Hybrid Tutorial: Learning Activities

Teaching has always been a passion for me. Before I became a mom I worked as an elementary school teacher. I now focus on teaching my own children by making them learning activities. Kate’s doodles are perfect for jazzing up the learning activities that can be a tad boring for the kiddos. In this two part series I’m going to show you how to make two different learning activities. One activity will be a more print and cut while the other learning activity will be a little bit more advanced.

The first learning activity was inspired by my five year old daughter. Her nickname is alligator and she loves anything to do with monkeys. When she was younger I taught her the “Five Little Monkey’s Swinging in the Tree” song lyrics. For those unfamiliar with this song I’ve provided the lyrics at the bottom of this post. This activity is great to do with just the hand actions but I wanted to also provide some manipulatives for her to use while singing the song. Now lets get started with making our manipulatives!

Supplies Needed:

• Monkeying Around and Safari Malarky by Kate
• Precision Scissors
• Presentation Paper
• Magnets {Optional}
• Lamination {Optional}

First open up Kate’s doodles in Photoshop. Also open up an 8.5 in x 11 in horizontal blank document. Place the doodles on the document the way you want to present them. You can see that I want four of my monkeys hanging from the tree branch while one sits on top. This is a great time to make sure you have resized all your elements so they are proportional. For example, you want your alligator much bigger than your monkeys!

Now rearrange the doodles on the document so that none of them are overlapping.

Print your document. Cut out the doodles. At this point I chose to laminate my manipulatives. This is a good idea for any type of learning activity that is going to be handled repeatedly. I have a personal laminator that I used. If you don’t have a laminator you could also check at your local office supply store to see if they do lamination. Trim the access lamination off your manipulatives. At this point you could be done. I wanted to take my manipulatives one step further and make them magnetic. To do this, adhere a small magnet piece to the back of each monkey. The alligator and branch need a few pieces since they are heavier.

Your manipulatives are finished! I like to use these either on a cookie sheet or our fridge, but really they could attach to anything that is magnetic. Here is a finished look at mine.

I hope this gave you same ideas of how you can take Kate’s doodles to make some fun learning activities for your children. I’ll be back soon with a tutorial for another learning activity!

Lyrics to “Five Little Monkeys Swinging in a Tree”

Five little monkeys swinging in the tree
teasing Mr. Alligator can’t catch me, can’t catch me
along came Mr. Alligator quiet as can be
and snapped that monkey out that tree

Four little monkeys swinging in the tree
teasing Mr. Alligator can’t catch me, can’t catch me
along came Mr. Alligator quiet as can be
and snapped that monkey out that tree

Three little monkeys swinging in the tree
teasing Mr. Alligator can’t catch me, can’t catch me
along came Mr. Alligator quiet as can be
and snapped that monkey out that tree

Two little monkeys swinging in the tree
teasing Mr. Alligator can’t catch me, can’t catch me
along came Mr. Alligator quiet as can be
and snapped that monkey out that tree

One little monkeys swinging in the tree
teasing Mr. Alligator can’t catch me, can’t catch me
along came Mr. Alligator quiet as can be
and snapped that monkey out that tree

No more monkeys swinging in the tree!

Products Used:

• Safari Malarky
• Monkeying Around

You might also like:

• Hybrid Tutorial: Learning Activities 2
• Hybrid Card Basics
• Hybrid Card Advanced Techniques