St. Patrick's Day is next week, so let's do a round-up of some engaging, standards-based activities that you can do with your class!  I always loved to make the little foot prints around my classroom with green paint and green food coloring in the bathrooms.  I did not love, however, making leprechaun traps and all that, so I tried to make activities that were easy prep and standards-based.  I knew that if my admin came in, I was still teaching my standards, and students were engaged.  Let's look at some St. Patrick's day lessons, crafts, and activities that you can incorporate next week! Leprechaun Inferences is one of my favorites!  Your class gets a special delivery and students have to use the clues inside to figure out that it's their read aloud for the week,  The Gingerbread Man and the Leprechaun Loose in the School .   On St. Patrick's Day, the leprechaun leaves them a note with clues to follow around the school leading them on an i......

  Do you need an easy Valentine's Day craft that can also be used to hold Valentine's Day cards?!  Remember the days of the Valentine boxes?  Some students had them and some didn't...plus they just took up too much space.  I decided years ago to make these Valentine bags in our classroom to ensure that everyone had something to hold their Valentines in for our party.  It's easier for students to carry everything home in these at the end of the day, too.  Over the years, I have created some different designs for these bags, so I thought I would put them all in one post for easy access for everyone. This post contains affiliate links at no extra cost to you. First, you need some gift bags.  My favorite are the craft paper ones, but white or black ones would work, too.  They usually sell these in packs at the Dollar Tree, but I like to just order them.  I actually send home a letter to families to sign up to bring something for our Valentine par......

  December is an interesting time in the classroom.  Everyone is excited about the holidays and anticipating the upcoming winter break.  That level of excitement can sometimes be a lot to handle in the classroom.  😜 The best way to handle that is to be proactive and embrace all of the fun.  It's also important to revisit procedures and expectations, as well as review social emotional learning topics.  In this post, we will cover four tips for managing your classroom in December and ways you can build community, which will in turn lead to happy students and a happy teacher. Use Read Alouds to Build Community A Little Spot of Christmas by Diane Alber is a great story to use to get students in the giving spirit this holiday season.  You can use this and the activities below as a sort of behavior management tool up until winter break.  Encourage students to be Santa's Helpers in the classroom, just like in the book.  In the story, Spot wants t......

 Happy March!  I was recently looking at adding to my St. Patrick's Day book collection and came across a new title that I had not yet seen.  In the December first grade interactive read aloud lessons, one of the stories is The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School .  Well, they also have The Gingerbread Man and the Leprechaun Loose in the School !  It's an adorable story about a leprechaun making a huge mess all around the school and the students having to follow his clues to find him.  I always leave leprechaun messes for my students each year on St. Patrick's Day, so I felt like this story went along perfectly with those activities.  Since the students were having to follow clues while using their own background knowledge to follow the clues to the next location, I thought this would be perfect for practicing making inferences with these St. Patrick's Day Inference Activities . I will show the different activities I made to pair with the read aloud.......