flowers petals blooming still life
3-12, Creative Thinking, Critical Thinking, Math

Free March Digital Breakout and More!

Leonardo the Leprechaun is one of my free digital breakouts, and it’s perfect for March. Students in grades 3 and up should be able to do this breakout in 45 minutes or less. Here is a list of all of my digital breakouts. Along that same theme (leprechauns), I also have a free St. Patrick’s Day S.C.A.M.P.E.R. packet available for download as a PDF. You can search on my Downloads page for digital versions or other S.C.A.M.P.E.R. packets. And you can also head on over to my St. Patrick’s Day Wakelet for even more resources for celebrating March 17th.

Click here to learn more about this free Digital Breakout!

Of course, St. Patrick’s Day isn’t the only holiday in March. There’s Read Across America Day (March 2), International Women’s Day (March 8th), Pi Day (March 14), and World Poetry Day (March 21). You can get links to activities for all of these on my March Wakelet.

By the way, the next potential SpaceX launch date is on Thursday, March 2 (Read Across America Day), and if all systems are go, a very special book will be going up to space. The book, Astronauts Zoom, by Deborah Lee Rose, will be read by an astronaut for the Storytime from Space program! Congratulations to her and everyone who is helping to make this happen!

K-12, Teaching Tools

Celebrate Women, Pi, and St. Patrick!

Quick recap: Tomorrow (March 8th) is International Women’s Day. Pi Day is on March 14th (3.14) and St. Patrick’s Day is on March 17th. This is that funky time of year when many schools have week-long breaks, so you may not even be in class during some or all of these momentous events. But that doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate them on a different day. We all know it’s helpful to add a little novelty to class to keep students engaged, and holidays offer unique activities to help you with that.

Just in case you’ve missed it, I’ve got a March Holidays collection here, which includes International Women’s Day. It also has links to my separate Pi Day and St. Patrick’s Day collections. You can also get some free resources at this link shared by Julie Finnerty Molthen on the Teachers Using Jamboards Facebook group, specifically the “Would You Rather: Green Edition.” I just added a currently free logic puzzle from Learning Hypothesis to the St. Patrick’s Day collection, as well as a math puzzle from Games4Gains.

And don’t forget to check out Donna Lasher’s Holiday page, as she is always adding new puzzles and links.

Are you on break this week? If so, I hope it’s marvelous and that you get to do a hard reset! If not, don’t worry, you’re going to make it!

rainbow over sea
Photo by Matt Hardy on Pexels.com
Creative Thinking, K-12, Teaching Tools

St. Patrick’s Day Resources 2021

I know that this will come as shock to many of you who are faithful readers, but I am feeling pretty good that I got Pi Day and St. Patrick’s Day covered this year before the end of February. Not only that, but I spent a little time today making my St. Patrick’s Day S.C.A.M.P.E.R. activity into both a Slides presentation and a Jamboard. Talk about UNPRECEDENTED!!!!! (No one needs to know that I was putting off folding laundry and doing yoga in order to achieve these magnificent accomplishments.)

If you are unfamiliar with S.C.A.M.P.E.R., here is a previous post where I explain the acronym. You might also note that the paper version of St. Patrick’s Day S.C.A.M.P.E.R. is for sale on my TPT page, but don’t waste your money on that, since you can just download the Slides and print it out if you want. For free! I’m working on updating all of my resources and making them free because that is exactly how much housework and exercise I am willing to sacrifice for you.

And that’s not all! I noticed that quite a few of my St. Patrick’s Day resource links were not working anymore (not surprising, since I’ve been publishing this blog for nearly nine years), so I gathered updated versions in this Wakelet for you.

Now I must go scour the March calendar to see what I’ve forgotten…

3-5, Education, Math, Websites

Leonardo the Leprechaun

I mentioned that I would be trying to create some digital breakouts when I posted this.  Leonardo the Leprechaun is my first attempt, and I thought I would share it with those of you who might be able to use it this week in time for St. Patrick’s Day.

I should tell you that I have already asked my 4th and 5th graders to give this a try, and I made some changes each time based on their feedback.  We definitely had some major issues – one of them being that the new Google Sites is currently blocked in our district.  If your students are unable to access the link, that is probably why, unfortunately.  The other glitches were all my fault, but I’ve hopefully fixed them!

Your students may want to write down the answers they get for each clue, as they will all need to be submitted at the same time in the Google Form.  Answers: 79, 550, 1732, POLYGON

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

leonardosite
Click here to get to this Digital Breakout!

Creative Thinking, Education, K-5

SCAMPERing Outside the Rainbow

It has been awhile (2013!) since I posted some St. Patrick’s Day S.C.A.M.P.E.R.  ideas.   S.C.A.M.P.E.R. is an acronym to help people to remember different ways inventive ideas can happen:  Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to Another Use, and Rearrange.  It was originally developed by a man named Roger Eberle.  Here is a link to a post I did about S.C.A.M.P.E.R.

My 2nd graders worked on using “Combine” and “Put to Another Use” this week.  For “Combine,” they invented something new with a clock and a four-leaf-clover. (I love how the clock hands will pinch you if you aren’t wearing green!)  The “Put to Another Use” assignment asked the students to think of another way to use a Leprechaun hat.

You can use these ideas in your own classroom, as well as the ones on my original post, with any drawing paper or even as writing prompts.

For more St. Patrick’s ideas, don’t forget to check out yesterday’s post!

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Creative Thinking, Critical Thinking, Education, K-12, Uncategorized

Are Leprechauns Real?

My Kinder students have made leprechaun traps for the last few years, and it always amuses me as they get older and sadly reminisce that they didn’t catch any leprechauns.  I’m never quite sure who is fooling who – are they just trying to make me believe that they believe, or are we all just making believe?

Just in case your students have some residual doubt, you can assign them this Wonderopolis article.

Students in upper elementary might scoff at leprechauns, but may be interested in doing some St. Patrick’s Day magnetic poetry.  You can also try this free “Irish” creative writing kit.

With this search I did on Teachers Pay Teachers, I found several free St. Patrick’s Day logic puzzles for various ages.

For those kinesthetic/spatial students, here is a lesson on shamrock origami.

I always feel a bit cheated because Pi Day and St. Patrick’s Day fall during our Spring Break – but I’m sure I’ll find a way to sneak some of these activities in anyway!

Copy of Copy of St. Patrick's Day Magnetic Poetry.jpg