Spanish Meats Vocabulary Puzzles and Activities

Spanish Meats is now available in my TpT store! This is a pack of 15 puzzles and activities that help students practice their Spanish words for meats. Twelve different meats are covered. The set also includes flashcards, a vocabulary list page, and a bonus concentration game!

You can download this puzzle pack for free from my store until 8pm on Friday Jan 24th 2020. I wanted to try offering all new puzzles for free for the first 3 to 5 days. So if you'd like to grab other sets for free too, just follow my store on TpT and you will receive updates when new products are posted. This is my way to give back to all the great teachers out there!

All my Spanish vocabulary practice sets include puzzles for kids of all elementary grade levels. This is so that teachers who teach across many grades can pick and choose the right puzzles for their various kids. It's super useful for home school teachers who often teach kids over several grades at the same time.

I've added a new activity in this set called "Cut & Paste Match". Students will color in and cut out 9 different meat pictures. Then on another page they will paste them down next to their Spanish names.

I didn't have a glue stick available (don't find I need them as much with older home schoolers!), but I found my old Xyron sticker maker. It put a whole new spin on this activity! I have to admit that I'm still a kid at heart, and I thoroughly enjoyed creating and using these cute meat stickers. (Is meat ever really cute though?!)

For those who are squeamish about meats, there is only one puzzle that talks about certain meats coming from particular animals (it is the "Picture It!" puzzle). Some kids don't realize that chicken meat actually comes from a chicken. I can remember being a bit grossed out by that when it finally occurred to me! But I also wanted the puzzles to be acceptable (palatable was not a good word to use here!) to vegetarians. Learning the names of the meats is important when you are studying a language, even if you don't eat them.

Hope you find these puzzles useful for your classrooms!

All About California

So I recently posted that these "All About California" state puzzles books were available in my TpT store. I also wanted to share some of the resources that helped me bring these books together. I thought that these links would be valuable for teachers trying to put together their unit studies on each state too.

Research Links for California

State Symbols Resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_state_symbols

https://statesymbolsusa.org/states/united-states/california

Desert Tortoise: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/deserttortoise/  Another cool fact about these guys: They ”dig grooves into the ground’s surface to catch rainwater. After a storm, they’ll return to these holes to slurp up the water that’s collected inside.”

California Quail: https://easyscienceforkids.com/all-about-quail/  https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/california-quail/

Saber-toothed Cat: (CA’s state fossil) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saber-toothed_cat

California Poppy: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2019/mar/27/californias-poppy-and-wild-flower-super-bloom-in-pictures 

https://www.theflowerexpert.com/content/aboutflowers/stateflowers/california-state-flowers

Grizzly Bear: https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Mammals/Grizzly-Bear

https://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2012/10/24/28981/monarch-the-sad-amazing-story-of-the-bear-on-calif/  Tells the story of Monarch, the grizzly who became the model for the state’s flag.

Dogface Butterfly: https://www.butterflyidentification.com/california-dogface.htm

CA State Foods:

Wikipedia’s State Foods list shows CA as having only a State Nut…or 4 (almonds, pecans, pistachios, and walnuts). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_foods

While the state symbols page (see first link of ‘State Symbols Resources’) shows a state grain, veg, and fruit too. Apparently, Lt Gov Newsom declared these in 2013, but it never became law.

One more food controversy for CA, the State Nuts are not actually nuts but seeds! https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-nuts-official-20170719-story.html

Inventions:

https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/la-origins-cover/

https://matadornetwork.com/read/15-things-world-needs-thanking-california/

Crops: https://keepcaliforniafarming.org/which-foods-come-from-california/  This page is nicely done, with graphics and statistics on food crops.

Economy: https://www.netstate.com/economy/ca_economy.htm

Geography: https://www.netstate.com/states/geography/ca_geography.htm

Interesting Facts:

https://www.factinate.com/places/42-bizarre-facts-california/

https://www.ducksters.com/geography/state.php?State=California

The Hollywood Sign:  https://hollywoodsign.org/the-history-of-the-sign/

Click on “The Saga of the Sign” for an in depth history. Who knew that the sign originally read “Hollywoodland”!?!

Earthquake Facts from USGS: https://www.usgs.gov/natural-hazards/earthquake-hazards/science/cool-earthquake-facts?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects

General Sherman Tree: https://www.nps.gov/seki/learn/nature/sherman.htm

US State Mini Puzzle Books

I just started making some US State Mini Puzzle Books! I've got 2 states done so far, Maine and California. You can find them for sale in my TpT Store The Puzzle Den. These mini books were designed to enhance unit studies for each state. Each book contains 15 pages of puzzles and activities focused on one particular state. For each state, I am releasing 2 books. One is for the lower elementary levels, so about grades 1-3. The other is for upper levels. I think the puzzles are relevant and fun to solve for kids from about 4th grade all the way through middle school. If you are consider purchasing them, do take a look at the preview for each product to see if the puzzles match the level of your students. Full previews are available on each product page at TpT.

Maine's Upper and Lower levels are complete and ready for your classrooms!

Both levels of California are also available for purchase!

Here are a couple of preview pages from the Lower levels California pack.

Each pack has similar puzzles but new information for each one. Many puzzles cover the state symbols, but there is also some geography, information about crops, quotations from famous natives, inventions and inventors, and much more!

You won't find a list of state symbols in these books. It's more about discovery. Thus when a student successfully solves a puzzle, they will 'discover' information about the state symbols. Some pages contain brief paragraphs with more in depth information. When I can swing it, I've even put a few math puzzles in there, for extra practice with basic arithmetic.

Kids will learn about the United States, but they will also be honing their critical thinking skills, learning to read carefully and follow directions, and practicing math skills.  There's Social studies, Science, Math and English all wrapped up in a cute little mini book!

For each state, I've done a lot of research, so I thought I should share some of the websites and articles that have helped me put these puzzles together. I didn't think to save this info while I was working on Maine, so I won't have a post for that. But watch this blog for a post about California coming soon!

I'm going to try a new strategy in my store this year. I will be offering all new puzzle packs for free for the first 3 to 5 days after posting them. If you have a TpT account, you already receive an email each day showing you any new products posted from your favorite sellers. So if you haven't already, just go to my store, click "Follow Me" and my new resources will be added to your daily email. This way you can grab all the latest and greatest for free! I really like earning money, but I also think that every student deserves good puzzles. In this way, I hope to get more puzzles into classrooms, even ones on tight budgets! You can also follow my blog as I hope to update here when each new product becomes available too.

I hope you are excited to try these new puzzle books in your classrooms!