Free Printable Ancient Rome Lesson Plans, Roman History Activities

The study of ancient civilizations is essential to any curriculum. From Ancient Greece, the world gets classical art, music, a system of government, Olympic games, philosophy and more. The western world owes much to Ancient Rome for advances in technology. Roman roads were forerunners to the modern highway. Classic Greek and Roman architecture and columns have set the bar for modern buildings. The aqueducts of ancient Rome paved the way for modern plumbing and irrigation. Greek and Roman military, warfare and weaponry foreshadowed modern warfare. Science, astronomy, the stars and planets all have Greek and Roman roots.

All the romance languages stem from Greek and Latin (the language of Ancient Rome). Both the Greek and Roman empire were unparalleled in history. If you're a teacher or homeschool parent, you'll want free printable Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece lessons plans. Use these for social studies, geography, Bible, religion and government. Use these for law, medicine and science as well. Mr. Dowling has free printable Ancient Greece lesson plans and activities on Ancient Rome. Next check out the awesome materials from DK Eyewitness Books. Along with Usborne, these are the best picture books as they show actual artifacts.

Mr Donn.org is full of world history lessons and activities. Mr Donn has dozens of free printable Ancient Rome activities on Italy, the Etruscans (from which comes Tuscany), Romulus and Remus, the Roman Forum, the Roman Baths, Roman roads, the Roman empire. There are activities on Greek and Roman family life, home, buildings, clothing, art, food, music, religion, gods and goddesses and more. Here are lesson plans on the cult of Mithras, a "newer" religion of ancient Rome. Now sail over to ancient Greece where Mr. Donn has free printable lesson plans, too. Check out these free printable lesson plans on the Byzantium Empire too.

ProTeacher has 40+ free printable world history lessons on Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece. Print projects, units of world history lessons, activity pages, workbook pages, craft projects and hands-on activities You will need to submit your email address to join the share community at ProTeacher to access your free printables. There are coloring pages, cut and paste crafts, games, puzzles, Latin dictionary worksheets and more.

Discovery Education has a comprehensive list of materials, world history lessons on the Roman gladiators. Student Handouts has free printable Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece worksheets, maps and world history lessons. The wonderful part about this website is that the maps and pictures are primary sources. This means that the maps were drawn during that period of history in question. The images are vintage and historical. Give students activities that cover history and geography as well as culture. Follow up with free printable Greek and Roman crafts and coloring pages from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome from DL-TK.

Free Printable Handwriting, Cursive Penmanship Worksheets

One of the lessons that often gets lost in a teacher's busy school day is penmanship. Arguably, cursive is less important with the advent of computers. Legible handwriting is not nearly as prized as it was when students wrote more and typed less. Older people remember spending hours practicing manuscript and cursive writing. And their penmanship was neater. 

This isn't a debate over the validity of teaching cursive or handwriting skills. Teachers should at least look for neatness in schoolwork. Here are free printable handwriting worksheets, manuscript writing practice pages and cursive penmanship worksheets. Use free printable manuscript (printing letters) and cursive writing worksheets.

There are different methods and styles for teaching penmanship. Zaner-Bloser style is the older handwriting style in which printed letters are written vertically with no slant. Then D'Nnealian came into vogue in the early 1980s. D'nealian manuscript (printed letters) are written at a slant with more rounding of letters. D'nealian is more comfortable to write and works with the curves of the hand and body. D'Nealian print also transitions to cursive writing better. Here are free printable penmanship lessons for both styles of handwriting worksheets.

Writing Wizard has many free printable handwriting worksheets and writing practice pages for manuscript (print) and cursive writing practice pages. There are upper and lower case letters. You can print pages with single letters to practice. Kids Zone has really nice free printable handwriting worksheets and writing practice pages. The letters are grouped according the movements needed to write them. For example, there are the "rockin" round' letters and the "up the slide letters." This site is very kid-friendly. There are gobs more free printable writing and reading lessons on printing, tracing, alphabet, Dolce sight words, phonics, poetry and more.

