After a nice long winter break, you would think that students would come back to us all rested, happy, alert, and ready to learn. But no, instead they come to us exhausted, tired, lazy, and not ready to work. With these January themes, you will ease them back into learning mode in no time!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year is a fun theme to start the year! These are some of the printables that are included in this unit.

Get students writing again with this writing journal.

In fact, there are 2 journals included.

Some fun math activities are nice for students to do independently while everyone re-focuses again.

Finally, either get them excited by starting the week with their crown, or save it till the end of the week and have them proudly wear their crown.

This unit is in Spanish as well!

Penguins

After the New Year, you can teach about Penguins! Who doesn't love penguins?

Students can learn about the life cycle of a Penguin.

If you don't already own the book, Tacky the Penguin, you need to purchase it. It is such a fun book to read aloud! Your students will love it.

Get kids writing with Penguin prompts.

This Penguins unit includes so many activities for you to choose from.

This unit is in Spanish as well!

Mittens

Another popular theme for January is Mittens. There are so many activities involving mittens that will get your students engaged. In Math, students can count the mittens, skip count, make patterns, put them in order or find the missing mitten.

Mittens are a great way for students to practice colors.

Review shapes with these mittens.

Of course, you have to read Jan Brett's The Mitten book. Students can retell the story using the characters. Send them home and have them retell the story to their loved ones. The characters come in color and in black and white.

Cause and Effect activities are also included in this unit.

I love the Mittens Activity Book! This mini book is so much fun. Kids love to work on it. It's great for using at arrival time, for early finishers, as a station, or just to get some peace and quiet while you work one on one with students.