Chinese New Year PowerPoint - Traditions and customs of the Chinese New Year. Includes informational text, fun test your knowledge questions, and activities and crafts to celebrate. 18 slides.One slide focuses on Chinese New Year 2015 with a short video...about the confusion of the year of the sheep, goat, or ram. Enjoy! Updated February 2015 - HappyEdugator

Back to School - Kindergarten Language Arts Practice FREEBIE. Students have to connect the alphabet letters in the right order to get the children to school and back home. Upper case and lower case letters. Good back to school quick assessment. Enjoy this free product and have a great year! - HappyEdugator CCSS K.RF.1d

Thanksgiving Counting Turkeys Activity CARDS - Numbers 1 - 20. Thanksgiving math practice. Students can sequence the number cards, and then count the turkeys and match them. Includes writing practice sheets for numbers 1 - 10 and 11 - 20. Supports common core state standards! Happy Thanksgiving! - HappyEdugator CCSS.Math.Content.K.CC.A.3 Write numbers from 0 to 20. Represent a number of objects with a written numeral 0-20 (with 0 representing a count of no objects). CCSS.Math.Content.K.CC.B.4 Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality. CCSS.Math.Content.K.CC.B.4a When counting objects, say the number names in the standard order, pairing each object with one and only one number name and each number name with one and only one object. CCSS.Math.Content.K.CC.B.4b Understand that the last number name said tells the number of objects counted. The number of objects is the same regardless of their arrangement or the order in which they were counted. CCSS.Math.Content.K.CC.B.4c Understand that each successive number name refers to a quantity that is one larger. CCSS.Math.Content.K.CC.B.5 Count to answer “how many?” questions about as many as 20 things arranged in a line, a rectangular array, or a circle, or as many as 10 things in a scattered configuration; given a number from 1–20, count out that many objects.

Thanksgiving Quiz - Test Your Thanksgiving Knowledge. The first Thanksgiving trivia quiz. Twenty questions. How many answers do you know? Some will surprise you! A fun Thanksgiving activity that can be used as a party game, but it could also be used as a student anticipation guide for a unit on Thanksgiving, a research or web quest sheet, or as an assessment after a Thanksgiving unit of study. Key included, of course! No prep. Print and go. - HappyEdugator

Thanksgiving Reader's Theater - Gobble It Up. A first Thanksgiving play script or Thanksgiving reader's theater; On the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims and the Indians are coming together for a three day feast, and Mr. Turkey Lurkey has to take cover. There are 26 short speaking parts, so everyone can be involved! It takes approximately 20-25 minutes to be performed. No costumes necessary, but you can dress it up. Fun November educational activity based on facts on the history of Thanksgiving! Two versions included - one with a smaller print (4 pages) to save on copies, and one with a larger font for reading ease (8 pages). No need to memorize lines. My students loved reading it, and I am sure yours wil enjoy this Thanksgiving activity, too! Print and go. No prep. Happy Thanksgiving! - HappyEdugator

Following Directions Puzzles. A fun way to teach following directions and critical thinking. Great test preparation. You get three challenging puzzles! In the first puzzle, students cross words off of a table according to the directions provided. When they are finished, they will reveal a famous inspirational quote about life. In the second puzzle, students have to rearrange letters according to the directions to change one phrase into another. Finally, in the third puzzle, students must follow the arrows in order to reach the finish. Keys included. This is also a useful activity to do around testing time, at the beginning or end of the year, or anytime you wish to reinforce the importance of following directions. Good brain work out for gifted and talented, too. - HappyEdugator

One Hundred Essential Questions for Language Arts. Vitally Important questions for students in critical areas of reading, writing, and grammar. Not open-ended questions as named in some specific curriculum programs, just essential questions for learning the content. This list of one hundred essential questions can be used to drive lesson plans in an English Language Arts classroom. Good for back to school. You can give it as a handout at the beginning of the year and focus students on what is essential to know and what they will learn. This is also a useful tool at the end of the year for review for state standardized testing. It will help you focus on learning what is really important in the areas of grammar and writing.

Christmas - Winter Holiday Wordsearch. A challenging Christmas word find or word search puzzle with holiday words hidden in the letters. Nearly 100 words are disguised in the puzzle. Words can be forwards and backwards, and either horizontal, vertical, and diagonal. Bonus drawing frame included. No prep. Print and go. Key included. - HappyEdugator

Myths, Legends, Fables and Fairytales PowerPoint. Teach folktales and traditional tales: myths, legends,tall tales, fables, and fairytales. The slides discuss differences between myths and legends, tall tales, fables, and fairy tales. Examples of some famous tales and famous authors are mentioned. Myths are explanations for how ancient people understood their worlds, like Thor and Zeus. Legends were stories passed along that had a basis in truth, but were not real, like King Arthur and Robin Hood. Fables were told to teach lessons, most famously by Aesop. And folk tales and fairy tales were both passed down as stories for the children. Fairy tales we now enjoy were collected from oral tradition and written down in the 1800's. For instance, Hans Christian Andersen is remembered especially for his tales of The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, and The Ugly Duckling, while the Brothers Grimm are known for Cinderella, Snow White, and The Frog Prince. Everything is presented against a beautiful castle background and sound effects have been added for interest.

