Are you looking for back to school crafts to engage your students right at the beginning of the school year?
Then you come to the right place!
This craft that I’m going to share with you is not the usual craft. Instead, it incorporates math skills + all about me + crafts (but of course, you can just do the folding puppet).
It is perfect to be part of an ice-breaker activity and while it requires students to review fractions skills, the choice board aspects will engage them.
Furthermore, students get to have fun while they train their motor skills with coloring, cutting, folding, and pasting.
While you can save time and grab these 200+ pages of ready-made back to school activities for 4th graders right at my TPT store, I’m going to share with you how you can prepare this activity for your kids and how you can ask students to make this craft for themselves or their partner!
Step 1: Create a surprise picture with the mouth wide open
For teachers:
You can draw the image yourself. Then photocopy or scan it to print multiple pieces to use with your students.
Check out these YouTube videos to learn how to draw and fold the puppet.
Alternatively, you can use the shape tools in PowerPoint to create your image. With the draw tool and the function to merge shapes, you can create your very own digital image. That was how I create the images in the resource.
For students:
Teach students how to draw their very own surprise picture. Students can color in their pictures or just draw an outline.
Step 2: Create a choice board with questions
For teachers:
To make it perfect for 4th grade back to school activities, incorporate some 3rd-grade or 4th-grade math skills and at the same time, make students share more about themselves.
To do so, create a choice board with Would You Rather or Yes or No questions. Under each choice, add 1 math question.
This means that students can just do the math questions based on their answers to the statement.
Alternatively, you can create a secret choice board of All About Me tasks.
- Write the questions on one side.
- Let students choose 3-5 questions to do.
- Reveal the corresponding All About Me task.
Some examples of All About Me tasks could be:
- write a short paragraph about a memorable trip,
- write a short paragraph about their family
- Self-introduce and shake hands with 3 classmates
- Share with 3 classmates what are their favorite animal
For students:
Provide students with a template where they can write their very own math questions and questions they like their classmates to answer or questions they like to share.
Narrow down to a specific topic and give them an example so it is easier for them to understand what is expected of them.
Students have to answer all of their own questions and write their solutions on another piece of paper to act as the answer key.
Step 3: Create cut & paste pieces
For teachers:
Now that you have the questions, it is time to create the food pieces with answers.
Similar to how you draw the puppet, you can choose to hand-drawn it (scan and copy and paste many small pieces on 1 page) or create a digital image.
Do remember to make the size of the food pieces small enough to fit all inside the mouth but big enough to cut & write the answers inside.
I left a spot on the food pieces for students to write the question number once they match the answers to the questions.
For students:
It is easier for students to hand-draw the food pieces.
It will be simpler if you can provide a template with boxes to let students know how big they should draw the food pieces.
Alternatively, just ask students to draw 1 big food piece on another piece of paper that fits into the mouth of their puppet.
However, if you think this is too much work, you can skip this step and ask students to draw the food pieces on the mouth instead.
If students are creating the puppet for themselves, just write the answers to the statement choice they choose.
If the students are creating the puppet for others, write all the answers inside for their partner to circle the corresponding answers.
Step 4: Create a statement box
For teachers:
If you plan to make this into a bulletin board display, create a statement box so that other students can see what are the questions answered.
You can ask students to write the question or the answer beside the statement.
Even if you are just creating a puppet, with the statement box, students will remember their choice. Students can also use the statements to act as a guide to share more about themselves.
Furthermore, if you plan for students to use the puppet for another ice-breaker activity, other students will know the choices the student made and get to know each other better.
For students:
If students are creating the puppet for themselves, ask them to write what they have to share/statements they chose inside of the statement box.
If students are creating the puppet for their classmates, ask them to write the statement choices for them to circle/underline.
Step 5: Complete the activity
For teachers:
Once you prepare all the materials (poster, questions, food pieces, statement box), it is time to let your students try it out!
Your students will:
- Answer the all about me questions and math questions.
- Fold the puppet.
- Color the puppet and food pieces.
- Complete the statement box.
- Cut and paste the pieces onto the puppet.
For students:
If students are creating the puppet for themselves, they can color the puppet and the food pieces (if they have yet to), and paste the food pieces and statement box on the puppet.
If students are creating the puppet for others, they can now exchange their kits.
The exchanging of kits can be another ice-breaker activity.
Once they exchange their kit it is time for them to put it all together to create their unique puppet.
Alternate Gameplay
Instead of pasting the food pieces on the mouth, use them to “feed” the living things.
You can cut a slit in the middle of the puppet, big enough to slide through the food pieces.
This way, the puppets can swallow the food.
Conclusion
I hope you and your students start the school year in a positive way. So have fun while learning math with this back to school crafts!
If you are reading this blog post when it is not back to school period. Don’t worry, this fractions paper folding activity can always be used on any other day of the year too.
However, as I know how stressful it is at the beginning of school (and maybe any moment in the school term), I created a freebie to make life easier for you. Sign up for the newsletter to get it right in your inbox now!
Or if you find this awesome and want more, you can buy it right here.
Key Features:
✅24 Posters
- 4 Different images
- 3 Different types per image
- Color and Black & White
✅120 Practice Papers
- 4 Different images
- 10 math skills per image
- 30 worksheets per images
- Yes or No? x10
- Would You Rather? x10
- Worksheets x10
- 10 questions per practice paper
With 4 sets (with different difficulties and skills) and 11 editable templates, it makes the activity perfect for differentiation! You can use this in so many ways (e.g. for other subjects and topics) which makes this a great purchase! So buy it now!
I can’t wait to know how much you enjoy this!
Enjoy!
Xuan
Read this: 5 Fun Bar Graph Activities To Do With Your Students Now
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