The Ultimate Guide to Magformers!

Building with Magformers encourages children to use their imagination and show their creativity while developing skills and knowledge critical to their developmental success. Magformers uses high quality “always attracting” magnetic technology that provides endless constructional play. Educents offers all of the following sets of Magformers and more! Learn more about the educational value of each set, and find the special set that your child will love.

The Beginner Set

Good For: Ages 3+ Magformers are super powerful shapes that transform into colorful geometric builds that adhere on every edge with magnets. Build simple forms from houses to rockets that spin freely to ensure that every side attracts to other pieces. The possibilities are endless with this 30-piece sets which include 18 squares and 12 triangles!

"I definitely recommend Magformers for a few reasons. I love how sturdy they are, the creations don’t fall apart! You can do a lot with a few pieces, we have the smallest set and it has already provided hours of play. I love the colors and the way you can add other sets onto your first set to keep expanding. The appeal to young and older kids is a big plus, it’s a great family toy. So much learning happens through play and this toy is no exception!" -Carisa, Blogger from 1+1+1=1

This is a great toy for children with special needs.

"Focus on colors. Combine the two shapes when introducing colors. Begin by only introducing one color by laying the shapes flat on a table. Name the color. Eventually, have the child sort colors and connect shapes of the same color. Keep the shapes flat as each shape is double-sided and possesses two different colors." - Gabriella V., Special Needs Homeschool Blogger

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Magformers Walking Robot Set

  Do your kids like superheroes? They can build a superhero robot! Maybe they like spacemen instead. This robot kit comes with a guide book that has directions for 8 different robots for your little engineer. Or, maybe your child dances to the beat of her own drum and would prefer to use her imagination instead of a set of rules. Your child can even create their own robot character since the possibilities are endless with Magformers! Once they are built, their robot can walk at two different speeds.

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The Light Show Set

Good For: Ages 4 - 12 The Magformers Light Show Set allows boys and girls of all ages to light up their imagination and create out of this world designs. They will have magical fun bringing out all the fun colors of the magnetic shapes when adding the light. Kids can build stars, space ships, shiny diamonds, the designs are endless! The only activity kids won't be afraid to do in the dark!

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The WOW Set

Good For: Ages 5 - 12 Kids can speed away with the Magformers WOW set by forming mini vehicles with squares, triangles, and wheels! Kids will have endless hours of fun in the driver seat with this 16 piece set designing 20 mini vehicles to start. Once they put their imagination and creativity to work they can design their own vehicles with this set. Vroom, vroom!

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The Deep Sea Set

Good For: Ages 6 - 12 Kids can go on a deep sea adventure by building a variety of deep sea creatures such as a dolphin, shark, or whales with this set! The Magformers Deep Sea construction set comes with 46 pieces for building. The pieces come in different shapes and connect together on any side. Kids will be able to explore the bottom of the sea by creating over 10 deep sea creatures and much more!  

"The children in my class all want to make new creations...helping each other to make better and better ones." - Kathryn C., Educents customer

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The Emergency Cruiser Set

Good For: Ages 6 - 12 Your kids will come to the rescue with the Magformers XL Cruisers Emergency 33-Piece Magnetic Building Set. Whether they want to be a police officer or firefighter they can create a police car or fire truck, by constructing red and blue shapes and accessories, lights and sound included!

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The Magformers Math Activity Book

Good For: Ages 6 - 12 Give kids a fun way to learn basic math skills, recognize shapes and create patterns with the Magformers Math Activity Book! This book is full of great ideas to help the little ones develop their basic math skills while using Magformers magnetic pieces.  

Handwriting Alphabet Worksheets with Heroes (FREE)

Have you met the Educents Heroes? Have your child practice their alphabet with 53 pages of FREE handwriting alphabet worksheets! The Educents Heroes are prepared and have included both lowercase and uppercase letters. This FREE deal will be available for the next 18 days! Click on the photo below to grab this great deal!

Who is it for?

• Ages 3-6
• Kids learning how to write their alphabet
• Extra practice for kids struggling with writing the alphabet
• Kids wanting to improve their handwriting

Why buy?

• Perfect for hours of writing practice 
• Fun and colorful worksheets where kids can trace letters with guided arrows to help them become experts

What is included? 

• 53 pages of alphabet worksheets
• BOTH uppercase and lowercase letter worksheets 

I hope your students enjoy this fun handwriting practice!

February Morning Work (FREEBIE SAMPLE)

How many of you find your mornings to be hectic as students arrive? If you are like some classrooms, your students do not all arrive at the same time. When students do arrive, you have notes, folders, money, and so much more to collect and organize. Do your students get a little anxious and rowdy during this time? If so, why not give students something to work on that is meaningful? 

Try this February Morning Work Sample to see if it helps get you and your students settled into each day so you can get organized and leave the chaos behind. Language arts and math skills are both included daily in this set. 

You can get this FREEBIE SAMPLE to try HERE! 

If you like what you see and are interested, 

you can find the entire product HERE! 

I hope you and your students have some great, smooth mornings ahead! 

Check out what my blogger friends have in store for you below! 

An InLinkz Link-up

"How To" Writing in Kindergarten (How to Build a Snowman and Much MORE)

How many of you are working on informational/how-to writing right now? Our kindergarten classes are in full swing. The students love informational writing. We have been reading non-fiction books and writing the information we learn from them. 

As we worked on "how-to" writing, we wanted to write about "How to Build a Snowman," but we don't get snow in south Georgia, so we had to be creative. I found a great video about "How to Build a Snowman" so the students could at least see how it is done. The video is short and simple. You can find the video HERE! 

