BUBBLE WRAP HOPSCOTCH

How much fun is this? Watch the adults go for it too - including myself! Simply cut out bubble wrap squares to form your hopscotch. You can paint the bubble wrap, but we suggest (unless you want patriotic colors in red, white, and blue for Memorial Day or 4th of July) that you simply use red and blue wide-tipped permanent markers to write the numbers on the bubble wrap squares. Then hop, skip, jump, and crackle-pop! for this wonderful hopscotch game.

http://www.bhg.com/holidays/july-4th/crafts/patriotic-crafts-for-kids/?page=4

THE FINNISH MIRACLE - FEATURES OF THE WORLD'S TOP PERFORMING SCHOOLS

1st in math internationally, 2nd in science, 3rd in reading - all this on fewer days of school, less spending per student, and half the working hours of American teachers?! What is Finland doing that's so special? You're in for a surprise; take a look at the way Finland approaches education.

http://www.greatschools.org/students/finland-education.gs?content=2453&page=all

PRESCHOOL CAN HELP FIGHT CRIME

Not just the quality of the preschool program, but the level of parental involvement helps produce favorable statistics, both for graduation and law-abiding citizens, argues San Bernardino District Attorney Michael A. Ramos.

http://www.sbsun.com/pointofview/ci_15051657

Have you seen the latest Classroom Flyer?

Get it before it's gone! This CF issue has Memorial Day and Language Arts resources. Don't forget to click at the end of each page to go onto the next one!
http://everydayteaching.com/Flyer/index.php

Don't forget to feed the fish!

Don't forget to feed the fish! Scroll down (just for fun while you're visiting!) - and we've included the New York Times updates as well, in case you wanted an easy way to catch up on today's headlines (sidebar).

Kindergarten Graduation Certificate

Your kindergarten students must be so excited about graduating and moving up to first grade! Help them celebrate and remember the occasion, with these printable Kindergarten Graduation Certificates.
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Holiday/End_Year/kindergarten_cert.php

Preschool Graduation Certificates

Your preschoolers are graduating, and moving up to kindergarten! Celebrate the occasion, and give them each one of these colorful, printable Preschool Graduation Certificates to treasure and share with their families.
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Holiday/End_Year/preschool_cert.php

Patriotic Salt Dough Pins

These patriotic pins look great in their bold red, white and blue colors, but the reason we especially like them is that we think you could stage a fund-raiser with them! Whip up a huge batch and form them into stars and hearts, all decorated with red, white and blue, and apply word art as well. Add pins to the back, and sell some for Memorial Day in order to raise money for school field trips or other pet projects.
http://crafts.kaboose.com/fourth-of-july-salt-dough-pins.html

T-Shirt Memory Clotheslines

Need a creative end-of-year project? Print out these T-shirt templates (2 to a page) and get your students to write their favorite or most memorable event of the year. Let them color and decorate the T-Shirts, then string a line across a wall and use clothespins to hang them all up!
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Holiday/End_Year/t-shirt_template.php

MOVING ON UP

For primary classes, whether moving up from kindergarten to first grade, or graduating from third grade into fourth, find some wonderfully creative ideas here to help mark the occasion. I love the ideas for Butterfly Wings and Promotion Pretzels, while Famous Last Words is a great idea for students to create a bulletin baord of wisdom for next year's students (and helps you have one less bulletin board to tackle in the fall as well!).
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3756

Summer Daze Filler Worksheet

Toward the end of the school year you might be needing a few filler activities. Print out this worksheet for a summer vocabulary wordsearch - with a twist. Students have to use clues first to find the term they're looking for. An answer key is provided.
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Holiday/Summer/Summer_Days_worksheet2-4.php

End of Year Awards-to-Go

Give each of your students a special award at the end of the school year. Make those award titles creative, and sign and date them. Here are four printable and unique certificates to print and fill out for your students.(P.S. If you want to have these printable awards in color, just let us know and we'll post them for you! Use our "Comment" box below, or send us a message: everydayteaching@realmworkscommunications.com )
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Holiday/End_Year/awards2go.php

HOST A MULTICULTURAL FIELD DAY!

Would you like to plan a multi-cultural Field Day? Take a look for some great, end-of-the-school-year Field Day activities, submitted by one of our subscribers.
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Holiday/End_Year/field_day_ideas.php

WHEN OUR SCHOOLS BECOME A BUSINESS

This educator is decidedly against charter schools, particularly for lacking the resources to help special education concerns.
http://www.educationnews.org/educationnewstoday/90813.html

Going, Going, Gone!

