Find the Differences - Critical Thinking Activity

I'm excited to show you my newest fun resource! This is a great activity for a literacy center, or a fun extra for early finishers.

I've created a "Find the Difference" set (fall themed) that includes 10 colorful pages with similar pictures on them. Each set of pictures has 5 small differences for students to find and circle. I also have included 2 leveled response pages so you can include some writing practice with the activity!

These are great activities to help your students practice observation and critical thinking skills as they compare the pictures on each page.

If you'd like to check these out, you can visit my store HERE!

 

 

Back to School Literacy Center FREEBIE

I've taken a little blogging break over the summer, but I'm back with a great exclusive FREEBIE for you! This is a fun literacy center activity for your students to practice building sentences and get  writing again after the summer break!

 

 

 

This is a paid item in my store, but I'm offering it FREE to my newsletter subscribers! All you need to do is enter your email at the top of this page in the orange bar, then respond to the confirmation email, and when I send the next newsletter in a few days, you will have access to this freebie!

 

**UPDATE** The newsletter has been sent out. If you are just now signing up for it, please enter your email at the top of the page, then you can email me at mrsthompsonstreasures @ gmail.com and I will send you the freebie. ***

 

 

Happy Back to School season!! 

July Currently

I'm linking up today with Farley from Oh Boy Third Grade for this month's Currently!

 

Listening: My kids new favorite show on Disney Jr!

 

Loving: Chocolate peanut butter Lara bars are the best! I have one every morning for breakfast with my coffee.

 

Thinking: I have been trying to potty train my 3 yr old since she turned 2! My first two kids were so easy, but she was super stubborn about it. She just spent a few days with my mom for "potty boot camp" and I think we have finally got it!

 

Wanting: My 7 year old son is spending the week with his cousins a couple of hours away, and I know he is having so much fun, but we miss him like crazy! He has 3 boy cousins, so he's getting some good man time in, since he has 3 little sisters at home.

 

Needing: I think it's finally time to cash in that hot stone massage I got for Christmas!

 

All Star: I have become an expert in selling our stuff! We are moving next month, so I've been furiously listing stuff on Craigslist and Facebook garage sale groups. It's actually pretty fun and freeing to get rid of stuff!

Summer Stock Up!

 

I'm joining a great crew of teacher-bloggers to bring you this years "Summer Stock Up!" (June 26-27 only!)  We are offering you some great FREE products to stock up for the upcoming school year!

I'm offering an exclusive freebie from my "Think, Draw, Write" pages.

These pages are great for beginners to practice brainstorming and writing complete sentences at the same time! Each page has a picture, a prompt for students to think about, space to draw a picture, and then lines to write a sentence to describe their picture. It's an engaging and fun way to get even reluctant writers writing!

To grab this exclusive freebie, visit my Facebook page and look for the "Summer Stock Up" tab!



I Know About Bees Unit

This summer has proven to be a crazy and busy one already. I will just go ahead and say that I will try my best to keep blogging consistently, but it just might not happen. We are in the middle of cleaning and packing up our house because we are moving across the world in August. Ahh yes....fun times :-)

I did manage to create and upload a new product last night, yay! It's a Bee Unit/Research Pack that is similar to my other animal packs. It's filled with fun activities like labeling, creating a poem, drawing a bee, using a Venn diagram to compare, and more! This would be a great addition to an insect unit, or just a fun spring or summer project!

 

 

 

I'm giving away a copy on my Facebook page right now! Visit my page, like & share my status about this product, then leave your email in the comments. I'll pick a winner to receive the pack soon!

 

If you already own my bundle of animal research packs, this has been added to the download!

 



Learning with Gummy Bears

 

We are in our last week of school - yippee!! I wanted to finish off our year with some fun, educational activities, so yesterday we spent the day learning with gummy bears!

First we estimated how many were in the bag, and which color had the most and least. Then we sorted, made tally marks, and graphed our results. We also practiced patterns, adding and subtracting, and measuring with gummy bears.

 

Then we might have snacked on a few because the kids couldn't take it any longer :-)

 

Finally, we did an experiment where we put 4 gummy bears in different solutions to see what would happen. We talked about the scientific process and I introduced them to big words like prediction, hypothesis, and conclusion. It's never too early to learn the scientific method! We let them sit overnight and made observations in the morning.

                     We used 2 different packs for our activities today that can be found here:

New CVC Puzzles Freebie!

I love finding fun ways to practice CVC words with my little ones! I just finished these cute puzzles for my kids and I uploaded them here to my blog store to share with you! All you need to do is print, laminate and cut them out. Then you have a set of 16 puzzles that make a CVC word, and another set of 16 puzzles that make a simple sentence.

 

To see more ways we practice CVC words, see this post!

 

 

Fun in Florida & a Teacher Appreciation SALE

One of my favorite things about homeschooling is the freedom we have to make our own schedule! This week we are in Florida for a family vacation with my sister and her family. It is so beautiful and the kids are loving it! 

 

....and in case you haven't heard....TpT is having a big Teacher Appreciation Sale today and tomorrow! You can save 28% off of everything in my store. Now is the perfect time to clear out your wish lists and stock up on great resources for the end of the year or the start of next year!

5,000 Followers Celebration - Giveaways & Freebies!

Yay! We made it to 5,000 followers! Thank you all so much for the love and support.

There are 4 parts to this celebration!

1) GIFT CARD GIVEAWAYS!! Enter below to win one of 3 prizes:

• $50 Amazon gift card
• $25 TpT gift certificate
• $25 store credit to my TpT store

a Rafflecopter giveaway

2) UPDATE - The fan freebie has been sent. If you started following me after it was sent and did not receive this to your TpT inbox, you can email me @ mrsthompsonstreasures @ gmail .com and I will be happy to send it to you!

This FAN FREEBIE will be sent to the TpT inbox of all followers of Mrs. Thompson's Treasures by the end of this week! (After I submit it, it must be approved and sent out by TpT.)

3) I will have WINNERS CHOICE giveaways on my Facebook page for 5 days in a row! I will post a question, and I will pick one person each day who answers the question to pick a product of their choice from my store! Be sure to check my page each day to enter!

4) FLASH SALES - Each day this week I will put one of my best selling products on sale for 50% off! It's the perfect time to stock up on some great resources!

Sunday, April 26 - Dot Marker Sight Word Mystery Pictures

Monday, April 27 - Graph It - Bar Graphs, Line Graphs, Pictographs

Tuesday, April 28 - CVC Word Families Interactive Notebook

Wednesday, April 29 - Finding Evidence & Making Inferences BUNDLE

Thursday, April 30 - Fluency Strips Interactive Notebook BUNDLE

Friday, May 1 - Dot Marker Letters & Numbers Mystery Pictures

Thanks again to all my followers for the love and support! I hope you enjoy celebrating with me!

Marble Painting - Earth

Today we did a super fun and easy craft using paint and marbles! Each kid got a big white circle on a tray (you could also use a large shoebox). We put some dabs of blue and green finger paint on the circle, and put a few marbles on each tray. I started out with 3 each, but we decided to add more later to help spread the paint a little better.

 

Then the kids held the tray by the sides and moved it all around so the marbles would roll through the paint.

 

 

Here are the results! Aren't they cute? We put them on a paper towel to dry and we will glue them to black paper later and hang them on the wall to display!

 

 



For more Earth Day ideas, see my post HERE.