Boisterous Boys Printables
Friday, January 7, 2022
Chilly Treats Pack Prep and Use
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
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The Football Pack is one of my few unpublished packs. |
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. |
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.
Friday, October 29, 2021
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.
- Which is different?
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.
Tuesday, October 5, 2021
Get More Use Out of Your Printable Pack - Prewriting Practice
This series is a set of blogs intended to offer ideas about how to get more use out of your packs. While most activities are typically self-explanatory or include simple instructions, there are a variety of ways some of the activities can be approached. By mixing up the way the activities are done, it can reinforce concepts and help hone skills. It also means that the same activity can be repeated with a different way to increase the amount of use you can get out of a single pack providing you with more bang for your buck.
Prewriting Practice
One of my favorite activities to include in my packs is prewriting practice. It's a basic skill for students just learning to handle and control a writing implement. It involves more control than coloring by requiring the tracing of a dotted line. The lines are typically a mix of straight, slanted, and curved lines. Though the activity seems simple and straightforward, there are a number of ways to complete the activity that can hone skills, introduce new ones, and keep some simple activities interesting for students.
Below I've described a number of different ways this activity can be done so you can get more life out of the same activity within a pack or an activity that is repeated in different packs you may own.
Laminate for future use
One of my most common recommendations is to laminate some of the activities for future use. While prewriting activities seem like a simple trace and toss activity, they can often be laminated. Students can use a dry or wet erase marker to complete the activity. It can then be wiped down and used for the same student, a different student, and saved for subsequent years. This is a great option for holiday and seasonal activities as they have a limited amount of time they can be used in the classroom, so it's handy to save the paper and get multiple uses out of the same pages.
Incorporate various writing utensilsStart very young students with easier to hold instruments like wide crayons or markers. They can then work their way to using thinner more detailed utensils like colored pencils, thin markers, or pens.
As a bonus tip, try having students watercolors to trace the lines.
Bonus tip 2: keep this activity interesting by incorporating color, selecting a few to use throughout the activity - this is especially fun for seasonal activities.
Take advantage of other fine motor approaches
A simple tracing activity can become a base for other fine motor activities. Provide students with manipulatives to line up with the dotted line. Use craft sticks, tooth picks, chenille sticks, or string and have students match the smaller items up with the lines.
Practice glue skillsHave students place a glue line to glue ribbon or string to the lines. Provide small beads, decorative scatter pieces, confetti, sequins, or other small items that can be pasted along the line. A glue stick may also be used for this option if you are using something lighter like tissue paper squares or string. For less mess, provide self adhesive stickers to stick along the line.
Increase the difficulty
A great way to save paper and enhance the skill level is to increase the difficulty by printing the activity at a smaller size. This means more focus and control are needed to trace the lines at half the size or smaller.
I hope these ideas have given you inspiration to get more out of this great activity. Let me know if you've tried them or if you have other ideas for ways you've used these activities! Keep checking back for more ideas for other pages included in my prek packs!
Candy Corn PreK Pack
Apple PreK Pack
Fall Leaves PreK (No Prep, Printer Friendly) Pack
Pumpkin PreK Pack
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Feeling Lucky?
See the complete set here on TpT! |
St. Patrick's PreK Unit - My first St. Patrick's installment is a great all around pack, featuring the awesome works of Laura Strickland with MyCuteGraphics. It's a fantastic set with 40 pages of activities like tracing, coloring, picture paths, word cards, and more. This set is my top selling St. Patrick's Day pack in my Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) store.
Leprechaun Pack - The Leprechaun pack is still growing! I have so many ideas for this pack. Featuring the adorable art of Krista Wallden with Creative Clips, the Leprechaun pack currently includes a preK pack with 40 pages of activities. One of those activities is shown in the picture - a set of memory or matching cards. The set includes colored images as well as shadows for helping little ones match images as well as their unique shapes. The Leprechaun PreK Pack is listed at "Part 1" in my TpT store because I have begun piecing together a second prek pack which will feature another 40 pages of unique activities. The two packs can be used independently or together. None of the activities repeat between the packs, so they are truly independent of each other. This year, I also added a coordinating set of 3-part color cards which are available for a limited time as a Fan Freebie on Facebook, so check out my Facebook page to grab yours while it's still available! Keep your eyes open for that second prek pack.
Pot o' Gold Pack - The Pot o' Gold pack is a different type of pack. I have a few others that are similar, like the Lots of Hearts Pack available for Valentine's. The pack started out as a sampler pack available in my TpT store. With this mini sampler, you get 8 pages of activities totally free so you can see what types of pages and activities are included in my packs. You can try them out, see how you and your kiddo or students like them, and grab more and bigger packs from my store. With the Pot o' Gold pack, the images are created by Krista Wallden of Creative Clips and they coordinate with the Leprechaun Pack, so while the text and overall color scheme are unique, the images tie them together and they can be used as parts of a single unit. Last year, I offered a set of 3-piece number cards as a Fan Freebie on my Facebook page. I absolutely love these cards because they help kiddos learn to recognize the numerals, number words, and introduce them to 10-frames. The cards were only available for a limited time, as are all my Facebook Fan Freebies, so it's important to check them out regularly and grab them when you can. I may offer them again for free in the future, or I may offer a bundle with several coordinating activities. For now though, you can grab the sampler absolutely free here.
Pot o' Gold Number Cards - currently unavailable, but you may be able to grab them sometime in the future! |
Now that we've talked about all the currently available packs and reached the end of my post, are you ready for something exciting? I've decided to give my readers a sneak peak at what I'm working on. I'm hoping to get the first installment out for St. Patrick's Day this year, so keep an eye out! My latest set is a math pack! Once again, I'm using Krista Wallden's adorable Creative Clips images for this pack, so they coordinate with the Leprechaun and Pot o' Gold sets. This pack has all unique activities, though, so you won't get duplicate pages if you use them together! The focus of this latest pack is all about math including activities like number tracing, matching, counting, patterning, etc. I am so excited about this pack! Current plans are for a 35 page pack and an activity pack.
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Boisterous Boys Valentine Collection
Valentine Cupcakes Pack - Another mini pack full of delicious looking cupcakes on 20 pages of activities! Makes you hungry just looking at it. This set is fantastic if you need to be modest about printing. While color printing is ideal for most of my sets, this set was purposefully made to function just as well when printed in monochrome.
Valentine's Hearts Pack - This awesome pack was one of my first creations with Boisterous Boys. There are 28 pages of activities offering a lot of variety for early learners. This set features some challenges which require kiddos to differentiate between colors as well as match letters, which is great for honing skills.
Valentine Letter Practice - This set of pages is unique compared to the majority of my packs. It's the newest in my Valentine collection. This pack includes 52 pages of letter practice. There is one page for each capital letter and one page for each lower case letter. The pages can be selected to go along with current letters being worked on during this time of year, or it can be used as an overall refresher. In addition to printing practice, these pages feature bold letters with little hearts that can act as a correspondence exercise with conversation hearts, other candies, stickers, or manipulatives. Another great feature of this pack? No prep! Just print and go!
Valentine Sweets Pack - If I'm being honest, this is quite possibly my absolute favorite Valentine Pack I've created so far. This pack is huge, with 50 pages of activities. There are so many options to choose from, from worksheets to interactive activities like clip cards. This set was actually featured in a previous post talking about how to prep and use clip cards as well as alternate ways to incorporate the activity pages other than the obvious uses.
Check out these and my other available packs in my Teachers Pay Teachers store!