Chilly Treats Pack Prep and Use

In Texas where I'm from, January is the start of more consistent cold weather. Though our winter is brief, and rarely includes snow, it's nice to imagine cold and fresh snow. Sometimes anyway, most of us native Texans don't do well with the cold in reality, but it's the romance of it perpetuated by songs and poetry on the heels of the Christmas excitement. A bit of fantasy and awe.

It's no wonder that I enjoy creating some wintery themed packs, even though deep snow and icicles are far from extensive in my personal experiences. I also like to incorporate those wintery themes that seem to be intertwined with Christmas but in reality stand on their own in the winter months after all the holly and poinsettias are put away. Even better, I had the joy of encountering the wonderful artwork of Beth from Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs, especially my favorite of her clips - her treats and sweets. There was no way I could not create a pack with it. And, truth be told, I still have plans to create more.

Enter my Chilly Treats Pack, which if you ask me, is underrated. I started with creating a set of memory cards that were similar to another set I had made for a Christmas pack using coordinating artwork. I wanted a memory game my kiddos could play after all of the Christmas hub bub, so this one fit the bill - still seasonal, without the Christmas undertones. For these memory cards, as with most of them, I print them on cardstock and then laminate. Two copies are needed of each of the two pages to create the pairs. More recently, I have started rounding corners on the cards since the laminated edges can be a bit sharp, but it's not absolutely necessary. For extra flair, I like to print them on patterned cardstock, which in the case of these, was a pattern I printed first on one side using digital paper from Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs. Then, using the pattern as the back of the cards, I printed the memory cards. This creates a more finished look and helps to prevent any see-through potential so the kids don't see the image on the other side. The memory cards are their own file and are available as a Facebook freebie offered to my fans and is most often available in January, though other freebies may be available then instead.

With the momentum provided by the memory cards, I had to create a full pack using this beautiful artwork, so I went on the create the mini Chilly Treats Pack. Mini packs are packs that include 20 pages of activities. They are the smallest packs I create outside of the sampler packs that are offered as freebies in my TeachersPayTeachers store. They give a better idea of the variety of activities available than the samplers, and, though small, they include enough for a for a winter themed unit - especially considering that when we pick up with school again after the winter break, we have only a few weeks before the hearts come out for Valentine's.

The Chilly Treats PreK Mini Pack includes the following activities:
- Matching

- Color by Size

- Picture Paths

- Size Sorting

- Letter Matching

- Mazes

- Math

- 3-piece puzzles

Similar to setting up other packs, I will sort though the available activities and find the ones appropriate for my kiddo's current level. Most of the packs include activities of varying levels that will appeal to a number of students that are 3-6. Activities that work best as worksheets are printed on regular paper and arranged in a binder. I can remove pages as needed or the student can work within the binder. So that I know which pack is the current pack we are working with, I will usually print the title page and insert it into the cover sleeve of the binder.

Most of my packs include a variety of activities for letters, numbers, colors, matching, etc. Some incorporate a number of learning disciplines within one activity and this pack is no different. This pack is great for earlier learners just starting out, but does include activities that are a bit more difficult. The matching and picture path activities help students control pencil movements as well as assisting in recognition of same vs. different. These are great starts to pattern recognition and early writing skills. There are 2-3 pages of each of these activities as well as 2 additional mazes for different skill levels. They all can be printed on cardstock and laminated to be used by multiple students when completed with a dry or wet erase marker. 

Since coloring skills are key to learning colors as well as fine motor control for the purpose of writing, I included a coloring sheet as well. This one helps students to recognize the difference in size as well as identify exact colors and the names of those colors. If printed in color, the color names are each typed in their respective color to allow for students that are not familiar with the words to know which colors to use.

The letter activity included in this pack is a letter matching to assist in recognizing capital letters and their lowercase counter parts. This activity is divided into four pages with 6-7 letters for each page. The font used is a simple sans serif font to ensure simplicity and understanding. 

