Hello June! Today, I have our NEW June Joke of the Day 2nd Edition ready to share with you!

June Joke of the Day 2nd Edition

Have you been following along each day as I share a different joke of the day on Facebook?

Since this is the second edition, there are all new jokes this month! You’ll find some silly summer jokes and some fun animal jokes this month. Each month, I also turn them into a printable so you can easily print them out and have the page handy all month to share with your class or family at home.

These jokes are a simple, fun way to connect with your students and make them laugh. This month, we have fun jokes that are sure to make your little ones giggle and maybe get some eye rolls.

Sharing humor can foster a positive, lighthearted environment, whether at home, in the classroom, or among friends. It sets a cheerful tone for the day.

Share the jokes with your class during your morning meeting, getting ready to go to lunch, or when you are packing up for the day before you go home. During the summer months, share them with your family at home during lunch or dinner to get some giggles.

I made the joke of the day printable available to print in both color and black and white.

You can download the June Joke of the Day 2nd Edition printable by clicking the green box below.

If you missed the first edition of the June Joke of the Day printable, you can find it here.

If your kids are loving the jokes, you might also want to check out our Summer Jokes Bingo set.
The bingo cards are filled with the answers to 30 different jokes. You will read each joke, and then the students will find the correct answer on their board. There is a matching picture on each of the calling cards and bingo cards, so the students can easily check their answers. The pictures on the boards also make it so non-readers and ESL students can play as well. You can grab the Summer Jokes Bingo set here.

I hope your kiddos will enjoy this new set of jokes just as much as the first!

See you next time!

Jenette

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June is quickly approaching, so today I am sharing the June Joke Of The Day printable with you! Whether you are still in school or just want to print it off to share with your family each day, we have some fun ones this month!

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If you are new to the joke of the day, I share one each day on my Facebook page. I also compile them all together on a free printable for you so you can have it handy to share with your class or family each day.

This month is full of silly jokes about summer, the beach, ice cream, and vacations. They are sure to make your kids giggle and maybe even get some eye rolls.

If you are still in school, these jokes are perfect to add to your morning meetings, to tell your students when lining up for lunch, or even packing up to go home for the day. If you’re at home and sharing them with your family, why not bring them out at dinner time, or even bring the jokes on your summer trip?!

I’ve made the free printable available to print in both color and black and white for you.

You can download the June Joke Of The Day free printable by clicking the green box below.

I hope your kids enjoy these silly jokes this month! Share with us below which ones are their favorites!

See you next time!

Jenette

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Are you thinking about having a camping-themed day at the end of the school year? I’ve gathered a ton of great Camping Themed Day Ideas to make it easy to plan your day!

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this article (and most) on primary playground, does contain affiliate links that we do earn a commission off of.  clicking these links does not cost you any extra but helps our website to keep great articles and freebies like this coming your way.

Camping Themed Day Ideas

• Get your kids excited for the day by having a campfire going on the smartboard as they come in. It’ll add to the fun atmosphere throughout the day.

• Have your students bring in blankets to put over their desks to make their own tents.
• Camping Read Alouds – You can find all of our favorite camping read aloud books here.

• Bring in mini flashlights or finger flashlights for reading time in their tents.
• Set up a camping-themed center rotation as part of your day. Students can go on a camping a-z scavenger hunt, do some marshmallow math, make a fun hat to wear, work on fine motor skills, and more! Get all of the details here.

• Do a drawing project on Art For Kids Hub. Here is a great one that we love for them to draw a campfire of their own. They have a couple of other cute ones too, like drawing a tent and a camper.

• Make a s’more snack! You can make these ahead of time and put them in baggies and use our cute s’more bag toppers that you can download for free here, or have them make the snack in class and put them in cups. Perfect to snack on while reading!

• Take a nature walk.
• Set up a scavenger hunt. You could bring the items in or print out pictures for the kids to find around the classroom or even the school. You can find the printable version of the scavenger hunt here.

