Free printable Halloween activities, crafts, coloring pages, worksheets, games

Halloween is creeping up and children of all ages, even the young at heart are getting ready for the fun. In many schools, activities are planned around Halloween. Educators know that when children enjoy something and have fun with a lesson, they learn better. Here are free printable Halloween activities for school classrooms, homeschool or scout troop. Use with old folks in nursing homes or anyone who needs some Halloween printables.

Count down the days to Trick or Treat with dozens of free printable Halloween activities, coloring pages and crafts from Making Friends.com. Print free craft projects for all sorts themes. Making Friends has a really holiday activities, coloring pages, cut and paste, paper dolls, Trick or treat wrappers, worksheets, Halloween puzzles and mazes. Print word searches, crossword puzzles and word games, perfect for Halloween language arts lessons. Print Halloween card games, flash cards, dioramas, masks and pumpkin carving patterns and stencils.

Here free printable Halloween lesson plans, worksheets, games, coloring pages, activities and puzzles. Use for Trick or Treat themed math, reading, writing, literature, science, language, social studies and crafts. All Free Printables has free Halloween crafts, greeting cards, party invitations, decorations, cut-outs, coloring pages, masks, party invitations, name tags, treat bags, pumpkin cut-outs, book marks, picture frames and lots more. Puzzlemaker lets you create templates for printable Halloween worksheets, puzzles, mazes, jigsaws, dot to dot, Soduku, crosswords and activities galore.

Print Activities is another mega site for all your school and family activity printing needs. Look for unitprintable worksheets and lessons focused around Halloween and trick-or-treat. Disney Family offers a plethora of free printable Halloween Disney activities, crafts and coloring pages. Coolest Holiday Parties has free printable Halloween party supplies. You'll find cards, invitations, treat and punch bowl printables, banners, place cards, name tags, wall hangings for a ghoulish party.

Free printable tree identification charts, leaf patterns fall science diagrams

 A popular autumn lesson plan is to assign students to make a leaf identification booklet. Here are free printable tree identification charts and leaf patterns and fall craft stencils. Parents, homeschoolers and teachers, make flashcards with these tree and leaf patterns. Use in hands-on Montessori style games for nature science study. Make tree and leaf books. Assign students to collect leaves, press them or make leaf rubbings. Students should label leaves and trees using identification diagrams.

About Forestry has free printable leaf patterns for tree and leaf identification from common trees around the country. The site also has textbook-quality, beautifully detailed free printable leaf coloring pages taken from naturalist Charles Sprague Sargent's leaf plate illustrations. Each page features a different leaf with its corresponding tree, berry, nut and foliage. These printable illustrations include cut-away drawings and other helpful identification data, plus the Latin classification for genus and species of the tree. The website gives the leaf and tree names in their American variation. Use these printables for taxonomy lessons on KPCOFGS (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family Genus and Species) as developed by zoologist Carolus Linnaeus.

Arbor Day offers several printable nature science resources and online tree and leaf identification activities. Here's a link for About Forestry's leaf and tree identification homepage. From here, follow the links for different information about conifers, deciduous trees, hardwoods, and other assorted trees from different biomes and habitats. Don't miss these free printable forest map activities showing location and region of different types of trees. Scroll down to find the region and tree type you are looking for. Here's a free printable tree and leaf matching game. Print as coloring pages of leaves. Here are websites with free printable fall leaf patterns for autumn crafts. Here are free printable leaf stencils for decorations and children's activities.

Free printable Columbus Day lesson plans, navigation activities, historical maps, coloring pages, exploration worksheets, medieval crafts

Columbus Day is observed on the second Monday in October in the U.S. Columbus Day is October 12 in 2015. Schools typically mark the holiday with Columbus Day activities Here are free printable
Columbus Day lesson plans and worksheets to create history and social studies units. Print free Christopher Columbus themed games, coloring pages, lessons, puzzles, crafts and cut and paste activities.
Columbus Day honors the 1492 landing of Columbus's ships on the Caribbean Islands, which he named the New World. Columbus isn't the first European to see the Americas, but he did provide the
earliest records and maps. Use these free printable lesson plans to explore medieval history, science,
math, navigation, travel, exploration and culture surrounding Columbus's voyage. Lessons suit special and general education and homeschool students in all grades.

The Holiday Zone has pages of free Columbus Day printables for preschoolers and lower
elementary students. There are coloring pages, crossword puzzles, mazes, word searches, printable
readers and more. Teachers will love the free printable Columbus Day vocabulary cards with
illustrations. Print vocab words on card stock, laminate and use each year for pocket charts and word
walls.
The Mariner's Museum offers free printable exploration history lesson plans for older students. High
school students usually get left out when it comes to hands-on activities. But not here: they can study
exploration, navigation, cartography and medieval scientific equipment. Make an astrolabe, sextant,
quadrant and compass using free printable templates. Print, color and label diagrams of ships and
navigational tools. The teacher link has lesson details and answer key. Student links contain printable
activity pdfs.
Coloring.ws has free printable Columbus Day coloring pages. There are realistic images of
Columbus, ships and map activities to color and There are two world maps plus one map each of Italy
(Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy), Spain (Columbus sailed under the auspices and flag of Queen
Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain) and San Salvador (first place Columbus's ships landed). DL-TK has more Columbus Day printables. Here are more coloring pages of ships and boats.

