Disney Educator's Guides FREE

Disney has free educators guides that can be downloaded.  These guides are made for the classroom but can be easily adapted to make a great monthly theme. Using these also means that you can show the corresponding movies without copyright issues.  They have lots of great content, including power points, printable activities and games.
   The guides include Jungle Book, Moana, Bears, Chimpanzee, African Cats and more.

Activity Village -Free Website Resource

I'm fairly certain that I have posted about Activity Village in the past. They have some great stuff on their site.  Lot of international stuff as well.  They have just updated with lots of new FREE resources. 

From their email....

Activity Village News 9th September 2015 ​ Here's a special quickie newsletter just to let you know that we have... LOTS New!

It's not too late to enjoy some of our new Longest Reigning Monarch and Queen Elizabeth activities, to celebrate this special day.
Longest Reigning MonarchThe Queen

Queen Victoria

With Roald Dahl's birthday coming up we've added a few new fun worksheets and printables:
Roald Dahl Printables
Roald Dahl Worksheets

New Autumn (and Fall) worksheets just added - handwriting included:
Autumn Worksheets

And here are some lovely new Autumn (and Fall) posters too:
Autumn Posters

Elizabeth I, James I ( and VI of Scotland) and Charles I - what have they got in common? We've produced some new activities aimed at younger children, that's what! The kids can even learn to draw these Tudor and Stuart monarchs...
Elizabeth I

James I

Charles I

Lots more has been added to our Colour topic, including bright word cards, fun sorting cards, and a brand new collection of useful colouring pages:

Colour Printables

Colour Worksheets

Colour Mixing

Colour Collection Colouring Pages

Or explore the whole topic here: Colour

Our new Farmyard Stepping Stone Puzzles give kids some fun practice with early skills - the alphabet, vowels and consonants, odds and evens and skip counting 2 to 12.

Farmyard Stepping Stone Puzzles

While on the farm theme - we've added new
Farm Puzzles

Farm Animal Worksheets

Farm Animal Games

We've added a new set of simple colouring pages for London for younger children, to add to our existing detailed pages for older children:

London Colouring Pages

And finally, we've also added a set of London I Spy booklets which could be used when sight-seeing or perhaps taking a virtual tour of London. Sarah designed these for her Guides, putting up our London posters around the room and sending them off on a London hunt!
London I Spy Booklets

PaperToys.com

If you have older kids that are mechanical or need something to keep their interest and keep their hands busy try www.papertoys.com .  They have lots of interesting 3-D models to intricately cut and paste. 

Puzzles Puzzles Puzzles -Free Printables

I just got this great email from Activity Village...........

I hope you will have had a chance to explore Activity Village's Puzzles section! But just in case, I thought it might be useful if I give you a quick tour of what we currently offer. We are in the middle of a big expansion of the Puzzles section and I'm excited to tell you about some of the newest offerings... Our Puzzles section entry page is divided into 5 sections: 1. Featured puzzles 2. Puzzles by type (see below) 3. Online puzzle games 4. Puzzles by holiday 5. Puzzles by season Here's a brief guide to just some of the types of puzzle we offer. Sudoku for Kids: Activity Village was the first provider of Sudoku puzzles exclusively for children, and I'm really proud of our puzzles. We grade them very carefully so that children can start with the easiest and progress slowly, never coming across a puzzle which stumps them and puts them off. We have 4x4, 6x6 and 9x9 grids, as well as some fun Word Sudoku puzzles for many of the Holidays and Topics we cover. Mazes: Develop pencil control for the youngest children and keep older children busy and challenged with our large collection of printable mazes. Tangrams: These ancient Chinese puzzles ("seven pieces of cleverness") are challenging for all ages! Grid Copy Puzzles: I'm not sure that these are really puzzles in the conventional sense, but I've included them in the Puzzles section because they build concentration and counting skills! They are a fun way to learn to draw, too! Word Puzzles: We have a huge collection of the more conventional word puzzles, including word sea rches , word scrambles, word wheels, crosswords, how many words puzzles and more. And that's only a small taster of the puzzles already available at Activity Village. Please do explore some more! And if your kids love puzzles, or you'd like to build up a stack of printables for quick classroom fillers or rainy days, do consider signing up to our Daily Kids Puzzles Newsletter for a new puzzle, direct to your inbox, each weekday. Thank you for supporting Activity Village, and I hope you visit often! If you have any special requests or comments, just hit return on this email and drop me a line. With best wishes, Lindsay Small www.ActivityVillage.co.uk Keeping Kids Busy "No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted." Aesop

Holiday Printables

Sometimes you just gotta give 'em a coloring sheet! 

