Free Printable Lesson Plans

Recycle Bin Crafts, Lesson Plans: Paper Houses, buildings with Printable Patterns

I'm a trained special education and Montessori teacher. I'm always looking for (or creating) hands-on lesson plans to boost higher-order thinking skills. I also like to save money and care for the earth. So my lessons feature recycled materials instead of bought ones. Today's recycle bin trash craft is paper houses. I got the idea from an article I read in which a child had made a paper house and displayed it in a tea shop. Lesson plans include free printable paper house models, miniatures and patterns. This would make a great lesson for design, CAD, art, history and science.

Collecting dollhouse miniatures and scale model trains are passions shared by men and women, young and old alike. Designing scale model trains and dollhouses and making dollhouse miniatures can be a form of art therapy. And like many hobbies, dollhouse miniatures scale model trains and doll collecting can be very expensive. If you enjoy doll collecting, dollhouses, and dollhouse miniatures and you want to save money, here are links for free printable miniatures and doll house furnishings.

Each link explains how to print the dollhouse miniatures for dollhouses. The doll house furniture is typically printed on card stock, so that the furniture can stand up. You will also need a sharp Exact-O knife to score and cut out the dollhouse miniatures neatly. Jennifer's printables is a comprehensive website with many free printable dollhouse miniatures and dollhouse furniture. There are free printable household products, rugs, curtains, pictures, decorations and much more. Print Mini also has gobs of free printable dollhouse miniatures and even cut and paste paper models of dollhouses and scale model trains and scale model buildings,

About Miniatures has free printable dollhouses and scale model trains and scale model buildings for model train collecting and doll collecting. Scroll around for links to free printable dollhouse furniture in many styles and periods. Print chairs, settees, sofas, love seats, shelves, cupboards, tables, what-nots, end tables, lamps and dozens of other free printable furniture pieces. Paper toys has free printable scale model buildings for model trains and dollhouses.

Back to School Lesson Plans Fibonacci Number Patterns in Nature

Looking for back to school lesson plans that pop? How about a number pattern walk? Here are some materials to guide you. One of the most challenging aspects of teaching is demonstrating principles in action--not because concepts don't occur outside the printed page. The problem is that educators tend to be textbook-bound. "Growing Patterns," by Sarah C. Campbell, makes the concept of Fibonacci numbers visual, even hands-on for students. For adults, too. Campbell's book was featured on Fox's show "Touch , " in which a non-verbal, emotionally impaired boy, Jake, connects to his father using Fibonacci patterns.
One of the most challenging aspects of teaching is demonstrating principles in action--not because concepts don't occur outside the printed page. The problem is that educators tend to be textbook-bound. "Growing Patterns," by Sarah C. Campbell, makes the concept of Fibonacci numbers visual, even hands-on for students. For adults, too. Campbell's book was featured on Fox's show "Touch" in which a non-verbal, emotionally impaired boy, Jake, connects to his father using Fibonacci patterns.

Shows like "Touch" are important in helping non-handicapped people understand the world of handicapped people, from the inside out. But it goes far beyond this. Instead of a "normal" person helping an "impaired" person, we learn that everyone has gifts. They're just not be as readily visible. Each person can reach out if one understands the language he speaks. In "Touch," Jake who is deemed "disabled," uses the Fibonacci sequence to express his vision of the world. He communicates using the language of pattern and touch.

The Fibonacci sequence, in which the two preceding numbers are added together to form the next number, is 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21, and so on. The principle was named for the mathematician Leonardo of Pisa who first demonstrated the it. Fibonacci numbers occur in nature as a spiral pattern. Campbell's book shows the phenomenon in pine cones, pineapples, flowers, nautilus seashells, galaxies and other natural objects.

Fibonacci numbers are closely related to the algebraic "golden ratio" (referred to by the Greek letter phi or "golden number") and "golden string" described by Euclid and Pythagoras. These concepts are used in diverse applications from architecture to market analyses. Shown numerically, the concepts may be arcane and confusing. Observed in nature, they are easily grasped. As in Jake's enigmatic world, nature often makes the mysterious clear.

As a teacher, I'm always looking for object lessons that make abstract concepts approachable, especially in nature. I once designed a unit on how symmetry appears in orchids. Several children's authors base their books on hands-on applications. Tana Hoban's picture books show how patterns occur around us. Jerry Pallotta uses nature patterns to teach math. Campbell's book is another excellent resource.