Handwriting for Kids has a collection of free printable penmanship writing practice pages and handwriting worksheets. Look for cursive writing practice pages on this site. Home Education Resources has a great assortment of free printable penmanship lessons and handwriting worksheets. Each of the cursive handwriting worksheets has a coloring picture on it. Children love to color the pictures when they have finished their handwriting practice. Make the coloring page a reward. When they have shown you their five best examples of the letter, they get to color the pictures.

Handwriting may be a lost art, but it will probably always be needed to some extent. Use these free printable handwriting practice pages as lesson plans, in homeschool or tutoring. 

Free Printable Organizers, Charts, Planners, Graphs, Calendars

One way to save on school shopping is to print your own planner pages and skip buying a student planner or homework organizer. Here are links for free printable student planners, homework organizers and 2015 children's calendars. Homeschooling parents, use free printable lesson planners and personal organizers.

Free Printable.net has loads of free printable calendar templates, seasonal and holiday themed lesson organizers, dated personal planner pages and blank student planners. There are also free printable games, crafts, greeting cards, classroom activities and more. Why not print out a back-to-school welcoming packet for students?

Family Fun has free printable back-to-school organizers and summer crafts activities, photo frame crafts, homework charts with stickers, classroom and family organizers, monthly and weekly planner pages, student personal organizer calendar and charts. There are also teacher welcome letter templates.

Blessed Beyond a Doubt is a mom-blog with free printable student organizers and homework planners. There are links for free printable school activities, activity booklets with games, puzzles, crossword and coloring pages. Printable Planners has customizable free students planners, calendars and homework organizers to print. TLS Books has design-your-own organizers and free printable color-your-own children's calendars.

Scroll around these websites for more school themed printables. Look for games, puzzles, crossword and coloring pages. Print free pencil topper crafts, teacher and student stationary, incentive stickers, book and binder labels, book and binder label stickers, book marks and book covers. These cute crafts are guaranteed to please preschoolers, kindergarteners and elementary students. Even middle school and high school students would, truth be told, love these fun crafts.

For more free printables, visit me at Free Coloring Pages 4U, Catholic Activities, Free Printable Lesson Plans and DIY Homeschool.

Free Printable Diary of a Wimpy Kid Lesson Plans

Jeff Kinney was named one of Time Magazine's top 100 most influential people a few years ago. And I'm going to guess that unless you're in middle school, you've never heard of him. What has Kinney done to merit such a nomination?

Besides sharing a last (maiden) name with me, Kinney is the author of the wildly popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid kids book series. The Wimpy Kid in question is Greg Heffley and the "diary" is his personal journal of life in middle school. What makes these books resonate so with kids? They're graphic novels (educationally correct name for cartoons).

Pictures poke fun at everyone in Heffley's young life, including himself. We empathize with Greg's intimidation by tuned-out teen brother Roderick and annoyance at lisping, ever-innocent younger brother Manny.

Series includes Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Last Straw, Roderick Rules, Dog Days, The Ugly Truth, Cabin Fever, Third Wheel, Hard Luck, Greg Heffley's Journal and a Do-it-Yourself Book. The Long Haul came out in November. Here are free printable Diary of a Wimpy Kids activities for Children's Book Week 2015, May 4-10.

Fun Brain has an online Diary of a Wimpy Kid book to read. Parent site Poptropica has free Diary of a Wimpy Kid printables. ESL Printables has free Diary of a Wimpy Kid worksheets. Here's a Diary of a Wimpy Kid quiz to print from Quiz Moz. Ed Helper has a make your own Diary of a Wimpy Kid word wall.

Teacher Vision has a free printable Diary of a Wimpy Kid unit with writing activities, reading extensions, text to text questions, text-to-life connections and text to self connections based upon the book series. These sites have free printable Diary of a Wimpy Kid coloring pages. Here's the other list of Diary of a Wimpy Kid pages to print.

