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 utensils

Start 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 skills

Have 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!

Packs featured in this blog:
Candy Corn PreK Pack
Apple PreK Pack
Fall Leaves PreK (No Prep, Printer Friendly) Pack
Pumpkin PreK Pack

Feeling Lucky?

After my Valentine's rundown, I thought I'd go ahead and share with everyone what I've got available for St. Patrick's Day, or as I like to call it, St. Paddy's. So, without further ado, let's see what I've got available if you are feeling the luck of the Irish... or just want to celebrate a bit.

See the complete set here on TpT!

Similar to Valentine's I have plenty of St. Paddy's goodies and more in the works. One pack in particular, I'm hoping to get completed for this year, but more about that later!

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!

Lucky Owls Pack - I love using unique images to add to the traditional ones associated with holidays. These precious owls created by Pretty Grafik are too cute to pass up! They add a new twist to St. Patrick's Day in this adorable set. The Lucky Owls Pack features 30 pages of activities for preschool and is newly available in my TpT store for this year. You can grab yours here.


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.

Boisterous Boys Valentine Collection

A couple years ago, I compiled some images that included previews of some holiday sets. It's fun to see the whole spread all together. This year, I'm putting together a list of my Valentine's sets. I have a sizable collection of sets with more in the works so you can find a set for your own niche when it comes to that very pink holiday we often associate with flowers, hearts, and chocolates. So, without further ado, here is your intro to the currently available Valentine's sets, what's included, and where to get it:

Lots of Hearts Pack - The main set in this pack is a sampler that is available via my Teachers Pay Teachers store. This sampler is offered free so you can get an idea of what you'll find in my other packs. I was inspired by the simplicity of this freebie and have created some additional supplements which I offer as freebies here and there. Keep an eye out for these as they are offered randomly and usually for a limited amount of time. At some point, I may compile a collection of supplements that will likely be available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

 Love a Bug Pack - This adorable mini pack includes 20 pages of activities for toddler-Kinder. A great starter set with a modest selection of activities. And who can resist the adorable love buggies?

 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!

Cow Appreciation Day! Giveaway Time!!!

Lately I've become inspired by random obscure holidays. It gives me the opportunity and inspiration to create unique packs with themes that may not be seen elsewhere. One of my main goals is to provide unique ideas and while I will create packs using common or traditional themes, I like to offer something different that wouldn't be seen elsewhere.

Last month, I created two unique packs for obscure holidays: Sunglasses Day and Camera Day. The packs themselves are not tied directly toward celebrating the holiday, but just use the theme itself. So, I have to offer in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store, my Sunglasses Pack and my Camera Pack. These packs are so cute and the Sunglasses Pack is perfectly appropriate as a spin on generic "summer" packs. The Camera Pack was actually the star in my last post about how I put together these packs for my kiddos (post found here).

So, this month, I have another adorable pack and this time, it's to celebrate Cow Appreciation Day! Some folks may be familiar with a certain chicken sandwich chain that celebrates the unique holiday sometime in mid-July (which landed on today's date this year), but it seems there are other places that date this "holiday" on alternate days in July. In any case, I decided I'd celebrate this holiday in a unique way by not only creating this adorable pack (because really, who can resist Krista Wallden's artwork?), but also by offering a giveaway of this mini pack!

This mini pack really packs a punch. With 20 pages of activities, it's smaller than my standard sized packs which typically range from 30-50 pages, but it is chock full of a wide variety of activities. Some of the pages focus on letter recognition and letter formation. There is also an observation exercise, counting practice, and simple addition. Manipulative activities in this pack include number puzzles and size sorting.

Back to the giveaway though. Check out my Facebook page to get details, but entries for the giveaway will available until tomorrow night (July 15th). Like and comment on the giveaway post and you are entered to win! The more comments, the more free packs will be given away!

Have fun and good luck!!!

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.

Prep and Using Clip Cards with Valentine Sweets Clip Cards

I wasn't planning on doing another Valentine's related post, but I love my new Valentine Sweets Pack so much, that I had to get out the goodies and show you something. This set has a preK/preschool pack, tot pack, 3-piece number cards, and a tic-tac-toe game/busy bag. But, enough about the pack, what I'm going over today is clip cards like the set included in my preK pack.

Clip cards are pretty awesome. They are another manipulative type of activity, but they don't have to be. Number clip cards are the most common ones I've done, but they can also be made for other matching and association activities.

Prepping the clip cards is pretty basic. Print on card stock and cut out. You may wish to laminate for durability. With my holiday sets, I will print on card stock, but I save on the laminating. Each activity will likely only get used a few times, but not enough - in most cases - to be destroyed before the holiday has come and gone. I'd recommend laminating items that will be used by a lot of children or get heavy use, like year-round themed items.