For numbers and math, three pages of addition activities are included. Each page features different addition problems for students. Kiddos count the number of images and write the corresponding number on the line below. Then, after both numbers are written for a single problem, they can either count the total number of images on that line and write their solution or they can simply write the answer if they already know it. These worksheets are great for early math concepts of counting as well as reinforcing fast facts. Students will begin to recognize their basic arithmetic while associating numbers as representative of physical things. Similar to many of the other activities, this page can be printed and laminated and completed with dry or wet erase markers and reused by other students or repeated by the same students if reinforcement is needed. 

Similar to my other packs, this pack also has some hands-on activities. Though the mini packs feature fewer of these activities due to the overall size of the pack. 

The first hands-on activity is a sorting activity. Two pages of images are included. Each image is provided in three sizes: small, medium, and large. These pieces are printed and cut apart. For ease of use, the images are lined out such that they can be cut out in rectangles making them easier to use. A third pages is provided that includes a chart for sorting the images. Students separate the images placing them in the appropriate box according to its size. This activity can be repeated multiple times and can be printed on cardstock and laminated for use year after year. Because this is a flat activity, it can be easily stored when not in use.

The second hands on activity is a set of puzzles. Four puzzles are provided, each divided into three pieces. These puzzles are simple for younger learners. For even younger students, two copies can be printed. One set can be cut out while the other set stays intact. Kiddos can then match the pieces of the separated puzzle to the solid puzzle. As they get better at recognition, they can move on to piecing the images together without the guide of the full page print out. Similar to the other hands-on activity, the puzzle pieces can be laminated for repeated uses. As a printable activity, it also can be stored flat when not in use. As an added benefit, these puzzles can be placed in a zip top bag for storage and used as a busy bag activity to keep little ones occupied doing a quiet time activity.

I hope you have enjoyed the more in-depth look at the Chilly Treats PreK Mini Pack. It's a great pack with a lot to it for young learners. I especially love the wonderful clipart and as mentioned, I'm looking into using it for future packs and activities.

I would love for you to check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store for the Chilly Treats PreK Mini Pack as well as other winter packs I have listed. Leave me a comment letting me know what you think, if you are planning to grab this pack, your thoughts on the activities, feedback if you've used this pack, and any additional ideas or questions you may have.

As a bonus, don't forget to check my Facebook page to see what the current freebie is. With luck, it'll be the matching and memory cards that coordinate with this pack, but if not, it'll be another wonderful freebie for your little ones or your classroom.

Fun Packs! Premade Educational Kits - Planning and Product Development

For a long time, I wanted to created a done-for-you activity pack for homeschool moms or just those wanting to do a bit of learning at home. When the idea first came to me in 2014, I started out putting together kits for my sister-in-law who had two young boys and a set of infant twins. In an effort to help provide some activities for the older kiddos to occupy their time and distract them, I created a number of activity kits for them. These kits went along with a number of printable packs I had created - some with them in mind. Inspired by busy bag swaps I had participated in with other moms of young children at the time, I also included a number of additional busy bag type activities inspired by the packs.

The first pack I created was a Back to School kit using my Back to School Printable Pack. This pack is a fantastic starter pack as it begins with basic concepts for preK and kindergarten. For the kit to send to my nephews, I printed several of the individual pages as worksheets. I also put together some of the manipulative activities from the printable pack like the number puzzle and the bottle cap letter activity. I used recycled bottle caps to make the letters for the hands-on matching activity. I included 4 busy bag activities two printed from the printable pack - matching and memory cards and color sort cards. I also made two unique busy bags - a ribbon snake with school themed foam shapes and a pom pom sorting activity using an egg carton and a clothes pin. I wanted to create a variety of activities, especially providing quiet games that could be played on the go or when their mama needed some extra time for the babies. The busy bags were placed in zip-top bags to make them easy to carry along in a diaper bag or purse.

The first Fun Pack was Back to School themed.

The Football Pack is one of my few unpublished packs.

Over the next several months I continued to create printable packs and compile Fun Packs for my nephews. All the packs included worksheets, manipulative activities, and four busy bag activities. While most of the busy bags were repeatable activities, some were in the form of craft projects like beading crafts or picture building with adhesive foam shapes. I created packs that matched my Football Pack, Halloween Monsters Bundle, Turkey Pack, Gingerbread Treats Pack, Nativity Pack, and Snowman Pack. My own kiddos also worked on these activities and vetted them for their cousins.