Free Printable Bible Lesson Plans

A very popular summer activity is VBS, or Vacation Bible School. Almost every local church sponsors a week-long Vacation Bible School. And don't let the term 'school' intimidate. Most VBS programs are fun-filled, hands-on and activity based. Here are free printable Vacation Bible School crafts, lesson plans, games and Bible activities. These general Bible crafts are suitable for Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christians. Old Testament activities would work for Jewish families.

Making Friends has free printable Bible lessons, Christian crafts and religious activities. T Print VBS coloring pages, crafts, activities, games, puzzles, crossword, cut and paste and more. There are lots of VBS theme printables to choose from. Teachers, you can search by what it's for, who it's for, what it is made from and kind of craft.

Free Kids Crafts has a plethora of free printable VBS coloring pages, Christian crafts, and Bible activities. Check the Seasons and Holidays pages for religious themed crafts to print in your Bible school. There are also free printable VBS themed units and activities: VBS Bayou Crafts, VBS Safari Crafts, VBS Western Crafts, VBS Australian Crafts, VBS Rainforest Crafts, VBS High Seas (Pirate) Crafts, VBS Panda Crafts and VBS Jungle Crafts

Christian Preschool Printables has loads of free Bible printables, games, lessons geared to younger children. Use these free printable Bible activities for Sunday School, religious education and VBS activities.

Danielle's Place is a nicely laid out craft site. There's an annual membership fee, but many printable Bible activities to sample free. It would be worth the reasonable price to have access to all the crafts.

DL-TK has a remarkable selection of free printable Bible school activities, There are old and new testament coloring pages, Bible games, religious lesson plans and Christian crafts. DL-TK is cross-referenced by activity theme and type of activity (game, craft, puzzle, greeting card,

Eldrbarry has free printable VBS materials from entire themes. Elder Barry walks you through each lesson plan, how it works, how to organize and even offers pictures of how the activity worked in their church. The medieval VBS theme is really neat.

Sunday School Fun Zone offers one-stop source for free printable Vacation Bible School crafts and printable Sunday School Activities. There are lots of color, cut, paste and assemble craft projects to boost fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination. Perfect for preschool and kindergarten. Bible Kid's Fun Zone has free printable Bible craft projects too. Family Crafts from About.com has a wonderful assortment of free printable Bible crafts,

Many websites don't list crafts as VBS specifically. Crafts are listed by theme, Bible scripture passage or Bible story. Just search site for the theme of your VBS. For more free kids' crafts, visit my blogsCatholic Activities, Free Coloring Pages 4U and Free Printable Lesson Plans.

Free Printable educational card games, board games

Card games and board games are excellent teaching tools. Games are interactive and hands-on and children learn many skills when they play card games. Educational card games teach kids to count, add, subtract, prioritize, plan, organize, sort, coordinate and evaluate. Card games can be created to teach content area and subject matter in lesson plans Card games help students memorize information. Here are free printable educational card games, playing cards, flashcards, dominoes and Memory games to use as lesson plans.

The Kidz Page has free printable educational card games, word games, flashcards, math games, sudoku games and lots of other educational learning games. They are brightly colored, cheerful games. Activity Village has free printable educational cards games, deck of cards for learning games, Memory games, dominoes and more. Planet Pals has a free printable animal matching deck of playing cards. You can play this game as Memory games also, finding pairs and sets.

Print Games has several cute free printable card games. Some are styled on vintage card games like Crazy 8s, Old Maid, Go Fish, and the regular deck of playing cards for solitaire, poker, rummy, etc. There are board games to print also. These make excellent family games and party games.

Mom's Minivan has a great assortment of free printable educational card games, travel and car games. There are bingo games, Battleships games, matching and Memory games, cootie catchers, connect the dot games, flashcards, decks of playing cards, dominoes and more.

DL-TK has a nice assortment of free printable educational card games, math games, matching and Memory games, dominoes, playing cards, flashcards and board games. There are free printable game tokens, playing pieces and dice.