• Give the students a tent stem bin. Have them create a tent out of the materials that you give them.
• Play camping bingo! Great way to learn camping vocabulary!

• Sing songs around the campfire. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, The Green Grass Grew All Around and Ants Go Marching are some of our favorites. You can find them all on YouTube to sing along to as well. Here’s another fun one we like from Kidboomers too!

• Make solar oven s’mores! Lots of great tutorials for these on Pinterest.
• Set up a real tent together as a class to have a real-life lesson.
• Learning how to tie a knot is another great life lesson and why they are so important when camping.
• Make bird feeders. Again, there are a ton of great tutorials for these on Pinterest depending on how much time you want to spend on them. Search Bird Feeder Crafts For Kids. You can always do a quick version by stringing Cheerios onto pipe cleaners and hang them around the school.
• Do a would you rather camp workout! Great brain break activity to get the kids moving today. Here’s another fun version we like too!

• Make friendship bracelets! Grab some elastic string and some pony beads to make simple bracelets. Great fine motor practice while having fun!
• Math Activity – have fun measuring things with marshmallows to practice non-standard measurement. Or practice counting with these marshmallow counting mats.
• Writing Activity/Craft- Make a s’more craft and then write about them.

• Reading Activity – Read the book, A Camping Spree With Mr. Magee, and then make a fun campfire snack to go along! You can download a free fun drawing activity to go along with the book too here.

• If you need a camping movie to watch sometime during the day, The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About Camping is a great option.

• Towards the end of the day, have the students write postcards home from “camp” telling their family or friends about the things that they have done throughout the day.

Phew! Hopefully, that gives you a bunch of fun new ideas for your next camping-themed day! Let us know in the comments below if you have any other fun camping day activities that you like to do with your class!

See you next time!

Jenette

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Raise your hand if you love cookies! I sure do, they’re my favorite! Have you ever had a cookie-themed day with your students? Today I’m sharing some Cookie Taste Test Activities you can do to bring in the science and writing for the day.

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Taste Testing and the 5 Senses – Science, Writing and Math

The first activity is we’re going to describe cookies. Grab a pack of chocolate chip cookies from the store and give one to each student. Depending on your class I made 2 different printables for this activity.

The first is they can draw and or write in the boxes to describe their cookie when tasting it. Or you can bring in the 5 senses on option 2 and have them describe their cookie using the 5 senses, writing in their answer in a sentence.

Cookie Taste Test

And our second cookie tasting activity also has 2 options.

Option 1

We’re bringing math into this one! The first option is to find out what type of cookie is the class’s favorite. This one is a great option if you can’t actually have food in the classroom.

The cookie options are chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, sugar cookies, and oatmeal cookies. You’ll have each of the students ask their classmates which cookie is their favorite.

Depending on their answer they will fill in the matching box on the graph using the correct color. In the end, they can total up the columns and write in the numbers to determine which cookie is the class favorite!

Option 2

And the second option is to pick up 3 bags of cookies from the store. You’ll want to grab a sandwich cookie, an animal cookie and a chocolate chip cookie. Start by giving each student one of each of the cookies and decide which one they like the best.

Next, you’ll have each of the students ask their classmates which cookie is their favorite. Depending on their answer they will fill in the matching box on the graph using the correct color. In the end, they can total up the columns and write in the numbers to determine which cookie is the class favorite!

Lots of great learning going on in these activities with a yummy twist!

Click the green box below to download all of these fun activities altogether.

If you’re looking for some more great cookie ideas to make it a whole cookie-themed day, we have gathered a bunch of fun ideas here.

Do you have any other fun ideas you would add? I hope you have a fantastic time with your students learning, creating special memories, and eating cookies!

See you next time!

Jenette

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Are you looking for a fun-themed day for the end of the school year? I’ve gathered a bunch of End Of The Year Cookie Themed Day Ideas for you to do with your class. In this post, I’m sharing a few NEW free cookie printables too! We’ll be doing taste tests and using our 5 senses!

