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 health, Food, Inc Documentary Film Lessons

With obesity at crisis level, attention turns to childhood obesity. Weight problems begin at home and so that's the best place to begin with healthy lifestyles, nutrition, exercise and eating habits. But school can help too. Here are free printable health lessons on nutrition and other children's health science topics. Kids Health has free printable health lessons, health science worksheets and healthy living activities. These lesson plans cover common subjects taught in health class. Health lessons cover all grades, preschool through twelfth grade. Each age category has a separate link listed on the left side of the page.

Each grade level addresses three basic areas of health lessons geared to the age, abilities and maturity of the student. There are free printable health lesson plans on the Human Body, Health Problems and Personal Health. Lesson plans include free printable teachers guides, games, activities, worksheets, handouts and health science experiments. Some lessons also contain a study guide, student quiz and answer key. Here is a scope and sequence for each grade level and will work well for homeschool, special needs students and special education health classes.

Pre-K- 2nd grade--Healthy Habits (available in English and Spanish) Human Body covers body parts, bones, muscles, joints, mouth, teeth and skin, Body Systems covers Cardiovascular, Digestive, Respiratory, Body Functions, Hearing, Sleep and Vision. Health Problems covers Infections, Diseases and Conditions, Asthma, Diabetes. Personal Health lessons covers Puberty and Growing Up, Conflict Resolution, Empathy, Self-Esteem, Hygiene, Germs, Fitness, Nutrition, Breakfast, Energy Balance.

Grades 3-5--Human Body covers body parts, bones, muscles and joints. Body Systems cover Cardiovascular, Digestive, Immune, Respiration, Body Functions and Sleep, Health Problems, Infections, Diseases, Conditions, Asthma, Eating Disorders, Bird Flu, Obesity, Drugs, Alcohol and Tobacco. Personal Health science covers the same topics as the K-2nd grade syllabus, geared to 3-5th graders.

Grades 6-8 Human Body covers Body Parts, Mouth and Teeth, Skin. Systems include Cardiovascular, Respiratory. Body Functions include Sleep, Vision. Health Problems include Infections, Diseases, Conditions, Asthma, Bird Flu, Diabetes, eating disorders, HIV and AIDS, Obesity, Skin Cancer. Emotional Health science issues cover Depression, Stress, Drugs, Alcohol, personal health, puberty and growing up, conflict resolution, self-esteem, nutrition, food safety, school lunch, breakfast, fitness and sports safety. Grades 9-12 cover much of the same topics only in high school lesson plans.

To deal with obesity, visit Chartwells for free printable calorie counters, carb counters vitamin and mineral information other health protocol. Visit Choose My Plate for free printable health information, nutrition, calorie counters, carb counters and more health nutrition activities. Visit MyPyramid for free printable weight loss tools, obesity management, nutrition and health activities

Free Printable Business Money Math, Personal Finance, Consumer Economics Math Lesson Plans

Teachers, parents and homeschool families are you looking for hands-on, real-life lesson plans for children? Money math makes great applications for real-world math lessons. Money math lessons teach core math skills. Here are free printable money math worksheets and lesson plans on personal finance, banking and shopping. Use for elementary through high school in personal finance, economics and consumer math classes. Money math skills are practical and pragmatic in that they improve high stakes testing scores as well. Here are some of the many benefits of instruction in consumer math:
Coin counting teaches computation, adding and multiplying skills and making change teaches subtraction skills. Calculating sales discounts teaches fractions, decimals and percents. Teaching economics theories of profit and loss explains integers while personal finance concepts of income and expenses teaches algebra formulas. Use free printable money math worksheets to practice adding in columns, place value, base 10 math, metrics, subtraction and dividing with decimals, long division and basic fractions, decimals and percents. Consumer math helps students learn to read line grapsh, pie charts and bar graphs.
Money Instructor has free printable money math worksheets on personal finance and consumer math skills. Teaching money math is a one-hand-washes-the-other relationship. Students practice basic math skills while learning life skills such as budgeting, buying on sale, using discounts and coupons, balancing a checking account, saving money, investing, calculating credit and interest rates and so many other critical money math skills. Kids.gov has free printable money math worksheets, lesson plans, games and activities on all areas of money math. Jumpstart has free printable money math worksheets, games and activities for teaching personal finance and consumer math to younger children. Check Enchanted Learning for loads more money math worksheets and printables.

