Learning Activities
Learning Activities
LRC-South Learning Activities
Foster a love of learning with FREE activities for educators and families—complete with printable guides and quick video tutorials. Download one today, or stop by LRC-South to craft your own die-cut pieces!
Learn and Create with the LRC-South
Make learning fun with these hands-on educational activities and helpful resources for parents and educators.
Download these popular activities below or create the die-cuts at the LRC-South!
Check out our Learn & Create spotlight video, Incredible Insects! Spring is in the air and the insects are busy flying, buzzing, crunching and climbing outside.
Young learners love these Incredible Insects and our new Learn & Create is a great way to engage them with interactive activities in English Language Arts and Mathematics. The resources featured in Incredible Insects are available to be checked out at the LRC-South.
Insect Syllable Count Activity
Denise Fleming’s book, In the Tall, Tall Grass, gives students a child’s view of the insects and animals they might see in the yard or park during the spring and summer months. The Insect Syllable Count activity helps students identify the number of syllables in a word. Use the book and activity together to provide an engaging learning opportunity for students to talk about insects and animals as they say insect names and clap out their syllables.
Download the Insect Syllable Count Activity Plan and Templates
Insect Number Sentence Clips Activity
Create the Insect Number Sentence Clips activity to help students understand the concepts of adding to and taking from as they solve the problems you create for them on reusable insect cards.
Download the Insect Number Sentence Clips Activity Plan and Templates
If you enjoyed this activity, be sure to explore more videos in our Learn & Create collection below.
Browse Learn & Create Collection
Marvelous Math Manipulatives
Marvelous Math Manipulatives
Help children strengthen their math skills by creating hands-on, interactive supplemental math materials focused on number sentences, counting and sorting, subtraction and double digit place values.
Download the Marvelous Math Manipulative Activity Plan and Templates
Wonderful Winter Reading Series
Reading is wonderful all year long, but there is something magical about snuggling up with a good book when the weather gets cold. Cozy up with our Wonderful Winter Reading Series, focusing on three classic books that celebrate the winter season. Engage with these charming stories and explore these fun, interactive activities.
The three books featured in the Wonderful Winter Reading Series are available at the LRC-South. For a list of additional resources that can also be borrowed from our resource library, click here!
The Mitten By Jan Brett
Learning to remember key details, sequencing and retelling stories are important aspects of learning how to read! Extend the fun of this classic folktale through a hands-on activity that helps children retell the story as they sequence the order of the animals that find warmth in the mitten.
Download The Mitten Activity Plan & Templates
Polar Bears by Gail Gibbons
Winter is the perfect time to study arctic animals! Teach young learners about polar bears while sharing this beautifully illustrated book. We've included an engaging activity that helps children further explore polar bears as they interact with this informational text.
Download Polar Bears Activity Plan & Templates
Whose Tracks Are These? By James Nail
Fun for the entire family! This book will help children search for animal tracks in their environment. Create an interactive poster with your children to help identify tracks from different animals. You can even bring the fun indoors and make tracks in fake snow with our simple DIY recipe.
Let’s Get Ready to Read
Let’s Get Ready to Read
Create hands-on, interactive manipulatives to help children build skills in beginning sounds, rhyming, word families, and uppercase and lowercase letter recognition.
Fantastic File Folder Game: Living or Non-living?
Fantastic File Folder Game: Living or Non-living?
Help Preschool students strengthen science skills as they differentiate between living and non-living things.
Awesome Art Experiences
Awesome Art Experiences
Foster creativity and encourage children to engage in open-ended art experiences, focused on the process rather than the finished product. Learn and Create: Awesome Art Experiences encourages exploration and interaction with art through a variety of materials.
Marvelous Marble Run
Create a Marvelous Marble Run
Help your child learn about motion, forces and interactions as they build and test out a marble drop!
Counting Cupcake
Counting Cupcakes
Help your child understand early math skills and develop number sense as they practice counting with this fun game!