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Taste Testing and the 5 Senses – Science, Writing and Math

Raise your hand if you love cookies! I sure do, they’re my favorite! On your cookie-themed day, you MUST do a cookie taste test activity! We are bringing in the science, writing, and math for the day with these activities.

The first activity is we’re going to describe cookies. Grab a pack of chocolate chip cookies from the store and give one to each student. Depending on your class I made 2 different printables for this activity. The first is they can draw and or write in the boxes to describe their cookie when tasting it. Or you can bring in the 5 senses on the 2 option and have them describe their cookie that way writing in their answer in a sentence.

And our second cookie tasting activity also has 2 options. We’re bringing math into this one! The first option is to pick up 3 bags of cookies from the store and do a taste test between the 3 cookies and graph the results of which cookie each student liked the best. And the second option is to find out what type of cookie is the class’s favorite. This one is a great option if you can’t actually have food in the classroom. Click here to download all of these fun activities altogether.

Books and Activities

We have some great activities to go along with some great cookie books too so let’s check it out!

First, we’ll start off with some great cookie read-alouds. We share 7 of our favorites in this blog post here.

To go along with one of our favorite books, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, we have this fun hat for your students to make. Click here to download it for free.

Or if you want to get crafty, we have this Mouse Craft With Writing Prompts. Also perfect to go along with the book!

Did you know they also have an If You Give A Mouse Cookie tv show?! It’s super cute and has a few seasons now too. It’s free to watch on Amazon if you have Prime. Click here to check it out now.

And then we also have a literacy snack idea and free printable to go along with the book The Doorbell Rang. Click here to seethe snack idea and grab the free printable to go along with the book.

Math and Literacy Center Ideas

As part of your cookie day, why not set up a fun rotation of cookie centers! We have Milk and Cookie Counting Mats to help the students practice counting. We have Milk and Cookie Addition Mats to work on addition facts. For these, we love using Cookie Crisp cereal as the counters!

And we have out Milk and Cookie Real and Nonsense Word sort. This one is extra fun in class if you attach magnets to the back of the cookie and have them use a cookie sheet for the sorting activity!

We also have these free cookie counting puzzles to add to your center rotation too! Click here to download them for free.

Cooking Class

And last, we have our Cookie Class How To Make Chocolate Chip Cookies. Cooking class is a fun way to incorporate many different learning standards. In this pack, the students are learning writing, sequencing, retelling, life skills, and much more. It’s a great hands-on activity to get the students excited to learn. Click here to check it out now.

What other kind of cookie activity ideas do you have for your cookie-themed day? Share with us below!

See you next time!

Jenette

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Need a fun way to practice counting and using ten frames? I am sharing two fun activities with you today to help build these skills with this Free Printable Ten Frame Practice.

These resources work well with these activities.

The Setup

For these two activities, you’ll just need the Free Printable Ten Frame Practice download available at the bottom of this post, and you will also need some type of manipulative, pom pom, or some play-doh to use as counters. Play-doh is always a fun option as they can roll it into balls and use them to count. Below we used glass beads that we found at DollarTree.

To play

To play the first game, you will only need the larger empty ten-frame card and the bubble numbers. You will also need some type of manipulative, pom pom, or some play-doh.

Have the student choose one of the bubble numbers and then they will fill in the ten frames with the appropriate number of bubbles. This is a great way for the kids to work on counting, one-to-one correspondence, and even decomposing numbers.

The second game for the students to play is a matching game. You will need each of the smaller ten frame cards and the bubble numbers for this game.

Have the students layout each of the ten frame cards. They can then match the correct number bubble to the matching ten frames.

You can download the Free Printable Ten Frame Practice activities by clicking the green box below.

What other ways do you like to have your students practice ten frames?

See you next time!

Jenette

The post Free Printable Ten Frame Practice appeared first on Primary Playground.

This article (and most) on primary playground, does contain affiliate links that we do earn a commission off of.  clicking these links does not cost you any extra but helps our website to keep great articles and freebies like this coming your way.