It's not my favorite.  I like activity sheets , activities and games that teach and enrich.  But, sometimes a fun coloring sheet that goes along with a theme is a perfect time filler, especially when they can help decorate a bulletin board or make the room more lively.  Coloring is fun, improves motor skills of little ones, can be a creative outlet, and is an easy activity.  Just don't depend on it day after day. Please.

 www.Reading-With-Kids.com has a great Thanksgiving page loaded with activities, puzzles, cards and even coloring sheets. 

I haven't gotten to explore much of the site yet, but it looks like a fun one with lots of good resources.  Add it to your favorites!

 

 

Free Resources - The Dover Sampler

I love getting my twice monthly Dover Teacher Sampler in my email.  Dover publications sends out samplers of their newest and best fit publications for you to try.  These are great worksheets and samples of ideas you can use in the classroom, summer of after school.  Sometimes they are coloring sheets, worksheets, puzzles, or games that go along with lots of themes.  These aren't just fun, they're educational too!  A coloring sheet of a shark tells about the type of shark, how it lives, what it eats, etc.  In afterschool we tend to sometimes rely heavily on coloring sheets to keep the kids occupied.  Why not have them learn something from those sheets.  These are also usually more intricate, and so they take longer and pull in the interest of older kids as well.

Instead of printing out all of the samples that you like, save them into theme based files in an afterschool folder, on your computer.  When you are doing an ocean theme you will have a few great Dover shark coloring sheets and worksheets to go with your theme!

Sign Up and enjoy!

 

Read Across America - Dr Seuss Birthday - March 1

It's Dr Seuss Birthday on March 1.  Most school celebrate Read Across America Day.  There are LOTS of activities on Teaching Blog Addict.  Fun and education!  That's the goal of a great afterschool program!

 

Valentine's Day Clipart Border Set FREEBIE - TPT

Teachers Pay Teachers Valentine's Day Clipart Border Set FREEBIE

I have been having fun creating some stuff on Inkscape and I thought I would share a freebie with you.

 

 

Free Holiday Activities for Various Grades

I know how crazy things can be as we wind down the school year before Christmas.  The most important thing to do is to keep the kids EXTRA busy with fun activities. 

www.TeacherPayTeachers.com is a great place to find holiday tips and activities.  Some of the thousands of contributing teachers have put together packets with teaching ideas and activities to use.  These are mostly meant for classrooms, but blend well with After School Programs and Winter Break Camps as well.

2012 Winter Holidays Teaching Tips and Freebies: Grades 3-6 Edition
2012 Winter Holidays Teaching Tips and Freebies: Grades 1 & 2 Edition
2012 Winter Holidays Teaching Tips and Freebies: Grades: PreK & K Edition

I hate to see kids participating in a full day or full week camp and only have 5-6 different coloring sheets to pick from the whole time.  There is no reason we can't keep them occupied and secretly learning as well.  Don't make a million copies of these, just make 5-6 and keep a master copy in a notebook.  If kids liked one specifically and want to do it again, just get it out a make a few more copies. 

Nothing will tick off a school secretary more than seeing her school resources squandered by there being a ton of Christmas coloring sheets in the recycling at the end of Winter Break.  Be conservative with paper, be green, and keep a good relationship with your secretary!

Nature Scavenger Hunt - Perfect for Fall After School

On a nice dry autumn day, what a fun way to get kids engaged!  I found this great FREE sheet to help out. 

FREE - ABC Nature Walk for any group of Kids

• Separate kids into groups with mixed ages. 
• At least one or two older kids to write. 
• A Clipboard and pencil. 
• Older kids can write the labels and younger kids can draw a few pictures.
• Send them out to search around the playground, or around the school (with an adult). 
• Ask them to leave nature in nature, and to just observe.
• Afterward, have them tell about the most interesting thing they saw.

Check your area wildlife preserve or National Forest for FREE classroom presentations.  These are usually available to after school programs and summer camps as well.