As I was putting these kits together for my nephews I was working to figure out how to replicate these packs for other moms. I wanted to create something that had value and included repeatable activities. I wanted to coordinate these kits with my printable packs. I wanted to create activities that were pre-printed and put together so that moms could benefit from these packs if they didn't have access to a printer or other small manipulative items - not everyone has dice or bingo markers laying around. I wanted to create activities that maybe weren't part of the printable pack but could incorporate additional learning concepts as a bonus on top of what is available with just the pack. This would create something new and different even if a parent or teacher already had the coordinating printable pack. Additionally, I could laminate some of the printed components to make them sturdier for multiple uses. Busy bag activities needed to be stored in zip-top bags so they could be easily carried for quiet time activities away from the home.

For my nephews, I was able to go a bit over the top and incorporate other craft supplies and activities I found, but that may be difficult when it came to putting these kits together on a larger scale. I also upcycled some random things I had saved for arts and craft projects like empty egg cartons and salvaged bottle caps - this would not be feasible for kits going to other families. I needed to have some consistency, a template or plan for the Fun Packs so there is uniformity. It also makes it easier to establish "What all is in a Fun Pack?" I decided to create a standard sized Fun Pack and a Fun Pack Junior to offer different sized kits so moms could decide what was best for them. I created a "recipe" of sorts.

The Monsters Bundle available on TpT includes
an extra pack of printable activities.

I was able to get creative with foam shapes and
other craft supplies due to the popularity of 
gingerbread men around Christmas time.

I established that the standard Fun Pack would include 20 worksheet pages which I would compile into a mini workbook, 2 hands-on activities, and 4 busy bags. For the Fun Pack Junior, I would include a 20 page mini workbook, 1 hands-on activity, and 2 busy bags. Each of the packs would be all-inclusive so no additional supplies were needed aside from basic supplies that most people have like writing implements and crayons. The kits would include instructions for each activity so parents or teachers know how the kit could be used. The boxes for each kit would be labeled and of a standard size to make storage easy.

Once I established what would be included in the kit and had plans for packaging, I needed to set it into motion and decide the best options for each item. In 2016, I created a Fun Pack as a birthday present for a friend's son to put it all together and see how it might work out as a finished kit. The workbook I created was spiral bound, but I found it would be easier and more cost effective to create a more traditional stapled binding for the mini workbook. The original workbook was full color and had more pages than ended up putting in the final workbooks. I was better able to refine the specifics I wanted for final packaging with this kit. It had coloring pages, a hands-on activity - grid games - and four busy bags that included activities like clip cards, patterning practice, 3-part cards, and memory cards. I included instructions and insert cards for the busy bags. 

After four years of planning, I created my first marketable and complete pack. I needed to go full-out and establish exactly how these kits would come together and be presented to parents or teachers that may be interested in using them. This Fun Pack was a Fun Pack Junior, another pack created as a gift, so technically, it was a final practice run. This time, the kit was for another nephew. This Fun Pack was based on my Dice Printable Pack since my nephew was really into dice at the time, I created the pack with him in mind. The Fun Pack Junior was fully created complete with all the packaging information and instructions that would be in a final edition of a pack. It included a mini full color workbook with 20 pages of activities. The hands-on activity in this pack was a roll and cover activity. Two half pages were printed and laminated for durability. Two dice and multi-color bingo markers were included to complete the activity. Two busy bags were included in the pack packaged in zip-topped bags for travel and storage. One busy bag activity was a set of matching and memory cards which are part of the Dice Printable Pack. They were printed on cardstock and laminated. The other busy bag was number clip cards. Again, these cards were printed on cardstock and laminated. Clothes pins were included to complete the activity.

All the activities included in this pack are part
of the Dice Printable Pack.

The feedback that I got on all the previous kits I had put together was positive. I was ready to move forward with more packs. In a future post I'll go through the themes selected and what is included in the final packs I've compiled. As of now, I have completed four Fun Packs - two standard sized kits and two Fun Pack Juniors. They've been well received and I'm excited about the development of additional Fun Packs in the future, many of which are already in the works.

So, what kind of themes would interest you? I'd love to get some feedback on activities that appear interesting and other suggestions for the packs.