Fall Leaves Digital Paper - Fall Colors and Black and White. 24 different styles. 12 X 12, 300 dpi. JPEG file format. High quality digital papers for your creations. Personal or commercial use. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

Stars and Stripes Digital Paper - Stars and Stripes - Patriotic Colors. 24 different styles of stripes and stars. 12 X 12, 300 dpi. JPEG file format. High quality digital papers for your creations. Personal or commercial use. Use for 4th of July, September 11, Veterans Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day and more! Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

Chevron Digital Paper - Fall Colors. 23 different styles. 12 X 12, 300 dpi. High quality digital papers for your creations. Personal or commercial use. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

Thanksgiving Play - A Joyful Harvest. A short Thanksgiving play or skit that is quick and easy to perform, and fun! Set on the first Thanksgiving. Four characters - a pilgrim boy and girl, and a native American boy and girl. A fun way to act out the preparations for the first Thanksgiving. Backdrop is forest on one side and grass on the other. The Pilgrim and Indian children talk about the upcoming harvest feast with excitement, play a game of pins, and end up naming the holiday. Based on actual history of Thanksgiving. Fun Thanksgiving activity! Print and go...can be done without props or backdrop as a reader's theater.

Christmas Figurative Language Memory Game PowerPoint. This Christmas PowerPoint game on figurative language is set up like the game Concentration. This Christmas game provides matching pairs made up of a literary term and its definition on one slide and an example from literature on another slide. For a fun December winter activity, the examples are related to Christmas. Examples come from such works as A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost, and even The Grinch Who Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss. Some of the terms used in the game are metaphor, allusion, oxymoron, paradox, symbol, simile and irony. Click on the number on the board to reveal the card. Click on the number on the card or the arrow button to return to the board. Instructions on play are included, as well as a link to a Christmas music video to watch when the game is completed. Revised and Updated. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! -HappyEdugator

Seventh Grade by Gary Soto Preview PowerPoint. Introduce the short story 7th grade by the author Gary Soto. Develops background knowledge. Information about the author. Images compare Fresno, California to Paris, France. Vocabulary connection includes words like tortilla, fiesta, and siesta. Students are reminded to think about the author's purpose and the theme of the story as they read. There are several slides with images of different Gary Soto books for students who might be interested in reading books by this author. I use this presentation to introduce the story to my students. Includes a graphic organizer of the elements of fiction which you can print out for your students. Story is about the going back to school experience of a middle grades boy who wishes to impress a certain girl. - HappyEdugator

Halloween Horrid Homonyms Worksheet. A Halloween writing activity. Many students get homonyms (or homophones) confused when they write, and this worksheet will help them practice using homonyms correctly. There are twenty sets of commonly misused homonyms, and students will write their own spooky sentences using the homonyms correctly. To make it more challenging, students can try to use both ( or all three) homonyms in the same sentence! Students can work with partners or individually, as the teacher directs. They can then write a Halloween story using their newly learned homonyms. Decorative lined paper included. The idea can be adapted for other holidays as well. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

Christmas Activity - Teaching Vocabulary with Lyrics from Jingle Bells. Here's an engaging December or winter activity to teach vocabulary by using the familiar Christmas carol Jingle Bells. The lyrics for all four verses are large enough for a transparency or LCD projector. The words highlighted in red and green are the vocabulary words. There is a list of words, also made for the overhead or LCD, and a key. This was designed as a Christmas lesson for kids in upper elementary and middle grades, but it can be used for higher levels as well. - HappyEdugator

Thanksgiving: The First Thanksgiving. Teaching the history of Thanksgiving? The First Thanksgiving fill-in the blank story or cloze activity will add to your unit. Students can fill in the blanks of the story using the Word Bank. This is a fun vocabulary building activity and provides historical background for the holiday as well. 1 page worksheet and 1 page key. - HappyEdugator

St. Patrick's Day Writing with Sentence Writing Checklist. 5 different writing prompts with drawing boxes and a simple writing checklist for students to use when writing basic sentences. Students evaluate their writing by checking neatness, capitalization, punctuation, completeness, and ideas. Includes 4 steps to the writng process. The clover graphic organizer makes it a useful checklist for around St. Patrick's Day! - HappyEdugator

Halloween Dead Words and Dead Verbs Handout. Great for Halloween writing activities, or even throughout the year. Dead words are overused words that have lost their power. List of dead words, dead verbs, and some more interesting alternatives that should be used instead. There is a place for students to add to the list. A useful tool for students to use for reference when they write and revise. 2 pages. - HappyEdugator