As a special education teacher, I'm also looking for ways to help special needs kids connect with their world and express themselves. Fox "Touch" is an excellent vehicle to do that. Here are other free printable lesson plans using Fibonacci number patterns.

Free Printable Summer Reading Activities, Book Crafts, Literature Games

March is National Reading Month, kicked off by "Read Across America." Schools abound with reading opportunities. But what about those long summer months? Here are summer reading enrichmentactivities to keep kids' noses in books year-round! Included are interactive reading response activities, ELA (English language arts) lessons, book-based crafts and literature response lessons. Use these multi-sensory, cross-curricular Montessori-based lessons for Readers Workshop, special education students, reluctant readers and divergent learners too.

Entrepreneurial reading. Research, plan and organize summer money-making or nonprofit fundraising ventures: yard sale, babysitting, lawn and pet services, knitting and craft sales, housecleaning. Host a lemonade stand. Lemonade Day shows how.

Book-based crafts. Scholastic has free printable book crafts, games and literature response activities. Access Scholastic publishers' vast data base of children's literature. Get games, crafts and printables from favorite kids' books.

DIY summer reading camp. Have kids start their own summer reading club. Education.com has free printable reading activities. Utilize materials and your local library. Host book club activities in your backyard! Discuss favorite books, make crafts, play games, act out stories and enjoy book-themed snacks!

Book recipes. Make foods described in books. Look for companion cookbooks to favorite books: American Girls, Little House on the Prairie, Haunted America, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs have cookbooks with recipes from the stories. Invent recipes based on books. We made Winnie-the-Pooh "haycorn" (pecan) pie and honey cookies.

Readers theater or puppet show. Make book character puppets. Have kids retell story. Or let them write their own stories using homemade puppets. My kids wrote a puppet show using puppets from Mercer Mayer's "There's a Nightmare in my Closet", Mike Mulligan's steam shovel (from Virginia Lee Burton's book) and "Word Bird" (Jane Belk Moncure).

Reading response journal. Have kids track reading and complete activities. Check my blog Free Lesson Plans 4U and Free Printable Lesson Plans and Kidz Literature for tips to make literature response journals and activity suggestions. Here's a free printable reading calendar from PBS.

Rewards and incentives. Participate with Pizza Hut Book-It program. The first week of March is the "Let's all Read" program, partnered with One More Story. Kids read and get pizza, plus they donate to RIF by reading! Double good! Incent reading with books. Join Scholastic--get free books for ordering. Give as prizes for completed reading.

Free printable outline maps for Geography Lessons

Remember the cute little Disney song, "It's a Small World" where children dressed in traditional costumes of their country danced around? I'm trying to re-create that feeling of inter-connectedness using social networking. And you can with students, too. Kids spend a lot of time online, in social networks like Facebook. They blog and useTwitter, Instagram, Pinterest. All these avenues can be used to teach geography. When I connect with someone on any social network, I always check to see where they are from. I'm building a virtual friend map. Here's how students learn mapping and global skills online.

Here are free printable outline maps as well. Use these to practice for the eNational Geographic National Geography Bee is heating up! Kids from all over are honing their geography skills to hopefully qualify. Teachers and homeschool parents, here arefree printable world maps for social studies lesson plans and geography bee activities. Eduplace has over sixty free printable outline maps for use in social studies class and geography lessons. Have students make free printable world maps for social studies homework and to study for tests.

There are about ten different world maps for geography lessons. There are also outline maps from each continent, country and region. Use free printable outline maps for world and local geography. There is one page with free printable historical maps to help students understand how areas were labeled at different times in history. US History also offers free printable world history maps from famous times and places.

All free printable world maps are outline maps, meaning that they're drawn as outlines of the country, continent or region. Free printable outline maps are labeled with cities and major landforms. You can print the maps with labels for students to use for practice and memorization. There are also printable maps without labels. Use these for practice, study guides, quizzes and tests. With or without labels, outline maps are identical so that there is no confusion between the two. Check the homepage for more free printable geography lessons, social studies activities and American history worksheets.

Assign students to trace and color code world maps for social studies. Coloring and tracing maps are great geography lessons for visual learners and special needs students. Tracing maps helps students conceptualize size, proportion relative area and distance. Teachers can laminate outline maps after students have colored and labeled them. Student can cut out different regions, states, countries or continents and reassemble pieces like a puzzle. Teachers can also laminate blank world maps for practice tools. Label the back with answers for self checking geography lessons.