The default of these cards is to use a clip, most popularly, spring-hinged clothes pins. They are great for helping to strengthen small hands for writing, so these cards are not only for honing counting and number identification (if using number clip cards), but also for fine motor development. Using binder clips will also suit this function. Paper clips can be used for fine motor development as well, but they won't help with strengthening hand muscles.

If you don't have clothes pins around, you can also use other small manipulatives which are also good for fine motor practice. Some ideas of things you can use are place markers (small plastic discs), foam shapes or table scatter, or even coins if you don't have any of the others readily available. Be creative with whatever you have on hand. It doesn't have to be cute or coordinate, it just has to act as a place marker. Here, my kiddo is using some adorable felt cupcakes I found that coordinate with my sweets pack! I originally picked them up for busy bag activities like the tic-tac-toe one, but they work great for this as well.

Even without card stock or small manipulative items, you can still get use out of these pages. Printing on regular paper is just as viable of an option. On paper, think of other things your child can use to mark the numbers. A few examples are shown here - stickers, stamps, dot marker/bingo dauber, or even a basic pencil or crayon. Don't let lack of supplies limit your use of this great activity. All you really need is printer, paper, and pencil. Everything else is just the cherry on the top. Mix it it up or keep it simple, it's up to you.

For storage, I have used a few different options. If I'm giving these as a busy bag activity, I'll usually include the clothes pins (enough for each card) and an instruction sheet. If I want to keep options open for other manipulative items (or just to store easier), I can put the cards in a bag or envelope by themselves.

So that's it for these clip cards! I hope I've given you some inspiration for use! If you've worked with them before, what are your favorite ways to use them?

If you want to check out the rest of my Valentine Sweets Pack, you can find it here: 

Find the preK pack here on TpT!

Valentine Patterns and Busy Bags

Lots of Hearts Valentine Pattern Busy Bags

My collection of packs this year.

So, I've been a bit preoccupied. After a hectic couple weeks compiling a handful of Valentine's packs, I then had to get my most recent fun pack together. More on fun packs in another post.

More to the point, tomorrow is the Valentine's party at my older kiddo's school, so we were prepping Valentine's for his class. Last year, all we did was sign the card for the class, but I wanted to do something more. As I was already doing busy bags for the fun pack, I decided to create one more, well 15 anyway. I put together a smaller version of the pattern busy bag I've done with previous sets, only this time, I made it to coordinate with my Lots of Hearts pack. This pack started out as just a sampler for my Teachers Pay Teachers store, but I've ended up adding multiple coordinating supplement sets (and still have plans for more). In any case, it was a perfect theme and I thought a mini version of the busy bag would be a fun and simple addition to the Valentines for my son's class so to work I went. Turned out to be a bigger project than I had planned, but I got it completed.

I made the set in the manner I had done a previous patterning busy bag. The intent is to improve observation and help develop one to one correspondence and help with pattern recognition. It's a simple enough activity and has the benefit of requiring little parent interaction or guidance (that would be the point of busy bags, after all, right?). I figured since my kiddo's class has been working on various patterns this year, it would be an appropriate activity.

The premise is pretty basic. Each card has a series of hearts in a particular pattern on it based on the color of the hearts and the student uses the manipulatives to repeat the pattern. The original printable busy bag pack contains 16 different patterns, 4 each of AB, AABB, ABB, and ABC patterns. Each of the individual ones I put together contains half of the patterns.

 Because I used half the available patterns for each set, there created two different sets. It made it easier to do it this way rather than mix them all up so that I could ensure consistency. Each set has 2 of each type of pattern. Only the colors used vary bag to bag.

I love to use foam shapes and similar items for these sets. Foam shapes are great for little hands and art projects. Conveniently, these hearts came in four colors which I used for the pattern pack. I did include a page in the printable file of the pack with individual images that can be cut apart and used to make the patterns. I do this in case parents don't have easy access to the foam shapes or other similar manipulatives, though I personally prefer them for these activities. I'm a big fan of incorporating different textures and small objects for kiddos to manipulate and handle. To a certain extent, they can help with fine motor skills, but that is not the focus of this patterning pack.

 So here it is, the collection of hearts and pattern sets. I also included an instruction card insert similar to those that I include with all my busy bags. It's a bit of a calling card, but it also helps to guide in the use of the busy bag. I like to think that it's obvious, but just in case an individual hasn't come across an activity like this, I don't want to take it for granted that they have.

And the finished set of bags. Each pattern set is individually bagged with coordinating hearts and instructions ready to go. I hope my kiddo's classmates love them! Of course, I won't hate if the parents of his classmates decide to look up my stuff, but that would more be the cherry on the top rather than the main intent. 

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you enjoy celebrating with your own kiddos!