Disney Family has gobs of free printable Disney activities, including Valentines based on Disney characters. Why not print sets of Disney valentines and make them into educational cards games, flashcards, playing cards, dominoes, matching and Memory games? Tim's Printables has free printable decks of playing cards.

For more Free Safe Kids Games visit the author's blog.

Free Printable Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Activities

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a wonderfully whimsical children's story written by Judi and Ron Barrett in 1982. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a modern tall tale. Here are free printable Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs activities and lesson plans. There are reading lessons, writing activities, literature extensions, lessons in hyperbole, genre study and even a weather unit based on the book.

Ed Helper has several free printable Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs lesson plans. Check here for more free printable lesson plans based on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. This site has free printable Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs weather science activities.

Click here for free printable vocabulary and reading lesson plans from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Here's a site with free printable vocabulary lessons based on Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. And last but not least, for a little fun from all that study, free printable Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movie coloring pages!

Free Printable Polar Express Party Planner Kit

Here's a Christmas holiday party for kids with literature connections. Print a free party kit from "The Polar Express" complete with games, crafts, party decorations, invitations, greeting cards, party favors and more. This party theme kit is based on the beloved book "The Polar Express" by Chris VanAllsburg and the hit holiday movie.

This free printable Polar Express party kit is perfect for those looking to host a secular Christmas holiday party and avoid religious Christmas themes.
Houghton-Mifflin, publishers of Vanallsburg's original book offer free Polar Express activities, coloring pages, crafts, games, coloring pages, Christmas tree ornaments and holiday decorations.

Here are just a few of the free printable activities--a Santa hat, poetry frame worksheet, Christmas card, North Pole sign, winter holiday party garland and patterns for snowflakes. Games includes puzzles, word search, fill in the blank and matching. Make Polar Express recipes including mint cookies and of course, hot chocolate! For healthier versions, make snowballs (popcorn balls), edible snow (popcorn with Parmesan cheese), Rudolph punch (cranberry and blood orange juice) and reindeer food (carrots, celery and sliced apples). String jingle bells on red ribbon or yarn for party crafts and give as party prizes. Make bird feeders by spreading peanut butter on pine cones and rolling in bird seed

Free Printable WordWorld Lesson Plans

PBS Kids offers superb, educational television show that kids love! For early childhood learners, WordWorld is an emergent reading cartoon for preschool children ages toddler to six. Every animal, character and object in WordWorld is made of that word. Children learn simple preschool words like dog, barn, bridge, house, fence, sun, tree and flower on WordWorld.

Parents of preschool children, if you haven't explored the cartoon WordWorld or if you are already familiar with the reading activities on this show, here are some free printable WordWorld lesson plans to follow up with WordWorld episodes. There are free printable preschool WordWorld coloring pages featuring the characters from WordWorld: duck, pig, frog, dog, bear and sheep. Visit PBS Kids for the free printable WordWorld activities for early childhood on the homepage. You will find an interactive map of WordWorld with lots of reading activities and word picture fun. There are free online WordWorld games as well as build a word adventures. Fill your word box with WordWorld words that you find on the website.

WordWorld is an excellent website for preschool and early childhood lesson plans. Use these reading activities in early childhood special education, elementary school, day care, homeschool and reading activities for tutoring. Since WordWorld comes from PBS, you know it's a school-approved website that's as safe, fun and educational. For more free safe early childhood online gaming, visit Free Safe Kids Games and for more printables and reading activities visit Free Printable Lesson Plans.

Free Printable Jigsaw Puzzles, Crossword, Word Search, Word Games

Free Printable Jigsaw Puzzles and Free Puzzles Generator Free printable jigsaw puzzles, word games, crossword puzzles, cryptograms, word searches, mazes and other puzzles. Free puzzle generator to make your own puzzles, word games and lesson plans for all ages to enjoy. Puzzles and word games make great testing tools to evaluate student comprehension of content.