Free printable colonial America Crafts and early American history printables

I'm a teacher, homeschool veteran and American history reenactor. I teach a 1700s-era dame school(here's a model one at Thursley in Surrey, England) at our local history museum "Feast of the Strawberry Moon" encampment. Here are free printable hands-on early American history lessons and historical crafts and free printable colonial America lesson plans.

Teach about school history. Explain that education wasn't compulsory in the U.S. colonies till 1852 and then only in Massachusetts. Kids might be taught in "dame schools." Then only basics. Women weren't deemed capable of teaching boys. They taught handicrafts, reading, writing and ciphering. Higher education was taught by men to families who could afford it. Here are free printable history lessons and historical crafts from Kidipede linked to the main page for the whole collection.

Reading in Colonial America. In 1647, reading, writing and Bible was mandated, under the Old Deluder Satan Act. The New England Primer was used starting in 1760. MacGuffey Readers came out in 1836. But that was the colonies. The Michigan territory was settled by Catholic French. Education came from missionaries, like Quebecois Ursuline nuns under Marie del Incarnation. Catholic or Protestant, instruction was religious and moral. Here are free printable selections from the New England Primer. Teach kids the famous alphabet poem beginning: "In Adam's fall." Here are morecolonial early American history lessons.

Colonial America ladder school. Teachers grouped students by age and ability. In math, the first row, the youngest, worked on counting. The next row, basic addition. The next, subtraction and so on. Spelling, reading, and handwriting would be taught this way, too. D emonstrate this with students. If students are agemates, assign some to play older kids and some younger. Arrange seats or benches in rows (ladders). Here are sample free printable early American history lessons like those teachers would have used.

Make homemade books. Vellum was a costly paper-like material made from animal membrane. This could be scraped down and reused. Few could afford it. But they would have saved and reused everything. Teach kids colonial America frugality. Make books from paper grocery bags (similar to parchment or butcher paper). Sew pages by punching holes and weaving with pieces of twine, rope, yarn or leather cording. Have students write the New England Prime Bible poem and illustrate. Here are other free printable colonial early American history lessons and historical crafts.

Hands-on math games: Give children pebbles for counting. Kids transfer one pebble from hand to hand as they count. Demonstrate simple operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. I've used beans, but tell kids these were food stuffs and wouldn't have been wasted. Shells, feathers, sticks would likely have been used.

Writing in early American history. Make slate pencils. Children in early American history used slates and a stylus made of rocks. Gather rocks. Scratch on pieces of rock tile. Ask local rock or tile dealers for samples. See which kinds write best. Make quill and ink. Cut the end off the feather at an angle. Heat in flame to make a nib. Ink would have been too expens

Hands-On Homemade Reading Crafts, Book Activities, Literature Games

March is National Reading Month, starting with the NEA's "Read Across America." Looking for ideas to inspire a life-long love of books? Here are reading response activities, interactive ELA (English language arts) lessons, book-based crafts and literature response lessons. Book activities are hands-on, multi-sensory, cross-curricular Montessori-style. Use for interactive Readers Workshop, special education students, reluctant readers, divergent learners and summer reading enrichment.

Reading response journal. Have kids create personalized reading logs, respond to literature and complete book-based activities. Check my blog Free Lesson Plans 4U and Free Printable Lesson Plans for tips to make literature response journals and activity suggestions. Here are free printable reading activities and calendar tracker from PBS.

Homemade books. Cut book covers from cereal box. Cover with scrap wrapping paper or wallpaper. Cover with magazine picture collage. Decoupage by painting pictures with watered-down school glue, front and back. Cut lined paper pages (for text) and blank paper (for illustrations). Or use scrap paper and draw in text lines.

Book-based promotional materials. Have kids play marketer for their favorite book or author. Make posters, book covers advertising literature. Create 3-D sculptures, models or dioramas based on books. Make book-based merchandise: toys, snacks, food, games. In homeschooling, my 6th grade son designed a "Hobbit Holes" cereal box designed on his favorite J.R.R. Tolkien novel.

Book diorama. Create scenes from books using recycled products. Arrange scene in shoe box. Use small dolls (Lego, Fisher-Price, Little Tikes, Polly Pockets) as characters.

Story-reading audio/video presentations. Make audio recordings of kids reading books. Covert to mp3 files for iPod. Videotape students reading and story-telling. Upload videos to Youtube.

Story-telling. Students read aloud to younger students. Students act out children's books and present to younger or special needs classes. In high school, our oldest daughter acted out a Shel Silverstein's poem "Noise Day" for special education kids. They loved when she skateboarded across the stage!

