Jump into January: Low Prep Freebie Hop and Amazon Giveaway!

I hope your winter break has been relaxing so far! I always made plans to to drink hot chocolate by the fire while basking in the glow of our Christmas tree. Who am I kidding? I didn’t even put up a Christmas tree this year! I don’t know about you, but the first half of mine is always spent rushing around to finish up Christmas presents and the second half is spent recovering from holiday travel and planning to go back to school. But not this year. And I hope you can say the same!


I’ve teamed up with several of my bloggy friends to help you with some of that. We’ve put together a quick blog hop to help with your January plans. Just click through to grab these low-prep freebies to get 2015 off to an easy start. As a bonus, you can enter to win an Amazon gift card too. Yay!


Just in case you’re keeping track, you’re at stop five. =)

My freebie is a writing activity about penguins. Pattern poems are great, even for reluctant writers because of their structure. As a bonus, the finished products look great on seasonal bulletin board displays. I have my students do a draft on regular paper and we check it together before transferring it to their final copy. This gives students a chance to proofread their writing and work on dictionary skills as they correct spelling mistakes too.

This cute little poem was pulled from my Penguin Unit for Big Kids. Don’t tell the others, but this is my favorite Big Kid Unit so far. There’s just something so fun about penguins! I love that my third graders had background knowledge about penguins already, but we were able to go so much deeper so they truly became penguin experts. Can’t beat cross-curricular learning!

Or if you need more poetry ideas, my Poetry Unit for Big Kids is another great choice too. 

Now keep on hopping along to collect more ready-to-go activities for January. Your next stop is The Fun Factory. Be good to yourself over break, teacher friends!