 1.  Use the cut out pictures to glue onto newsprint to make your own wrapping paper. 2.  Use the