Candy Corn Pack Prep and Use

It's October and that means a whole slew of Halloween activities! It's my favorite time of year and I've created a number of Halloween packs that feature adorable artwork incorporated into various educational activities that can help strengthen early learning skills. Among my festive themed packs is one of my favorite creations, the Candy Corn PreK Pack which features some classic activities and introduces some new ones not seen in other packs. This pack hasn't gotten nearly the attention it deserves. I believe that at times, it's difficult to tell what the pack is like and what all is included in most typical listings, so I thought it'd be helpful to provide a bit more insight into what this pack includes and how I would normally set it up for use by my kiddos.

The Candy Corn PreK Pack is a 50 page pack - the largest size of individual pack I create. It includes 19 different activities. There are standard pencil and paper worksheets as well as manipulative activities. Many of the pages that can be used as standard worksheets can also be completed using a number of manipulatives to enhance other skills and add interest to them. The inclusion of activities requiring various skill levels means that you can use the activities year after year or address the needs of individual students. A number of activities can be printed on cardstock and laminated to use over and over again.

The activities included in this pack are: 

- Prewriting Practice

- Shape Tracing

- Matching

- Letter Matching

- Size Sequencing

- Letter Practice

- Case Identification

- Letter Trace/Fill in Missing

- Number Trace

- Count & Color

- Roll & Cover

- Alphabet Practice

- Counting/Adding/Subtracting with Manipulatives
- Which is different?

- Counting Practice

- Number Matching

- Scissors Practice

- Addition

- Number Clip Cards

When preparing the pack, I will peruse all the available activities and select the ones I think are appropriate for my child at the time. The simple worksheet pages are typically printed on regular printer paper, hole-punched, and compiled into a binder. Depending on the child, I may leave the worksheets in the binder so they can be worked on all in one place. Alternately, I may remove them from the binder and place them on a clipboard to be worked on. This is especially handy for children who have difficulty working around the binder rings. Often I will print the cover to use on the front of the binder so I know which pack we are working on. If I want to allow for multiple uses of these pages, I can laminate them or insert them into a sheet protector where they can be completed with a dry erase or wet erase marker. And don't forget, not all kids have the attention span to sit and do the whole workbook all at once. There is no need for it to be completed in one sitting or even in order. Pages can be removed a few at a time to work on depending on the area of focus you are working on that day or for that session.

Now, I'm going to highlight several of the activities so you can get a better idea of what is included. This will not be an exhaustive list and will not include images of everything, but it will be a more in depth look at what is included in the pack to provide more information, ideas, and images than you may see in a typical listing.

One of my favorite activities to include is prewriting practice. This activity is a great start for students that haven't quite learned to write their letters but are just starting to gain more control of their pencils and crayons. These pages typically include a variety of straight, slanted, curved, and wavy lines. They can be completed as a standard worksheet as the most basic approach. I like to incorporate different things like markers or crayons in addition to the standard use of a pencil. I also like to add variety by choosing coordinating or seasonal colors to go along with the pack (or let the kiddo choose the colors). There are a number of other ways to hone fine motor skills and add interest to these pages which I have detailed in another blog post HERE. As with other worksheet activities, it is certainly an option to laminate these pages to have the student complete them with a dry erase marker so they can be completed over and over, year after year, or by different students in a class.

The candy corn pack has a plentiful sampling of tracing activities to help little ones with pencil control and fine motor skills. Some activities involve tracing simple lines and curves like in the previously discussed prewriting practice. There is a tracing activity for shapes which helps reinforce naming common shapes in addition to the pencil work. Several letter tracing pages help with identifying and forming letters in addition to learning and reinforcing the knowledge of alphabetical order. Number tracing pages help reinforce numeral knowledge and number order. When compiling these pages for my kiddos, I usually would arrange pages like this in a binder and in an order starting with simple tracing and moving on to more structured tracing. I separate letter concepts from number concepts. This helps mix up the tracing so it doesn't become repetitive despite the multitude of tracing in this pack. As discussed with the prewriting, all of these pages can be used with pencils or crayons. They also can be laminated or placed in sheet protectors and completed with dry erase markers to allow for multiple uses from one printing.