Are you ready for summer? How about a vacation? We’re going to have our beach fun today as we read, There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Shell! by Lucille Colandro.

In this fun rhyming book of the classic song, the old lady swallows a bunch of beach items and ultimately builds a sandcastle in the end! So to go with our story today, we’ll be building our very own sandcastle snack!

These resources work well with the blog post.

Snack idea

Each student will need:

2 graham crackers

1 pretzel stick

1 small rectangle of cheese.- I took an 8oz bar of cheese and sliced it into pieces.

This snack is very open-ended and allows your student to create their own sandcastle. They can break their graham crackers into as many or as few pieces as they’d like and build a castle of their own. I love seeing how everyone’s creations turn out differently!

free printable

I made a free printable to go along with the book for your little learners to work on too. They will get to color each of the items that the old lady swallowed in the book. This is a great sequencing and retelling activity. You can have them color in the items as you read the story or see if they can retell you the order of the book as they color while enjoying their snack.

You can download the free printable from my TeachersPayTeachers store by clicking the green box below.

If you’re looking for some other books to read for summer, you might also like our literacy snack idea to go along with Blueberries For Sal. You can check that out here.

What are some of your other favorite picture books to celebrate summer?

See you next time!

Jenette

The post Literacy Snack Idea Sandcastle appeared first on Primary Playground.

his article (and most) on primary playground, does contain affiliate links that we do earn a commission off of.  clicking these links does not cost you any extra but helps our website to keep great articles and freebies like this coming your way.

I love books that have characters that our little learners already know. For this week’s literacy snack, we’re reading The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers by Lisa Campbell Ernst. This book takes place a year after she outsmarted the fox that ate her brother.

“The Gingerbread Girl is fast. She’s feisty. And she outsmarted that sly fox in her boisterous debut. Now the gingerbread girl is back with a new batch of friends – the animal crackers! They don’t want to listen to the Gingerbread Girl’s advice, even though she is one smart cookie. But they’d better watch it, or they’ll all become treats for that trickster fox. “

For this week’s snack to go along with the book, we’re having animal crackers like the ones in the book!

snack idea

For our snack to go along with the book, we’re having animal crackers. I tried to find the fun boxes of animal crackers but couldn’t find them anywhere! So we settled with a large bag of them. Try to give each student one of each of the different animals.

free printable

I made a free printable to go along with the book as well. It’s perfect for your students to work on while enjoying their animal crackers. They can even see if they can match up any of their cookies with the animals on the printable.

On the printable, your students will work on sequencing and retelling the story. They can number the pictures 1-8 in the order they happened and then color the pictures.

You can download the Literacy Snack Idea Gingerbread Girl free printable from my TeachersPayTeachers store by clicking the green box below.

I hope your kiddos enjoy this funny story and their special yummy snack!

See you next time!

Jenette

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Updated with no year so it can be used anytime!

We had so much fun making the Mother’s Day Photo Gift, we just had to make a Free Printable Father’s Day Photo Gift too!

These resources work well with this article.

I’m sure you have some great photos of the kids throughout the school year so just simply add one in for each student and you’re ready to send it! Pop it in the mail and the students will have something special to give to dad on Father’s Day.

In order to add the picture, you must have PowerPoint to open and add the picture. I added options for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, and just a Father’s Day. The general Father’s Day one can be used for uncles, grandpas, foster dads, etc. It’s also in both color and black and white in case you want your students to be able to color it before they give it to their dad.

Click the green box below to download the Free Printable Father’s Day Photo Gift. AGAIN, you MUST have PowerPoint in order to use this.

If you’re looking for something more to send for the kids to give to their dad our All About My Book would be perfect! They can color and fill in all of the pages and turns into an adorable gift for moms! It includes uncles, grandpas, and a blank option too!

You can find it here on Primary Playground and here on TeachersPayTeachers.

I hope these help your students celebrate their dads! 

See you next time!

Jenette

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The weather is warm, so why not bring the learning outdoors with this math water balloon toss! There are so many fun possibilities and different levels that this could be used for.

