For the February Edition of the Teachers.net Gazette, I have a Valentine heart game for counting and more & less. I also have movements to go with the rhyme “Queen of Hearts”.

You can read more of the Teachers.net February Gazette here.

Here’s a new Same & Different game I made for Winter themes. These could go along with the book The Mitten by Jan Brett. Just print, laminate, and cut apart the cards. Three of the four pictures are the same and one is different. Children find the picture that is different and cover it with a bingo chip or token. Children are using visual discrimination and classification skills. The cards in this set have varying levels of difficulty.

Every now and then, I get bored and have to change the “wallpaper”. But if you came on the site and were confused, you are in the right place. It just looks different. There are a couple of new navigation changes to the site.

First, I took away the recent posts list in the left sidebar. To find recent posts now, hover over the “Blog” button at the top of the site, and you will see the latest 5 posts listed in a drop down menu.

Example:

Second, I added the blue navigation bar for links to all of the teacher resource pages– just click any one of the words in the navigation bar. At some point, I will remove the teacher resource links in the left sidebar. I’ll leave them up for awhile because some browsers do not show new changes right away. (If you don’t see the blue navigation bar, just hit refresh.)

Example:

Here is a slideshow I made to go with Jan Brett’s book, The Mitten.

The slideshow is intended to introduce children to the real photos of the animals in the story, as well as the rich vocabulary in the book. As we go through the slide, we will discuss the meaning of the words. I’m sure some children will be able to guess.

You can also download the PowerPoint version of this slideshow here: “The Mitten” PPT

Find more winter ideas on the Winter Theme page.

When I was plundering through the Target Dollar Spot recently, I came across these little erasers shaped like food, and decided to use them for a food classification activity. They have sets of fruit, vegetables, and desserts. I’m going to have children use the classification mat I made, and sort them according to which foods are healthy foods and which are unhealthy foods. This activity will be in our science center.

Run right down to Target and get you some before they’re sold . Just in case you don’t, I included some printable food pictures you can cut apart for sorting on the mats. I also made a mat for classifying Fruits and Vegetables.

To download the mats, just click the link below:

Healthy/Unhealthy Food Classification Mats

Note: If you want to print the mats, but not the food pictures, just hit CTRL-P and in the next box you see, select the page numbers you want to print (on Windows).