Saturday, February 27, 2016

Three Cheers For Leap Year!!

Leap Year is a fascinating phenomenon! One of my son's friends was born on February 29th and is only 2 this year. My son is obsessed with the idea that someone could really be alive 8 years, but only be 2. A fun idea for an eight year old.

I wanted to hook into the fun of Leap Year with leaping and hopping frogs! I'm sharing some fun froggy ideas to use on Leap Year and throughout the year.
AND I've joined up with a bunch of fabulous teachers to bring you some great deals and ideas to celebrate Leap Year and the rest of the year! I'm also putting my entire store on sale from 2/28-3/1 + some exciting daily deals. You can also enter a fabulous giveaway!
To get started with some ideas for February 29th, you need to check out Crayons & Cuties in Kindergarten's blog post on 29 ideas to use with your kids on February 29th! There are tons of fun filled activities to get your kids excited about the leap year and the number 29. Many of the ideas require no prep, so you can easily get them ready for next week. One of my favorites is marking the 29th spot from your classroom in leaps. I love anything to get kids moving and learning at the same time.
Leap year is the perfect time to break out tons of frog activities. Get kids leaping into their learning!!
Frogs and skip counting are a perfect match, so I wanted to share my Let's Get Hopping pack. I love using the lily pads and frogs to teach and practice skip counting and beginning multiplication. It is great for kids that need to "see and do" to learn. 
I've worked with countless kids over the years that really need to experience concepts through concrete learning. Making a life-size number line is so useful for these kids. They are able to actually move through the numbers to experience greater/less than, skip counting, and so much more. The numbers become real, instead of just a mathematical concept.
In the Let's Get Hopping pack, you print the different sized lily pads onto different colors of paper. This gives kids both a color and size cue, as they skip count. It helps them build a visual picture in their brains, as they move to skip count. Activities like this reach so many different types of learners, because it fully engages learners in multiple ways. Children hold a frog with the number. In the picture below, he is skip counting by 3's. The speech bubble on the frog is blue to match the lily pads on the number line.
 Students can skip count by 2's, 3's, 5's, and 10's in this pack.
 It's such a fun way to find success with skip counting!
Want to bring frogs into language arts? You can get my free Frog and Toad vowel pack to help kids practice identifying long and short vowels. See the DIY directions and watch it in action on this post.
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If you've followed me at all, you know that I am in love with hands on activities. I love creating manipulatives and learning tools out of recyclables or "trash".
 Here are the Five Little Speckled Frogs come to life! This little learning toy is made out of a cardboard insert from printer ink.

 I hot glued magnets to the inside of the insert
and glued grass around the outside.
Hot glue a magnet to the bottom of a plastic frog and the frogs will stick to the top of the log.
 An easy frog manipulative to use with the song "Five Little Speckled Frogs". Fun and easy!
Hope you found some fun ideas to use on Leap Year and throughout the spring.  Check out more great deals and ideas from a bunch of talented teachers!!
You can enter the giveaway starting on 2/28!
Check out all the fabulous deals in the link-up! You can pick up my steal here. I've put my Devouring Donuts pack on sale for only $4! It is originally $7, so you are getting a great deal! See it in action here.
 Be sure to check back each day 2/28-3/1 for your daily deals!!





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