Click here for free printable jigsaw puzzles. Billy Bear4 Kids has all sorts of free printable puzzles and online puzzles. There are different kinds of puzzle generators for crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, sudoku and cryptograms. Here are ready-made online and free printable jigsaw puzzlesfrom the Jigsaw place. Tim's Printables has free printable jigsaw puzzle generators and templateswith patterns to print images on for kids to color. There are crosswords, chess game boards and pieces, sudoku, mazes, word searches and other puzzles games.

Kids Scraps has free printable jigsaw puzzles, crossword and sudoku puzzles and puzzle generators for children in themes of animals: jungle, vehicles, toys, farmyard, pets, reptiles, holiday themed puzzles like Easter, Christmas, Valentine's Day and Halloween. Activity Village has free printable jigsaws on themes from around the world. There are also word puzzles and crossword puzzles for science, social studies, math, language arts, music; almost any subject area. DL-TK has free printable jigsaw puzzles, sudoku puzzles and puzzle generators for children on themes of Bible, holidays, animals, vehicles, toys, science and more. 

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.

Free Printable Jewish Passover Lesson Plans, Hebrew Pesach activities

Passover, also called Pesach, is a high point of the Jewish year. Explore the passover celebration with these free printable coloring pages, crafts, party games, word searches, puzzles, crossword and worksheets. Great for Hebrew Passover or Pesach party planning also!

Passover or Pesach, is a high celebration in the Jewish Hebrew calendar. Passover is an eight-day holiday, beginning with two days of no work, four days of limited work and ending with two days of no work. The Passover celebration includes several Seder meals, with roast lamb, bitter herbs and matzo bread. Passover, or Pesach commemorates the passing over of the angel of death during the ten plagues of Egypt. God punished the Egyptians for the enslavement of the Hebrews. First born male infants were to die unless the blood of a lamb was put on the lintels and door posts. Passover, or Pesach, is part of Christian calendar as well; it was at the Passover meal that Jesus instituted the Holy Eucharist or communion.

Passover doesn't fall on the same date every year. In the Jewish Hebrew calendar Passover falls in the month of Nissan. In the Gregorian or western calendar, Passover falls in March or April. In 2016, Passover begins at sundown on April 22 and runs till April 30. Here are free printable activities to explore the Passover. Start at Chabad for a guide to Passover. Here is the Jewish Kids Pesach site. Use these for classroom instruction, homeschool, religious education and Hebrew school. Here arefree printable Pesach greeting cards. Torah Tots has free printable Passover games, coloring pages, kids crafts, worksheets, lesson plans, greeting cards and more.

About Homeschooling has nine free printable Passover lessons, puzzles, word games, crossword, word search, DL-TK has free printable Passover kids crafts, Torah and Bible crafts, games and puzzles. Artists Helping Children has many printable Jewish Passover kids crafts. Fun Family Crafts has free printable Passover kids crafts for children on Torah and Bible stories of Moses, the Ten Commandments, the 10 Plagues of Egypt, the Exodus and more. Care has 10 very tasteful free printable Pesach kids crafts. Paper Crafts has a nice free printable cut and paste Hebrew menorahfor Passover and other holy day prayers. Free Kids Crafts has three pages of free printable patterns for Jewish Passover crafts (be sure to click through all three pages).

Free Printable Purim Lesson Plans for Jewish Kids

The Jewish celebration of Purim begins at sundown on 14th day of Adar in the Hebrew calendar. That's March 4, 2015. Purim celebrates the bravery and wisdom of a Jewish girl, Esther. Esther became queen of Ahasuerus, King of Persia. Here are free printable Purim activities and Jewish lesson plans to help children learn about Queen Esther.