Learning letters and early reading skills are a huge part of early learning concepts. The Candy Corn Pack has a lot of opportunities to promote letter knowledge, alphabet order, and word recognition. There are multiple letter tracing pages as mentioned above. Some pages are simple letter order tracing, letter tracing to fill in missing letters from the alphabet, and tracing key letters from this pack such as the letter 'c' and familiarization of words used in this pack "candy" and "corn" which may not be sight words, but the repetition of the words will help build reading vocabulary as students become more familiar with them. There are tracing pages and seek and find pages for identifying the difference between a capital 'C' and lower case 'c' as well as matching upper case letters with their corresponding lower case letters. All upper and lower case letters are presented in this pack with an emphasis on the letter 'c' because of the theme (candy corn). I usually place pages like these in the binder. Typically I will place the letter activities near each other opting to mix up the style of page. The seek and find pages can be completed with crayons or bingo daubers can be used to mix it up.

As long as we are learning letters, we also need to focus on numbers and early math skills. The Candy Corn Pack is chock full of number pages too! Some activities involve tracing numbers to build familiarity of how to write numerals and learn their order, counting, matching the numeral with the correct number of images, identifying number differences, and simple addition using both images and adding numbers rolled on a die or pair of dice. These pages can be printed on regular printer paper and included in a prepared workbook binder. Like the letter pages, I tend to group all the number focused skills together but I mix up the type of activity so there is variety to add interest. Similar to other activity pages, they can also be laminated or placed into sheet protectors and completed with dry or wet erase markers to extend their life and allow them to be used year after year.

Last but not least among the pages I typically print on regular copy paper, there are also some additional pages that promote more early learning skills. One of my favorites is Which One is Different? and I include several of these pages in many of my packs including this one. I like to include these pages in my prepared workbook binder. I also have a few scissors practice pages to help hone cutting skills with various angles and curves. The cutting practice sheets work best when cut into strips so students can cut the strips apart. The cutting pages are often printed and tucked into the binder pockets until ready to use.

And finally, we get to the part of the pack that may be more fun and interactive and involve activities that can be used year after year: manipulative activities. Granted, some of the other worksheet pages can be used with manipulatives (I plan to talk about this more in future blogs) but these activities can require some additional preparation. I do include manipulative activities in most of my packs (aside from "No Prep" packs). In a lot of cases, I print these activities on sturdy cardstock and laminate them before cutting them out. This helps them hold up better through multiple uses. Manipulative activities can be used as games or allow you to mix it up and provide some fun hands-on thinking. 

The Candy Corn Pack includes Clip Cards for counting but they also encourage fine motor skills as students are required to place a clip on the card to identify the correct numeral. 

Size sequencing cards provide several sizes of candy corn shapes so students can compare and place them in order by size. The activity in this pack has 9 candy corn shapes, so you can use all of them or just a few depending on the attention and level of the students doing the activity. 

My favorite of the manipulative activities is the candy corn math page - three activities are included counting, addition, and subtraction. The pack includes candy corn images to be used in the candy bag, but I like to have kiddos use either real candy corn candies or these adorable mini erasers (shown in the photograph).

I hope you've enjoyed this in-depth look at the Candy Corn Pack. It truly is one of my favorite packs, not only because I love Halloween and candy corn candy, but also because of all the wonderful activities. I pulled out all the stops when I created this pack, incorporating a number of activities I had not had in previous packs. And how can anyone resist the wonderful artwork created by Krista Wallden of Creative Clips. Her art and the art of all the other wonderful creators I use in my packs bring so much to my activity packs and they just wouldn't be the same without it.

Please check out my TeachersPayTeachers store for this pack and many other Halloween themed packs in addition to the whole collection of packs I have available. Let me know what you think, if you have other themes you'd like to see, or if you have any questions about my packs or the included activities.


Bonus! As of the writing of this post, my Fan Freebie which is available only to my Facebook Fans is an adorable pack of 3 Piece Number Cards featuring the coordinating artwork from this pack. The 3 piece cards are another form of manipulative activity that can be used for number identification and matching numerals with number words and coordinating 10-frames. So, check out my Facebook page and grab your freebie while it's available. Don't worry if you miss out, more freebies are always available through exclusive Facebook Fan freebies and through my TeachersPayTeachers store. Some of the seasonal Fan Freebies do cycle back, so there is a chance you may be able to grab it in the future.