After the video, I asked the students, "Who wants to build a snowman?" Of course they all raised their hand and looked at me sort of puzzled. I asked them if we had any snow and of course they said, "No." I told them that we had to be creative, and then I started pulling some supplies out of my bag (marshmallows, icing, pretzel sticks, mini chocolate chip morsels, and miniature Reese's cups). They knew from the marshmallows what we were going to do. 

We discussed which supplies we would use for what parts of the snowman, and I modeled the procedure. Then, off to work they went. You can see from the photos below that they had a blast!

We used icing to hold the "snowballs" together.

We used pretzel sticks for the arms.

Mini chocolate morsels worked great for the face and buttons. 

It was starting to get a little messy since it was so hard for some of them not to lick their fingers during the process. 

Last, they added a miniature Reese's cup for the hat!

I thought they turned out very cute! They had a blast making these snowmen!

Of course we had to tie in some learning during this fun process, so we wrote our steps for "How to Build a Snowman" using the words first, next, and last. You can see their writing samples below. We acted like we had the real items for the snowman in our writing. 

First, we roll three balls of snow on top of each other. Next, we give the snowman two arms and eyes. Last, we give the snowman a hat and tie. 

First, you make three snowballs and put three snowballs on each other. Next, you put the eyes and the mouth and buttons. (You can see that this student is still confusing "in" with "and.")

First, you roll three balls of snow! Next, you can make a face. Last, you add a scarf. Then you add a hat. The hat is pink! 

First, you pack snow. Then you roll them. Next, you add coal to make the eyes and carrot for the nose and add twigs. Last, you add a hat. Then you put a pipe. Then you put a bowtie. 

These students definitely had some different ideas about decorating their snowmen. I thought they did an awesome job! 

Last, I just have to share this adorable "How to" writing from one of my students below. After we completed several "How to" writings together with the same topics such as the one above, students were allowed to choose their own topics for their "How to" books. This one below made my day. I rolled with laughter when I read it, and, of course, the student did too. She couldn't wait for me to read it. I was going to take them up and finish conferencing with them the next day, but she begged me to read hers, so I had to. I definitely had to share it with my husband! 

Remember that the students chose their own topics. 

 

How to Make Dr. Clements Happy (title page)

First, you give her flowers. Then give her a hug. Next, you give her your good behavior (notice the smiley face I am holding that I give to students who I catch being good). Last, you find her a man to date. 

I thought this was hilarious, and I love her illustrations. 

If you like the "How to" writings and you need  more ideas, you can find them below! The snowman writing template from above is in the "January Writing Center" packet below. There is a different "How to Build a Snowman" template in the Winter Print and Learn pack below. 

I hope your students have fun with their "How-to" writings! 

ENJOY some FREEBIES  (29) HERE! 

Students Creating Christmas Gifts for Parents

If you are like me, you are swamped with testing for the end of the quarter as well as trying to work in some fun Christmas activities and crafts. Here are the parent gifts my students made this year. 

They made a Rudolph card by tracing and cutting out their hands, some eyes, and a red nose and gluing a Christmas poem inside. Then the students made 2 ornaments for keepsakes for their parents. One was a foam train engine shape with their picture in it. The students chose Christmas shapes to decorate their train. The second ornament was simply a brown handprint with wiggle eyes and a red nose for Rudolph. 

The students colored a Christmas tree to decorate the front of a brown paper bag to use for wrapping their two ornaments. This was so much easier than what we normally do. When time is a factor, you definitely have to be flexible.

I hope you and your students have fun creating your parent gifts this year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Gingerbread Man Activities (Kindergarten)

My students had a BLAST with these gingerbread man activities! We read five different versions of the Gingerbread Man and compared the different versions. They loved it! 

My students also wrote to retell the beginning, middle, and ending of the Gingerbread Man! I thought they did an awesome job! Here are books two students created. 

I love her speech bubble saying, "Don't open the door" on her cover page. 

The woman cooked a gingerbread man.

The gingerbread man went out the door. All of the people ran after him. (Can't catch me, I am the gingerbread man.)

The fox gobbled the gingerbread man up! 

I thought she did a super job. She even made her own little ending! I love it!

I love the bright colors on the cover page of this book. We talk about making our covers bright and catchy so that someone would want to read our story.

The woman made a gingerbread man!

He hopped out of the oven. He went to the door. And he went to open the door. All of the people chased him! He kept on running.

The fox tricked him! Everybody was sad. The fox ate him!

I love reading their stories. They wrote these completely independently, and I am proud of the great authors they are becoming.

We also added some math as we sequenced numbers 11-20 with gingerbread cookies. They loved coloring their gingerbread cookies and putting them in order.

Aren't they precious? I love how this student made it so colorful!

They all did such a great job putting them in order. 

If you are interested in this number sequencing activity, you can find it HERE! 

Gingerbread Cookie Sequencing Numbers (0-20) and Number Words (zero-ten)

This pack also has numbers 0-10 and number words zero-ten included to provide for differentiation! A colored set is also included for a great math center! 

We also made these cute gingerbread headbands to wear to lunch today. This was a huge hit! 

This is a cute activity from The Education Center. They did such a great job coloring their headband pieces. 

We have more gingerbread activities planned for next week. 

I hope you and your students are able to have some gingerbread FUN! 

Hang in there! Only 5 more days for me before CHRISTmas break! How about you?

Merry CHRISTmas!