Read the Purim story. King Ahasuerus's first wife Queen Vashti was very beautiful. One night the King demanded she parade naked in front of his guests. She refused and was executed. King Ahasuerus sought a new queen and liked Esther, niece of the leader of exiled Jews, Mordecai, Haman, evil prime minister to Ahasuerus, hated Mordecai. He connived to get Ahasuerus to decree that everyone should bow to the King. Jews bow only to Yahweh. Jews refused and Mordecai was to hang. Queen Esther pleaded with the king for her people (risky even for the Queen as it was forbidden to approach without a summons). Ahasuerus's heart was softened and Haman was put to death instead.

Throw a Purim party. Torah Tots is one-stop visit for Purim recipes, crafts, printables, lessons, books and films. Check out the Purim spiel (play) ideas to put on your own Torah presentation. Chabad has a complete Purim holiday guide for families. Kids will love making Hamantaschen (Haman Hats) and dressing up like Queen Esther, Mordecai, Ahasuerus and Haman.

Teach Purim with free printable Purim puzzles to reinforce story. Print word searches, crossword puzzles, word games and worksheets. Use for study guides. Teacher Planet has dozens of free printable Purim lesson plans, activities, crafts, unit ideas, games and puzzles.

Make Purim crafts. Chadis Crafts has free printable Purim craft projects, yarn crafts, coloring, puzzles and activities. Artists Helping Children always has neat craft projects. Check out their free printable Purim crafts, There are mask crafts too.

Each year Jewish observances fall on different days in the western calendar but it's the same in the Hebrew one. Whatever your religion or faith, Purim makes a cracking good story and kids will enjoy learning about it.

Free Printable Inkheart Activities, Lessons

March is National Reading Month, and what better time to explore best loved children's literature classics? The movie Inkheart was based on a trilogy of books by Cornelia Funke, including Inkheart, Inkspell and Inkdeath. This wonderful set of medieval type fantasy literature continues to thrill readers as the film did in 2009. Destined to become a children's literature classic, here are free printableInkheart lesson plans, fantasy coloring pages and activities based on the Cornelia Funke collection. Check EdHelper for free printable Inkheart book activities. Scholastic has a free printable Inkheart literature guide for Cornelia Funke books Inkspell and Inkdeath and companion movies.

The movie website at Warner Bros. has downloads including a free printable Inkheart activity booklet. Keep the Inkheart magic alive with beautifully illustrated word puzzles, word games, crossword, mad-libs, maze, hidden messages, design a fantasy butterfly and more. Each activity page can be enjoyed as a coloring page as well. The drawings are intricate and whimsical and will help readers respond to Inkspell and Inkdeath as they read them.

Beyond that, there aren't too many Cornelia Funke Inkheart, Inkspell or Inkdeath coloring pages available online, so here are general fantasy and medieval coloring pages. Here's a page of free printable Inkheart activities and lesson plans as well. Here are a few Inkheart lesson plans that cover Inkspell and Inkdeath, too. Cornelia Funke has written a literary classic which became a much-loved movie with Brendan Frasier, Andy Serkis Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent and Paul Bettany. Lovers of fantasy books will love joining Mo, Meggie, Dustfinger, Farid, Resa and all the fantastical characters of Inkheart. And maybe filmmakers will make Inkspell into a sequel?

Free Printable Tale of Despereaux Activities, Lesson Plans

The Tale of Despereaux is a charming children's literature book which has been made into a movie. It's an epic medieval love story of mouse sized proportions! 

Here are free printable Tale of Despereaux lesson plans, including a book discussion guide from Scholastic. Here are free printable  packet of activities from the Tale of Despereaux with core English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum connections. Printable Worksheets also has free printable Tale of Despereaux ELA lessons packet. Activity Village has free printable Tale of Despereaux coloring pages, a mouse mask, games and puzzles. Coloring Book Info has Tale of Despereaux coloring pages featuring the pint-sized medieval hero.

Here's one more packet of ELA lessons from The Tale of Despereaux. This story could work with ELA lessons on the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. DL-TK has some cute free printable mouse crafts and coloring pages to use for Tale of Despereaux ELA lessons. Here are free printable fantasy coloring pages and medieval crafts and activities to supplement ELA lessons and activities.