This educator looks at both sides of the coin in Washington, D.C. schools, and how Chancellor Michelle Rhee is putting some pretty controversial maneuvers into play. $100K per year in 5 years sound good to you? Yes, but you must give up tenure. The author also examines philanthropy, tied to special pet causes in education. Is this education reform? You decide.
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/place_at_the_table/2010/05/going_going_gone.html

Teacher's Union Okays Pay Freeze

It's becoming a common theme in today's economy: pay raises are frozen, but jobs are sustained.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/may/07/teachers-accept-shared-sacrifice/

GRADUATION CLIPART

It's almost that time - find some grad clipart images here for the end of the school year. Scroll ahead and back for further images.
http://everydayteaching.com/Gallery/grad_clipart.php?we_lv_start_ImageGallery=6

Interactive Learning Games

http://interactivelearninggames.blogspot.com/

Summer Reading Cards

Print out copies of these reading cards in order to fill one out and give one to each of your students. You can individualize the cards with titles for each student, or use the same titles for your class as a whole. We suggest printing them onto card stock for durability; 2 cards per page.
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Holiday/Summer/summer_read_cards.php

Memorial Day Wordsearch

Download and print out this wordsearch to discuss terms associated with Memorial Day. Ask students to also build sentences with each of the terms.
http://everydayteaching.com/Holiday/memorial_day/mem_day_wordsearch1.php

END OF YEAR CERTIFICATES

Show your students that you had a great time with them this year, and send them off to their next grade level with a smile and these cheerful certificates. Choose from preschool or kindergarten. (P.S. If you want one made for a different grade level, including with a different theme, just let us know! write to us at: classroomflyer@everydayteaching.com or use our comment box below.)
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Holiday/End_Year/advancement_cert_K.php
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Holiday/End_Year/advancement_cert.php

NEW CLASSROOM FLYER ISSUE AVAILABLE

The newest issue of the Classroom Flyer has just gone out. See it online at the link below.
It includes lots of language arts review resources, printables, and games across all grade
levels, as well as resources to teach Memorial Day in the classroom - again, including all
grade levels and pretty much covering the curriculum. Enjoy!
http://everydayteaching.com/Flyer/index.php

END OF YEAR FIELD DAY ACTIVITIES

Need some fun ideas to help you plan an exciting field day to wrap up your school year? Here are two pages of events kids are sure to love!
http://www.teachnet.com/lesson/health/fieldday051899.html
http://www.teachnet.com/lesson/health/fieldday051899_2.html

CRAYON TREES

Here's a great way to store crayons for each child in a classroom, on an individualized tower. You'll want to create the "x" cuts first, then hand out recycled paper towel tubes for your students to decorate (add glitter, gems, stickers, etc.). After they have dried, students can insert their crayons and create their own crayon trees - easy and quite delightful! You can send these crayon towers home at the end of the school year as well, to dispense with all of your used crayons for the year.
http://www.toddlertoddler.com/todayscrayontree.htm

A Bouquet for Mother's Day

My son picked me not one, but two bouquets for Mother's Day this morning - and dropped rose petals all over the stairs for me. I'm sharing one of his great gifts with all mothers! Enjoy the roses, they smell great - and Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there!

Amelia Earhart Web Trek

Upper elementary and middle school students can complete this Web Trek on the life and career of Amelia Earhart. Ten questions guide student research, reading, and comprehension, and a list of extension activities, including such topics as the mechanics of flight, paper airplanes and flight, and geography, is available with the Answer Key, included.
http://www.everydayteaching.com/treks/middle/amelia.php

END OF YEAR STUDENT LETTER TO TEACHER FORM

These printable, fill-in-the-blank letters for the end of the school year will not only offer students an opportunity to reflect back upon their school year, but also possibly give you some valuable feedback on what works and what doesn't, from your students' points of view.
http://everydayteaching.com/Holiday/End_Year/letter2teacher.php

Prep those Prepositions!

Need some extra work with prepositions? Try this printable worksheet.
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Subject/Lang/ESL_prepositions.php

TOP TEN LIST for End of Year High School

Who was the class clown? Runner-up? What was the best moment of the school year? What was the funniest moment of the school year? Have students vote for all of the categories (and even make up some of their own!), cut out the tags, and create an end-of-year classroom display for all to remember!
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Holiday/End_Year/top10_highschool.php

CAMPING FLASH CARDS

Are you planning a unit on camping in your elementary classroom, before the school year ends? Get out the flashlights, set up a classroom tent, and print out the illustrated camping terms below for a set of flashcards, or for a bulletin board border. The 5th link below provides a blank template so you can fill it in to suit your purposes.
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Printables/FlashCards/camping1.php
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Printables/FlashCards/camping2.php
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Printables/FlashCards/camping3.php
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Printables/FlashCards/camping4.php
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Printables/FlashCards/camping_blank.php

Graduation Literacy Activity

We love this grad/literacy activity for the early elementary classroom from Twiggle Magazine, using Eric Carle's wonderful book, "A House for Hermit Crab". Scroll down past the teaching guide for numerous printables, including crab picture months of the year, word walls for the book, felt story pictures, and more.

