This week I am going to share with you some fun things for March, including a Saint Patrick’s Day leprechaun guided drawing lesson and a new free downloadable game. So buckle up, here we go! If you are interested in seeing pictures of my travels this week, check down at the end of the post. I loved meeting so many wonderful people!
Guided Drawing Leprechaun Lesson
I started drawing up the directions for this lesson while sitting on the plane from LAX to Columbia, on my way to SDE’s South Carolina Kindergarten Conference, and then finished it in Chicago at the IL ASCD PreK/K Conference! (Both conferences were GREAT, by the way!)
Since it has been a really long time since I had posted a guided drawing lesson freebie, I thought it would be a fun to post another timely one. If you do this with your students, I would love it if you send me a photo of their completed pictures, or post one on Facebook or Pinterest and let me know that it is there!
My wonderful job share partner and my aide did this lesson with my little ones while I was gone this week and then sent me the pictures. Aren’t they cute? I wish I could have been in two places at once so that I could have done it all!
My aide told me that it would have been easier for them, though, if she had started them off with the right size of hat, because some of them started off with a very tiny hat, and that made it hard to continue. So you may want to lightly trace small square onto a piece of paper and xerox it for them ahead of time. Then just have them trace it with their marker or black crayon to get started, and you’ll be off!
Leprechaun Sight Word Game
I actually created this game in 2011, but didn’t quite get it finished in time to put it on my blog before St. Patrick’s Day! I promptly forgot all about it until someone on Facebook asked me where it was posted a few weeks ago, so I started looking. (We had been brainstorming rhymes for this game on my HeidiSongs Facebook page, and she remembered it from that!) Anyway, long story short, I couldn’t find it on my blog because I had never posted it! So here you go!
To prepare the game:
1. Duplicate the leprechaun cards. Write the sight words that you want to practice on the sign that the leprechaun is holding. Also copy the pot of gold that is on the instruction sheet. You may want to laminate it or cover it with clear packing tape to make it more sturdy, because these things tend to get quite wrinkly. 
To play the game:
2. To play, have the children hide their eyes while you hide the pot of gold under any leprechaun’s picture. Then children all chant, “Leprechaun, leprechaun! Truth be told! Leprechaun, leprechaun! Where’s your gold?” The children may then take turns naming the word that they think the pot of gold is hiding under, and lifting that word to check. The game ends when someone finds the pot of gold under his or her word of choice. Then play again.
Shamrock Sight Word Surprise
If you didn’t see this fun little item in 2011, you might want to download it out and give it a try! It’s just a little water color resist with a sight word written in it with white crayon ahead of time! The children use water color paints to paint over the top of the picture, and then the sight word appears! Be sure to use a cheap white crayon to write the word, such as Roseart. The nice Crayola brand crayons tend to show up ahead of time and then the kids can see the word on the paper before they start painting. I wrote four different words on the papers and then mixed the papers up before putting them in the art center for the children. When the papers were dry, I used them to drill the kids on the sight words. Naturally, you’ll want to choose the words your kids need to work on the most. Click here to visit the blog where this download is posted. It is near the bottom of the post in section five.
Traveling, Traveling, Conferencing, Speaking!
I had a wonderful week meeting so many nice people from all over! At the beginning of the week, I got to visit Columbia, South Carolina for SDE’s Kindergarten Conference. I have to say that this was one of the nicest group of teachers that I have met in a long time! They were so warm and welcoming! I got to pose for pictures with quite a few of them, and that always makes me feel so special!
I also had a really fun time getting to know Melissa Leach and Kim Hughes some more. We had a Bachelor viewing party in Kim’s room on Monday night together. We all thought it was funny that not a one of us showed up expecting to just sit and watch; ALL of us brought a computer along and were working while we just listened to the “Women Tell All.” I guess we are all kindred spirits! They are such nice people, both of them!
Both of them are wonderful presenters, so make sure that you get to hear them speak some day!
Then it was on to the Chicago area for the ASCD Pre-K/K Conference in Schaumburg, IL! Good-bye, sunshine! Hello, glistening white snow. It was really beautiful, and none of my inbound flights were delayed. Phew!
Boy, I must say, those IL ASCD conference organizers really know what they are doing! They had more than 1800 teachers attending their conference, but it didn’t seem so terribly crowded to me. It just seemed that it was buzzing with energy! The exhibit hall was filled with lots of great booths that had fun things to look at and great ideas. Breakfast and lunch were served smoothly and quickly. There was a full variety of sessions to choose from at every time period of the day. This conference really had everything that you could ask for in a NATIONAL level convention, so kudos to IL ASCD! I am really quite impressed!
The next day, I got to help run the “Genius Bar” for a couple of time slots. That was a lot of fun! The idea was that people could sign up for a time to come and ask some of the presenters questions (about education, not Apple products, ha ha!) Unfortunately, nobody came to ask me anything, but there were still a lot of people that saw me and dropped by to just chat and tell me that they liked my DVD’s, and so on. A couple of folks asked to take my picture with them, and that is always fun. So I really had a blast helping out with that!
That evening, it was time for the Blogger Blast! What fun it was, and what an honor to be included in this wonderful group of bloggers! Wow- to think that I was asked to join Deanna Jump, Kim Adsit, and Kimberly Jordano? I can hardly believe it!
We each got to share a little bit about our blogs, and how we generate ideas, etc. I wish that this picture had been focused a little better. If you have a better picture, can you send it to me?
Well, that’s all for now. If you made it all the way to the end of this post, then good for you!!!!