Free Printable Checkbook Registers for Economics, Business, Math, Life Skills

Raise your hand if you write checks or make debit purchases. Now raise your hand if you balance said checkbook and debit purchases. If you raised your hand to both, good for you. Most people don't track their purchases as well as they should. Then they wonder where the money went and why there are late fees, interest charged and bounced checks!

To help you money smart folks, here are free printable checkbook registers for debit and credit cards and for budgeting money, banking and balancing your book. Keeping a balanced checkbook, including ACH, echecks, debits and purchases with credit cards makes fiscal sense and cents. You should track credit, cash, even EBT purchases too. Budgeting money keeps you in the financial black. If you note down every payment made (regardless of form) you'll know where your money goes. You can also stopgap leaks and prevent fees, over-charges you might not have noticed before.

Sample Words has free printable checkbook registers for transactions by check, debit cards and credit cards with running ledger balance. Just like the checkbook registers that come with check purchase, this printable template features an Excel-compatible spreadsheet to record transaction, date, form of payment (electronic check, deposit, transfer, ACH, online, debit or credit card purchase or check number) and details. There is a space to note when the transaction clears and also space to keep a running balance of deposits and withdrawals. This will help you in budgeting money.

Here are free printable checkbook registers and for checks, debits, and transactions with credit cards. Printables are like the wallet sized ones you get from the bank. You can download and print. Print several copies and make into a checkbook register booklet by stapling together. Keep it in your purse or wallet to note transactions and purchases. This comes from the larger Free printable website which specializes in many kinds free printables for household and budgeting, including business forms.

Here are more free printable checkbook registers and for checks, debit cards and credit cards from Clean Mama. These printables are helpful not only for personal financial organizing, but also for use in math classes. General education and special education teachers can use to teach students life skills, budgeting money and personal finance. Students can learn to balance their own money management.

Free Printable Blank Checks and Banking Slips for Money Math

Money math, banking and finance are some of the most practical math applications. Students learn real-world math lessons by writing checks, balancing checkbooks and managing debit and credit cards, savings and checking accounts. To help, here are free printable blank checks, play money, check register forms, banking slips, deposit slips and withdrawal slips. Use to teach hands-on money math lessons Use for consumer math classes, special education lesson plans and homeschool math activities.

DL-TK has several pages of pretend free printable blank checks and banking slips for play. There are two free printable check varieties, using the American "check" and Canadian "cheque" spelling. Both are available to print in color or in black and white. Visit Free Stuff 4 Kids for free printable blank checks for play and for math lessons. Use these in combination with free printable play money. These links provide free printable play money in denominations of one, five and ten dollar bills. Use these free printable checks to set up a classroom bank, preschool math learning center or token economy. Use banking slips and play money to teach economics, math skills, banking, counting changes and money math lessons.

Money Instructor has many free printable money math lesson plans, blank checks, play money, banking slips and money math lessons and worksheets. Not all printables are free but there is a nice selection of free printable samples. Print free banking slips, deposit slips, withdrawal slips, check registers and checking account slips. Money Instructor has interactive money math lessons, check writing, check endorsing, checkbook balancing tutorials also. It is recommended that teachers of economics, consumer math, life skills, special needs, accounting and personal finance subscribe to these sites. This link will take you directly to a page of free printable practice blank checks.

Free Printable Calendars, Lesson Planners, Grade Book

Print Free has gobs and gobs of free printable calendars in tons of different views and configurations. There are monthly calendar printouts, weekly date planners, year-at-a-glance, two-month calendars and online organizers. Choose from different patterns and themes. Select vertical or horizontal style personal planners. Opt for major holidays to be included. There's nothing to download. Just choose the style you want, point and shoot (or click and print, in this case).

Print 2016 Calendars has a vast array of free printable calendars in month styles. Fonts differ by bold, large-print and outline design. Print your online organizers as in grid, bookmark, year-at-a-glance and other styles. These calendar printouts open in PDF or Microsoft Word format (you have to have those software tools installed and enabled to open and print).

Here are tools for online organizers and personal planners to create free printable calendarsfrom Calendar Labs. Add in religious holidays from your specific faith--dates for those are included. Perhaps your religion follows a different calendar, like Hebrew, Islam or Indian. This tool will help you generate and customize a (western year) calendar.

Here's yet another link for free printable calendars to customize. Win Calendar has a really nice, easy-to-use layouts for online organizers. Design personal planners and calendar printouts in the style that works best for you.