Beginning Sounds Roadway
Beginning Sounds Roadway
Build an interactive roadway that helps children associate beginning sounds with corresponding letters, interchangeable cars, and pictures. Let children drive their way through the sounds letters make!
Vowel Owl Sounds
Vowel Owl Sounds Game
Help your child explore the concept of long and short vowels by creating a fun learning center that will give children the opportunity to identify long and short vowel sounds using pictures.
Young Authors Become Engaged Readers
Young Authors Become Engaged Readers
Engage young readers and writers, practice essential print concepts, and share the joy of reading by making simple books together.
Prop Box Play
Prop Box Play
Prop boxes are used by many Early Childhood teachers to create imaginative play and hands-on learning opportunities in their classrooms. Prop boxes are a collection of items (or props) that tie together to create a specific theme and help “set the stage” for imaginative play.
Very Hungry Caterpillar Story Can
Very Hungry Caterpillar Story Can
A hands-on literacy based learning tool focusing on the beloved children’s story, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.
Ten Frame Counting Match Center
Cookie Sheet Ten Frame Match
Learn how to use a ten frame to help students understand counting, addition and subtraction. Ten frames provide a visual for students to develop a concrete understanding of numbers and not just memorizing them.
Interactive Weather Chart
What’s the Weather Interactive Chart
Use these interactive weather charts to help children observe the weather around them. Extend learning through science, math and hands-on activities.
Alligator Alphabet Match
Alligator Alphabet Match
Create a hands-on learning tool focusing on the skill of letter recognition and matching upper and lowercase letters. Students learning the alphabet often can grasp the concept of forming uppercase letters before understanding lowercase letter formation. Don't forget to explore more activities below.
Ice Cream Sight Words: You Scream! I Scream!
You Scream! I Scream! We All Scream for Ice Cream Sight Words!
Sight words are words that good readers should instantly recognize. Have fun while building reader confidence with this fun ice cream themed activity.
Content Connections
Explore active learning strategies across content areas. Each video is designed to address student learning standards and contains engaging activities and instructional resources. Perfect for learning at home or in the classroom!
Watch our latest Content Connections: Using Green Screen Technology in the Classroom - Learn how to use green screen technology in your classroom to encourage students to immerse themselves in learning as they discuss, evaluate and reflect while using their imaginations and digital skills. Follow the simple steps in our video and your class will be green screening in no time! Browse more extension activities below.
Download Green Screen Step-by-Step Guide
Browse Content Connections
Upcycled Mini Greenhouses
Upcycled Mini Greenhouses
Engage students with this Upcycled Mini Greenhouses activity involving upcycling and planting a garden! Reuse plastic bottles to create a great environment for germinating seeds. Students will learn about the plant life cycle and the water cycle. A supplemental activity video and a time-lapse video of a Fordhook zucchini plant’s life are available to enhance this learning experience.
Download Upcycled Mini Greenhouse Activity Plan
Plant Life Cycle Activity
Upcycled Mini Greenhouses Supplemental Plant Life Cycle Activity
Help students gain a new perspective as they represent the parts of the plant life cycle. . Downloadable plant life cycle placards are provided for this activity, as well as accompanying questions cards.
Curated List of LRC-South Science Resources
Upcycled Mini Greenhouses Time Lapse Video of a Fordhook Zucchini Plant
In just about two minutes, you can watch the first 20 days of a Fordhook zucchini plant’s life as it grows from a seed to a plant!
Marvelous Marble Maze
Marvelous Marble Maze
Use cardboard tubes to build a marble run. Investigate balanced and unbalanced forces and relate the speed of a marble to the amount of energy in its motion.
Balloon Rockets
Balloon Rockets
Explore the concept of Motion and Stability, Forces and Interactions (Next Generation Science Standards) by building an air powered balloon rocket to examine forces such as thrust, gravity, and friction to estimate their effects on the distance a balloon will travel along a string.