Book-music connections. Create music playlists based on books. Select metaphorical songs. Kids will love choosing modern songs to represent story themes. Our family saw a production of "Macbeth." The play was set to Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance," "The Decemberists "This is Why We Fight" and "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" by Cage the Elephant. It really resonated with students and helped them understand and relate to Shakespeare.For more reading response activities, visit my blog Kidz Literature.

Free Printable Super Why Coloring Pages, Reading Worksheets, Games

Super WHY! is an animated PBS preschool learning cartoon for kids ages 3-6. This interactive television show teaches children language arts, reading, writing, spelling, vocabulary and word skills. Use these free printable Super Why lesson plans, games, crafts, coloring pages and worksheets at home, in day care, at school or in summer enrichment. I've included companion activities.

* There are 44 pages of free printable Super Why games , coloring and crafts on the website. It's laid out similar to Webkinz, but doesn't cost anything to play. The activities page features videos and music. Kids learn best when they can see and do. I homeschooled my kids and they learned phonics using simple, repetitive songs set to motion and dance. Encourage preschoolers to memorize songs, sing along, dance and play with Super Why characters. Scroll throught for the Free Printable Super Why Coloring Pages, Reading Worksheets, Games and check out free printable Super Why coloring pages on Parents magazine.

Free Printable Super Why Coloring Pages, Reading Worksheets, Games

Free Printable Father's Day Crafts

What do you get for dad on Father's Day? Children may find themselves with little cash to buy something. Teachers, here's where we can help. Here are free printable Father's Day crafts and greeting cards that you can make. Homeschoolers use these at home. Easy, cheap and fun. Dad will love your creativity and thoughtfulness.

PBS Sprout has free printable crafts for children. Print free Fathers Day cards from Chica, Caillou and Fireman Sam. There are free printable cards and coloring pages featuring dad-themed activities like sports, music and fishing. There are craft printables from: Angelina Ballerina, Barney & Friends, Bob the Builder, Caillou, Chloe's Closet, Good Night Show, Noodle and Doodle, Pajanimals, Sesame Street, Sprout Sharing Show, Sunny Side Up Show, The Chica Show, The Wiggles, Thomas & Friends and Wibbly Pig.

The Toymaker has free printable Fathers Day crafts in vintage themes. but they look vintage. You'll love the hand-made greeting cards and crafts. The Toymaker has two free printable Father's Day greeting cards that can be designed to say "to husband" also. Click around the site for free printable paper crafts and toys.

Disney Family has free printable Father's Day crafts, greeting cards and games. There are coupons, gift certificates, a keepsake box, photo frames and a crown for dad. Print crafts featuring Disney characters: Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Pixar, Nemo and Marlin, King Triton,

Free Memorial Day Lesson Plans: Hands-On Cross-Curricular Lessons

Memorial Day, celebrated the last Monday in May, doesn't just kick off summer holidays. Also called Remembrance Day, the holiday honors veterans and those lost in U.S. wars. It's also referred to as Decoration Day, when family commemorates loved ones lost by putting flowers on graves. Teachers and homeschool parents, here are free printable lesson plans, worksheets, crafts and games to teach kids about this national holiday.

* Memorial Day Printables: About.com lists pages of free printable patriotic holiday games, word searches, crossword puzzles, writing activities and coloring pages. Why not print the packet and use for homework. Or let kids complete it while listening to stories on American war history. They could also watch one of these Memorial Day movies. Check my blogs Film Femme Fatale for educational movies for Memorial Day.

* Free Memorial Day Resource Unit: Homeschool Deals links to several free resources for Memorial Day printables and activities. There are Medal of Honor and soldier coloring pages, history worksheets, holiday games, reading and writing lessons and patriotic printable crafts. There are poems and literature-based activities. When I was young, teachers would have us write out seasonal poems in our best penmanship and create our own illustrations. Then she'd mount poem and picture on construction paper. This made a nice take-home project.

* Remembrance Day Printables: Free printable Memorial Day activities are suitable for 4th of July and Veterans Day, DL-TK offers pages of holiday printables. There are greeting cards, coloring pages and crafts. My favorite is a printable mini-book on Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae's stirring World War 1 poem "In Flanders Field." The poem is the basis for the poppies worn on Memorial Day. Print the booklet in black and white so students can color images.

* Patriotic Coloring Pages at Raising our Kids has dozens of free printable American history coloring pages featuring, military, national memorials and landmarks, soldiers, historic images, national liberty symbols and more. Have students use these as greeting cards. Assign them to color images and write a message on the back. Mail or better still hand-deliver to seniors in nursing homes. Memorial Day is particularly poignant for elderly who remember wars and lost so many loved ones.