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This article (and most) on Primary Playground, does contain affiliate links that we do earn a commission off of.  Clicking these links does not cost you any extra but helps our website to keep great articles and freebies like this coming your way.

Supplies you’ll need

Sidewalk chalk

water balloons  or  sponges and a bucket of water to  put them in

Little learner games

For our little learners, have them practice writing their numbers one through ten with chalk and draw a circle around the number.  Next, using either water balloons or wet sponges, call out a number and have them toss the balloon on the number.

If you’re kiddos know their numbers have them move to numbers all the way to 100 using the same concept.

Working on building 10?  Help them draw ten frames in the sidewalk and have them help fill them in. Call out a number and have them toss the sponge or balloon on it.

Big kids

How about practicing addition or subtraction facts? Write a bunch of problems and circle them. Have them choose a problem, read it out loud, and say the answer then through the water balloon to show they completed it.

You can do the same thing with multiplication as well to get the older kids playing!

I hope your kiddos have fun getting outside playing in the water but getting some fun math practice in at the same time!

If you like these math water balloon toss ideas, you may want to check out our sight word water balloon toss and our letters and sounds water balloon toss.

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You most likely have a deck of UNO playing cards lying around. If I must confess, I have 6 different decks. I just can’t pass them up when I see them at the thrift store, knowing that I could use them in the classroom somehow.

I came up with 5 different math games to play with your deck of UNO cards.

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Color Match

To Play

Separate out the all of the number cards, mix them up and put them in a stack. Using one card of each color, red, blue, green and yellow, start a pile that the child will match with. Have the child turn over a card and they will put it in the pile that the color matches with. You can have them say the color as they place it down as well. To take it one step further when they have sorted all of the colors, have them choose one pile and put all of the numbers in order, or there should be two of each of the numbers, you could have them match the color numbers, for example, the yellow 2 with the yellow 2.

Number Memory Game

To Play

Separate the number cards from the UNO deck. Find  8 or more sets of cards that match in color and number. Take those cards and mix them up. Place them all face down on the table. The child will turn over one card of their choice and then another trying to match the color and number on the card. If they do not match, turn them both back facedown. And try again. Keep going until all the cards have been matched.

Number Sequence

To Play

Separate out numbers 0-9 in a certain color. Have the child our the numbers in the correct ascending order.

UNO Card Addition

To Play

Separate out the number cards from the deck. Make two different piles of cards, one with numbers 5 and below, and the second pile can include all numbers 0-9. The pile of numbers 5 and below will be your cards for the “problem” and the pile that includes larger cards, will be the answer pile. Grab a small piece of paper or a post it note and a pen. Make an addition sign on one and an equal sign on the other. Have the child flip a card from the  “problem” pile and place it down. Next place the addition sign and then choose another card from the “problem” pile and then place down the equal sign. Have the child figure out the addition problem and choose the correct answer from the answer pile of cards.

UNO Card Subtraction

To Play

Separate out the number cards from the deck. Make two different piles of cards, one with numbers 9 and below, and the second pile can include all numbers 0-9. The pile of numbers 9 and below will be your cards for the “problem” that will be face down and the other will be the answer pile. Grab a small piece of paper or a post it note and a pen. Make a subtraction sign on one and an equal sign on the other. Have the child flip a card from the  “problem” pile and place it down. Next place the subtraction sign and then choose another card from the “problem” pile and then place down the equal sign. Have the child figure out the subtraction problem and choose the correct answer from the answer pile of cards.  On this game, you may have to guide the child for the first couple of problems, showing them that the highest number need o be on the left, or at least that the second card they flip over will have to be smaller than the first in order for the game to work. If they don’t draw one that is smaller, have them just draw again.

I hope your kids enjoy these 5 math games to play with UNO cards. Do you have any other ideas of math games you could play with them?

After having so much fun playing these games, we came up with 5 more math games to play with DOS cards!

See you next time!

Jenette

The post 5 Math Games To Play with UNO Cards appeared first on Primary Playground.