Apples 4 the Teachers has more free printable Columbus Day worksheets. Enchanted Learning has more interactive Columbus Day lessons on maps, navigation, history and more.
Assemble these printables into a booklet to use as homework or for projects. Special needs students
who sometimes need more structure and direction might use these activities to demonstrate

Free printable September 11 lesson plans, 9/11 social studies printables

 As Britain commemorates Guy Fawkes Day on November 5, Americans "remember, remember the 11th of September." On the 14th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, how can we commemorate in a proactive way? A nonprofit called My Good Deed, suggests making it a National Day of Service and Remembrance reports the International Business Times. But how do you teach children why September 11 is so important? How do you explain what happened to the World Trade Center, Flight 93 and Pentagon? How can you help them understand war, violence and terrorism? Here are free printable September 11 lesson plans to help.

Scholastic has a free printable September 11 unit filled with activities, titled "9/11/2011: The Day that Changed America." There are dozens of social studies, history, government and civics lessons. Resources include primary sources (original pictures and documents), timelines, graphs, charts and maps. There are critical thinking and writing prompts, memorial activities, movie and book connections. There are September 11 units for preschool up to grade 8.

Education World presents a compendium of 9/11 printables and activities for teaching about tragedy, terrorism and tolerance. There are resources on Islam and its perspective, too. Lessons cover not just the who, what, when, where and how of the September 11 attacks, but the why, as well. Children learn why the U.S. was attacked, what we can do about it, what's been done, and why we must not forget.

PBS has a collection of free September 11 lesson plans geared primarily at students in middle school and high school. These lessons explore 9/11 in the larger world context and how the September 11 attacks affected the world. ABC Teach has a package of printable 9/11 lesson plans for younger children. There are coloring pages, writing prompts and vocabulary puzzles. These activities help kids who didn't experience September 11 understand why it's so important to those who did. Children see destruction and violence on television and video games all the time. 9/11 can seem unreal.

9/11 Memorial is museum, archive, repository and exhibition built at the site of the World Trade Center. This website offers virtual tours, photo walls, and features twin pools at ground zero, inscribed with the names of the victims. If children can't visit the 9/11 Memorial, a virtual classroom tour will help them explore. Here is the page with free printable 9/11 Memorial lesson plans .

Kids might make a memorial drawing quilt. Ask children to draw or color a picture reflecting the 9/11 attacks. Don't set boundaries. Let kids express feelings in any way that they need to. Collect the drawings and tape them together to form a September 11 "quilt." The quilt may be a thank-you for National Guard or public safety officers, too. Send it to a victim, rescue worker or veteran memorial group or display in your school.

Coloring may seem like a superficial way to commemorate a disaster. For children, it's therapeutic. It's like journaling for an adult. Drawing helps children access and express emotions. When a child hears sad news, drawing is a first response because he hasn't learned how to share feelings in words, written or spoken, Children show empathy for suffering people, making cards for them. There is so little anyone, let alone a kid, can do about tragedy. Simple acts of kindness, like drawing a picture, help heal.

Free printable elephant crafts, Babar coloring pages, elephant-themed activities

Happy World Elephant Day on August 12! It's tusks up and trunks waving for elephants, or, as Winnie-the-Pooh would say, heffalumps! Children, do you want free printable elephant crafts and activities? Would you like to print coloring pages of elephants (of course you would!) Well, ask mom and dad to print these so you can celebrate Happy Heffalump Day!

A famous elephant is Babar, and there are free printable Babar coloring pages from Educational Coloring Pages. Looking for children's literature about elephants? Read the Babar books, by Jean de Bruhoff. He introduced Babar to French children 1931 and was so loved the stories were translated. Laurent de Brunhoff continued his father's book series after Jean passed away. Get to know Babar then visit Hello Kids for even more free printable Babar coloring pages

DL-TK is a super awesome educational website for preschool to elementary age kids. Here's a heap of free printable elephant crafts. Print coloring pages of elephants, elephant masks, puzzles, games, puppets and zoo activities. Kids will love elephant themed songs, poems, books and stories. For a safari of elephant printables, coloring pages, puzzles and games, go to Coloring.ws. There are elephant connect-the-dot learning games to count to 10 and practice the alphabet.

First-School is another good education website. There are free printable elephant lesson plans to practice reading, letters, numbers and math. There are stories about elephants, puzzles and simple science lessons. Pinterest has free printable and DIY elephant crafts to make at home. Look for toilet paper tube elephant crafts and paper plate elephant masks. Kids will adore the elephant mask with the party blowout nose! Activity Village has lots of awesome elephant crafts to print as well.