For more holiday printables visit my blog Free Printable Holiday. For more free printable lesson plans visit my blog of that name.

Free Printable Memorial Day Worksheets, Crafts, Games

Teachers and homeschool parents, here are free printable lesson plans, worksheets, crafts and games to teach kids about this national holiday.

For more holiday printables visit my blog Free Printable Holiday. For more free printable lesson plans visit my blog of that name.

Free Printable May Day, Labor History, Union Organizing Lesson Plans

Spring is a poignant time in labor history. March 25, 1911 remembers 146 workers, mostly women, lost in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. April 16 mourns Ireland's Easter Rising of slain Feinians. April 28 marks Workers' Memorial Day, on which the organized labor movement pays tribute to the fallen in workplace accidents or in organized labor struggles. May 1 is May Day, honoring International Workers' Day. May 4 commemorates casualties at Chicago's Haymarket riot at a 1886 labor rally. May 19, 1920 is a day when the organized labor movement grieves the Matewan and Mingo County massacre of coal miners. On May 26, 1937 those who would from unions were assaulted at Ford's River Rouge plant "Battle of the Overpass" in Detroit.

Organized labor history is taught as part of American history, but there is no American (or world) history without labor history. Unions, collective bargaining--the fight for workers' rights impact every industry, occupation and person. Teachers and homeschoolers, you can educate students about unions with these free printable May Day and labor history lesson plans. These links include websites, activities, worksheets, movies and books on the organized labor movement.

The American Labor Studies Center offers a gamut of free printable organized labor movement lesson plans. It covers history, events, strikes, lockouts, workplace injuries, child labor, working conditions, collective bargaining, 8-hour workday, sweatshops, slavery, organizing, indentured servitude, socialism and labor, women's rights, African American labor issues, minority discrimination concerns, ULP (unfair labor practices). Lessons cover the Triangle fire (the worst workplace accident in history), West Virginia labor, Pullman Strike (1894), Lawrence Textile Strike (1913), Lowell Strike, Paterson Silk Strike, agriculture strikes and other events. Get free printable union labor worksheets, fill-ins, puzzles and study guides. There are links to films and books.

Modern Heroes of the American Labor Movement explores famous labor leaders: Noam Chomsky, Joe Hill, "Big Bill" Haywood, Pete Seeger, Jimmy Hoffa, Caesar Chavez, the Wisconsin 14 and others from the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), AFL-CIO, Teamsters and more. Here's another list ofbiographies of union organizers. This site has biographies of women labor leaders including Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Mary Harris "Mother" Jones and more. To use in lessons, print the list of names on one side and short bios on the other side (mixed up). Students match person with details. Print photos and pin to a map at places they are associated with. Or make a time line along the wall. Plot images in history.

The National Endowment for the Humanities offers two companion lessons in its series The Industrial Age in America. "Sweatshops, Steel Mills and Factories" and "Robber Barons and Captains of Industry" define the problems faced by workers in labor history and the reasons for the organized labor movement. Use the worksheets and activities with middle school and high school students.

The Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University in Detroit maintains the largest organized labor history archive in the U.S. It has an impressive collection of images in physical exhibits and digital archives on The Labor Movement and Organizations. It also maintains a labor history document base. The library is named for the leaders of UAW (United Auto Workers) and CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) unions Walter Reuther who was one of several injured at Ford's Rouge factory "Battle of the Overpass" in Detroit.

The United Farm Workers is the union begun by Cesar Chavez that tends to itinerant and agricultural labor issues. Along with labor movement, the UFW educates people about food safety, immigration, deportation, earth and green initiatives, pesticides and more. An important piece is the youth activism page. UFW seeks to take union and agricultural awareness beyond the classroom walls and into real life.

The Wobblies is a documentary about the IWW (the Industrial Workers of the World). The IWW is a world-wide union that seeks to organize all workers regardless of occupation. This authoritative video is engaging and covers a broad labor perspective. It helps students understand the differences between business, trade and collective unions. The IWW honors May Day as the real Labor Day.

In honor of May Day, here's a quote from the Albert Shanker Institute. "Imagine opening a high school U.S. history textbook and finding no mention of-or at most a passing sentence about-Valley Forge, the Missouri Compromise...Benjamin Franklin, Lewis and Clark. Imagine if these key events and people just disappeared as if they'd never existed...That is what has happened in history textbooks when it comes to labor's part in the American story." Use these lesson plans to keep the May Day stories and message alive.