Setting Up a Pack

It's been awhile since I wrote up a blog about my packs and how they work. This post is less about a specific activity and more about how I typically go about setting up a pack for my little ones. For this blog, I'm going to show you the setup I did for one of my recent packs, the Camera PreK Pack.

The first thing I do is peruse the file and decide which activities I want to print out on paper vs. card stock. Manipulative type activities are ones I typically print on card stock, and of course, there is always the option to laminate for durability. The activities that are more like sit-down worksheet activities, I usually print on standard paper.

With the worksheet type activities, I usually take note of which pages are on level or a bit of a challenge for my kiddo and print them out. Since my kids are almost two years apart, it's pretty obvious that they are at different levels. Each of my packs offers a wide variety of activities so some may be on level, some may be below level, and some may be above level depending on each individual kid and how they pick up concepts. As such, I typically choose different pages for each of my kids based on where they are. I'll also usually print out some activities that my kids enjoy doing even if they are a bit too easy for them. This way, they get some variety as far as difficulty level goes. I like to hole punch the pages and place them in a 3-ring binder. You always have the options to place the worksheets in page protectors or laminate them individually. With these methods, your kiddos can use dry erase markers or overhead markers (do those things exist anymore?) to complete worksheets. This type of method allows for repeated use, so it's pretty popular. For my kiddos though, most of the worksheets are a one shot thing and they tend to not go back to them. I figure if they want to repeat something, I'll just print it out again. That way, I don't have to store so much.

Since I use binders with clear covers, I usually add a nice cover. This helps my kiddos know what theme the activities are inside and it differentiates the binders for each of my kids with their name.

Each pack usually has between two and four manipulative type activities. These activities take a bit more preparation and I like to print them on card stock, but that's not always a must. These activities include things like image sorting, puzzles, matching cards, roll & graph activities, size sequencing, clip cards, etc.

In the camera pack, I included size sorting, number matching cards, and grid games. I try to include some variety, so you may see two different image or color variations for a single activity. This is to add interest or provide a different example for the kiddo so they can work at applying the same skills with a different but similar set.

The camera pack has two color options for size sorting. You can pick whichever one you like or do both. I printed out the blue cameras and cut out each image. You can opt to do rectangles or cut around the image which adds a degree of challenge.

Another manipulative activity included in the camera pack is the number matching cards. Again, the prep on these is quite simple, just print out the cards and cut them out. For the number matching cards, there are a few options. You can simply have your little one match the cards or based on their level, you can opt to play memory to add a bit of challenge and difficulty. Even my almost 6 year old enjoys a simple matching exercise. Even though it's easy for him, he gets excited and grabs these and matches them right away. It doesn't take long, but it reinforces something he already knows so I'm more than happy to let him do it.

My almost 6 year old grabbed these as soon as he saw them
and went to town, matching away.

So, along with the grid game boards, these are the manipulative activities for the Camera PreK Pack. I like to do the 20 "square" grid game boards for my kiddos. They both love playing these and 20 is a good number to keep them occupied but not take too long. They'll usually play the game through half a dozen times before moving on to another activity.

For full page manipulative activities, I store them in a binder. The smaller cut outs usually go into baggies or envelopes, just based on what I have. I keep these activities in storage bins and pull them out from time to time.

So, there you have it. The basics of setting up a pack. At least, that's how I do it. Since these activities are purely supplemental for my kiddos, they do them when they want to at their own pace. When they finish a workbook, they usually get their choice of what comes next. Sometimes they pick from packs I've already created and sometimes, they give me ideas for new packs. Each pack can certainly be inspiration for or supplements to unit studies and include other activities you come up with. Certainly, if you are seeking a particular theme to go with a unit you are planning, let me know, I may have a pack that would coordinate or I may be able to create a whole new set!

Here is a preview of several of the pages in my Camera Pack. If you are interested in grabbing the Camera PreK Pack for yourself, check it out in my TpT store here.