WAS/WERE WORKSHEET

Early elementary students must choose the correct past tense of the verb, either "was" or "were", to fill in the blanks on this free, printable worksheet.
http://everydayteaching.com/Subject/Lang/was_were.php

SPONGE ACTIVITIES

Did you know we publish new sponge activities each week? They're posted on our free teaching activity calendar every Monday (the link is available in the title of this post, above), and you can print them out, punch holes, and collect them in a binder to use throughout the school year, referring back often. Here's this week's entry, "Pack a Class Picnic".
http://everydayteaching.com/Calendar/index.php

Substitute Teacher Wanted

Just like the kids in "Mary Poppins" who wrote up their own demands and requirements for a nanny ad, your students will be writing an ad for a substitute teacher. Print out the writing worksheet here, and find new, free, printable worksheets each week on our Everyday Teaching Calendar at the 2nd link below.

http://everydayteaching.com/Calendar/2010/May/4.php

http://everydayteaching.com/Calendar/index.php

Education Cuts Ensure Poor Kids Stay Poor?

http://uspoverty.change.org/blog/view/school_budget_cuts_ensure_poor_kids_will_remain_poor

Teacher Layoffs Expected

The projected layoff numbers are devastating, across the country. Comment on how your state is affected, and how teachers you might know are coping.

MOTHER'S DAY HEART CARDS

Doesn't Mom deserve a special card? Of course she does! These cut-out cards can be made in any color, with cellophane windows and border ribbon. Add a teardrop earring from the thrift store for a special touch!
http://www.everydayteaching.com//Holiday/Mothers/mothersDay_HeartCraft.php

MIXED SUCCESS AT CHARTER SCHOOLS

Charter schools have become the pet push of many leading celebrities, but reviews are mixed:
"...fewer than one-fifth of charter schools nationally offered a better education than comparable local schools, almost half offered an equivalent education and more than a third, 37 percent, were 'significantly worse.'”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/education/02charters.html

Teachers and Politics

"...while it’s important to make teachers accountable, telling them their jobs could hinge on their students’ grades on one test is a terrible idea..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/opinion/01collins.html

Standards Lowered for High School Diploma

It looks like some e high school exit exams are just too tough to past - so some states are adopting alternative routes for high school graduation requirements. Comments?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/education/12exit.html

Printable Mother's Day Coupon Book

Embossed Frames (for End of School Year, Mother's Day)

Make some elegant - or whimsical - embossed frames. Your choice on the patterns, but whichever way you design it, they're tons of fun to make. Pop in a picture for a lasting memory for Mom, 5th grade, senior year, etc. They have a secret ingredient for the copper - very easy to work with! Find out more at the link below.
http://www.everydayteaching.com//Holiday/Mothers/mothersDay_EmbossedFrame.php

Make Some Slime!

Oh yeah! Your students will love this science activity, where they get to combine various materials to make some gooey, blue slime. Make sure, however, that they understand that the materials cannot be ingested. An online slideshow takes you through the procedure, step-by-step.
http://www.msichicago.org/online-science/activities/activity-detail/activities/make-slime/

Interactive Learning Game Picks and Reviews

New! We've created an interactive learning game site, where we review at least one K-8 learning game per day. Take a look.
http://interactivelearninggames.blogspot.com/

Garden Pics

As promised, here are a couple of photos of what's growing in my garden. I love my roses! - especially the first (& best) bloom of the season. This bouquet includes Othello (deep pink, huge cupped blooms, & gorgeous perfume) & Eden (a climber & one of the 1st & last bloomers, not great on fragrance, but beautiful), and a few others. The grapevines are reaching vigorously to cover the arbor, and I can see the promise of some great summer refreshment with the teensy tiny grapes! And the cosmos, irises, and Birds of Paradise are all blooming already as well. Do you have some garden pics to share? We'd love to see them!

World Clipart

Choose some of the most familiar images from all over the world - and some that aren't quite as familiar. You know the Eiffel Tower in France, but how about the Wat Phra Kaew in Thailand? Find photos to use for projects, papers, bulletin boards, and your own websites as well.

http://cp.c-ij.com/english/photo/world/index.html

Mother's Day Project

Make this elegant, glittery candle with your students to send home to Mom for Mother's Day. You can use recycled jars from the thrift shop, any color of glitter and marbles, and tea-light candles.
http://www.everydayteaching.com//Holiday/Mothers/mothersDay_GlitterCandle.php

Mixed Success at Charter Schools

Charter schools have become the pet push of many leading celebrities, but reviews are mixed:
"...fewer than one-fifth of charter schools nationally offered a better education than comparable local schools, almost half offered an equivalent education and more than a third, 37 percent, were 'significantly worse.'”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/education/02charters.html

Mother's Day Candles (Craft)

Transform any pillar candle with this beautiful craft, just for moms!
http://www.everydayteaching.com//Holiday/Mothers/mothersDay_CrownedCandle.php

Mother's Day Wordsearch

Print out this worksheet for a prewriting exercise or sponge activity for your students this Mother's Day, where students will find the terms as shown, and then also put them into alphabetical order. Students can consider the qualities of a mother, and your class can brainstorm a large list of adjectives. We bet some of them will be quite hilarious!
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Holiday/Mothers/mothersDay_WordSearch.php