Free Printable May Day, Haymarket, Workers Memorial Day, Labor Union Lesson Plans

We celebrate Labor Day in the U.S., in September. But May Day (May 1) is world Labor Day. Socialists, anarchists and unions recognize commemorate achievements and contributions of organized labor. On Workers Memorial Day, April 28, we honor workers lost in workplace accidents or in the labor struggle. The UAW began this holiday in memory of disasters and incidents like Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and Chicago Haymarket massacre May 4, 1886. 7 people were killed and scores of others injured after a police officer was killed by a bomb at a labor demonstration.
April 16 mourns Ireland's Easter Rising of slain Feinians. April 28 marks Workers' Memorial Day, on which the organized labor movement pays tribute to the fallen in workplace accidents or in organized labor struggles. May 1 is May Day. May 19, 1920 is a day when the organized labor movement grieves the Matewan and Mingo County massacre of coal miners. On May 26, 1937 those who would from unions were assaulted at Ford's River Rouge plant "Battle of the Overpass" in Detroit. For Catholics, May 1 or May Day is the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker.

Modern Heroes of the American Labor Movement explores famous labor leaders: Noam Chomsky, Joe Hill, "Big Bill" Haywood, Pete Seeger, Jimmy Hoffa, Caesar Chavez, the Wisconsin 14 and others from the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), AFL-CIO, Teamsters and more. Here's another list ofbiographies of union organizers. This site has biographies of women labor leaders including Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones and more. To use in lessons, print the list of names on one side and short bios on the other side (mixed up). Students match person with details. Print photos and pin to a map at places they are associated with. Or make a time line along the wall. Plot images in history.

Free Printable Brown Bear, Brown Bear Lesson Plans, Crafts, Worksheets

"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?" Thus begins a charming, eponymous children's literature classic by author Bill Martin. Via illustrator Eric Carle's pictures, preschoolers learn about colors, animals. patterns, math and also friendship. Here are free printable games, coloring pages, crafts, worksheets and learning activities from the children's literature classic, along with the companion Martin/Carle book "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?" Use these activities to celebrate Children's Book Week 2015--May 4-10.

DLTK-Teach has free printable activities from Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? There are pictures of book characters: brown bear, red bird, yellow duck, blue horse, green frog, purple cat, white dog, black sheep, goldfish, mother (teacher), and children (students). Print in color and use for worksheets, reading booklets and lessons. Or, extend learning activities by printing in black and white and using as coloring pages. Have kids cut out animals to practice eye-hand coordination. Children learn color, pattern, rhyme, fine motor skills, spelling and writing in multisensory ways. Teachers and homeschoolers, use animals templates as felt board patterns. Trace image on appropriate felt color. Add each animal to board as you read the story. There are printable activities for Brown Bear in Spanish, too.

DLTK-Teach also has free printables from "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do You Hear?" Polar Bear, Polar Bear was written 25 years after Martin and Carle's Brown Bear came out in 1967. I remember how tickled our eldest was to find that her beloved Brown Bear had a friend. Images from this story include zoo animals: polar bear, lion, hippopotamus, flamingo, zebra, boa constrictor, elephant, leopard, peacock, walrus, zookeeper and children.

1+1+1=1 is a homeschool blog with mom-created a free printable Brown Bear, Brown Bear activitiespacket which includes reading and math games: matching, graphing, spelling, writing, 3-part cards, 1-10 counting puzzle, tracing and color by word.

This blog has other free printable kindergarten learning games and preschool activity packages. Themes include: ballerinas, princess, rainbow, ocean, pond life, love, Christmas, winter, spring, bugs, cats, baby animals, birds, construction trucks and machines, monsters, farm and more. There are printable reading packs on children's literature favorites: Mickey Mouse, Handy Manny, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Noah's Ark, Veggie Tales, Word World, Nemo, Hermie, Tarzan, Word World, Doc McStuffins, Dora the Explorer, Octonauts, Little Einsteins, Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom, Five Little Monkeys, Dinosaur Train and Thomas the Train.

We homeschooled our four children from 1992-2005. Home education was pretty new and computer resources nil. Our kids now 28,26, 24 and 18, loved the Martin-Carle books in preschool. Our twin grandsons love these books thanks to their mama (she who loved Brown Bear so as a tot). The boys already have Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Polar Bear, Polar Bear on their bookshelves! It's good to pass these classics on to another generation!