Summer Camp Link Party!!

I hope you're all enjoying your Summer! I'm THRILLED to say that I have been asked to be a Summer Camp Counselor over on Design Dazzle!!  {Stay tuned for my guest post on her blog next week!} Design Dazzle hosts a Summer Camp on her blog where guest bloggers share FUN summertime ideas you can do with your kids this summer! We still have a few more weeks of Summer Camp fun left! But we want EVERYONE to be involved in Summer Camp, so we're hosting our annual Summer Camp link party because we want to see YOUR fabulous ideas as well! Our Summer Camp Link party starts today and will run through Saturday June 28th. Feel free to link up any projects, ideas, crafts, etc. that you have created which involve Summer Fun & Kids. We want new ideas as well as ideas from years past…the more the better! We'll feature some of our favorites throughout the party on our blog. We've recruited some of our Summer Camp Counselors to help host our link party.

When you link up to our party, it will show up on ALL the following participating blogs:

Design Dazzle | Simply Designing | Suzy's Sitcom | Paisley Petal Events | Kiki & Company | Bloom Designs | The Crafted Sparrow | Pink Cake Plate | Jaco'lyn Murphy | The Scrap Shoppe | a girl and a gluegun | Ginger Snap Crafts | I Dig Pinterest | Daisy Mae Belle | Artzy Creations | Happiness is Homemade | Apples 4 Bookworms | Not Just a Mommy | Love the Day | Hoopla Palooza | Confetti Sunshine | Bombshell Bling | Holy Craft | Party Patisserie

Be sure to visit all of our new and previous Summer Camp ideas as well, by clicking the banner below!

Playschool~ Teddy Bear Picnic!

Teddy Bear Picnic!

Check out what we did for Teddy Bear Picnic Week:

Snack:

B is for Bear

Ingredients: Bagel, Peanut Butter, Ritz crackers, and Chocolate Chips.

We ate these with our teddy bears on a picnic blanket.

Math:

Using our counting bears, the kids put a bear on each circle I had on the page.  Then, they would touch the bears' head as we would count aloud.  Helps with one to one correspondence

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We completed this Teddy Bear Exploration Page about our bears and used cubes to measure it's height.  Click on the link to find the FREE printable.

Gummy Bear sorting and graphing.  I found these worksheets HERE.  But, you have to download the picture and put it in word.  So you can download my graphing page HERE.

A picnic busy bag where the student puts the number ants on the food.

You can find this Busy Bag in my Etsy shop here.

Reading & Craft:

We read "Corduroy" by Don Freeman

I printed the bear HERE and had the kids do marble art with brown paint.

I cut out these green overalls and had them glue a button, eyes, and nose on their Corduroy. 

3-Digit Subtraction Or Addition Practice!

This activity is great for hands on practice for 2nd and 3rd graders struggling with 3 digit subtraction or addition w/ regrouping!

I split my "class" into 2 groups.  2 students vs. 2 students.  They rolled their set of dice.  Set up their problem.  I had to check (at the beginning- they ended up catching on) before they subtracted to ensure the larger number was on top- to avoid any negative numbers. :)  The groups would find the difference (or sum depending on what you are practicing).  Whichever group had the largest answer won the round!  I loved watching the teams catch on to put the biggest number on top and the lowest possible number on the bottom so they can get the largest possible difference.  So fun to see the light bulb go off in their little minds. :)

Distributive Property Hands On Activity

Great hands on activity for 6th - 8th graders struggling or just learning the Distributive Property.  I like to tell my students that a fun way to remember Distributive Property is that the parenthesis are like a bowl and the term in front is going to be "double dipped" (or "triple dipped" depending on how many terms are inside the parenthesis) into the bowl.  I always have them circle the term in front including the sign so it's easier for them to remember it when distributing. 

Materials Needed:

Half Sheet of Paper (write boxes and parenthesis as pictured)

3 dice (I put in one red one for the older kids to represent a negative number)

Whiteboard or paper and pencil

Students roll the dice and place the dice in the boxes

(if they are using a red dice for negative numbers, then just put it in either of the first 2 boxes)

Students write the problem formed when the roll the dice and solve!

My summer class of 7th graders wanted to make a competition of it.  So, we set a timer to see who could solve the most distributive property problems correctly the fastest.  It was funny to watch them catch on that when they rolled a 1 they would put it in the first box so they didn't have to distribute or "double dip" like I call it. :)