School is out for the summer, but we want to prevent that dreaded summer slide right?  To help with that, I came up with a fun game, sight word water balloon toss.  The kids can play outside and can also practice their reading in a fun way.

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Supplies

A pack of water balloons and a tub to put them in when filled Another great option would be to use sponges or make sponge balls. (There are a ton of great tutorials for them on Pinterest.)

Sidewalk chalk

To Play

To play the sight word water balloon toss game, first, write the sight words that you want the kids to practice on the sidewalk with chalk. I let my kids choose the words and we practiced spelling them together. They chose to draw circles around each word so it was more like a “target”.

Next, fill up your water balloons. When you’re ready to play, have each kid take a water balloon and choose a sight word they want to aim for.

Have them read the sight word aloud and then they can try to toss the water balloon on the word.

If you have multiple kids playing, have them take turns until all of the sight words are read aloud and splattered. If you have water balloons left, move to another area and play all over again!

If you’re looking for more water fun, we practice our math in this blog post you can check out here.

Having water fun and still learning makes it a perfect summer activity!

I’ve teamed up with a few other educational bloggers to give us some more fun summer activities to help keep us learning. Hop over to You’ve Got This Math for a fun outdoor math activity!

See you next time!

Jenette

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I don’t know about you but I am ready for summer! For this week’s literacy snack idea, we’re talking blueberries which just means summer to me.

Each summer, we go up to Washington to visit my dad and step-mom for a week. Each year we spend an afternoon picking blueberries together and eating way too many as we go.

We come home and make a blueberry pie for dessert and then I take loads of blueberries back home on the plane with me and freeze them to use throughout the entire year. It’s fantastic memories for our family especially since it’s not something we can do in Arizona!

So onto our Literacy Snack Blueberries Read Aloud, this week we’ll be reading Blueberries For Sal, by Robert McCloskey. It’s about the adventures of a little girl and a baby bear while hunting for blueberries with their mothers one bright summer day. My favorite part is the kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk in the book which truly is the sound of picking blueberries.

So of course for this week’s snack, we’re having blueberries!

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Ingredients

a handful of blueberries for each student

Assemble

Since we’re not actually making/creating anything this week, we give the blueberries to the students and talk about them. We describe how they look, and how they taste. You’ll be surprised how many kids have never even tried a blueberry!

Free Printable

While the students enjoy their blueberries, I made a free printable for them to work on. The students will get to draw a picture of either Sal and her mother or Little Bear and her mother collecting the blueberries.

You can download the Literacy Snack Blueberries Read Aloud free printable from my teacherspayteachers store below.

If you’re looking for another fun summer read-aloud you might want to check out our Literacy Snack Lemonade Read Aloud. You can check that out here.

I hope your students enjoy this fun summer treat and reading this classic book.

See you next time!

Jenette

The post Literacy Snack Blueberries Read Aloud appeared first on Primary Playground.

There’s just nothing like doing some summer reading! I look forward to having a bit more time during the summer to sit back and relax with a book. I’m sharing this fun free printable summer reading bingo that you can share with your kiddos before they go off to summer break to help encourage them to keep reading over the summer.

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It has fun things for the kids to do while reading such as reading to a stuffed animal, reading while eating ice cream, or even reading while wearing sunglasses! Anything to help encourage those kiddos to keep reading through the summer!

This would be perfect to hand out alongside a summer review packet, or even to go along with a book you may have purchased from Scholastic to give to the students as an end-of-the-year gift.

If you work at the library this would be a fun addition to a summer reading program too. Have the kids fill out the bingo sheet and bring it back in for a small prize.

I’ve included both a color and a black and white option depending on how many you’ll be printing.

You can download the summer reading bingo from my teacherspayteachers store below.

If you’re looking for some additional activities to send home with your kiddos, I have some more great free bingo idea boards.

A general, any time of the year reading bingo here.

A math bingo here

And a screen-free bingo here

I hope you get to enjoy some summer reading of your own!

See you next time!

Jenette

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