February Find-it Shaker!

I'm trying to move past the insane idea that I'm already thinking about Valentine's Day and planning activities for St. Patrick's Day when Christmas was just like two days ago. So, what better way to move ahead than with a fun freebie!? I mentioned that my pile o'plastic crap is threatening to topple over and potentially bury me under itself, so I've made it a goal of mine to actually use it up. For this one, I used one of the 12 (eek!) empty juice jars I have collected to make another one of my rice shaker activities.

If you're new around here, check out my synonym shaker {HERE} and my antonym shaker {HERE}.
Those posts also cover some of the how-to's, like coloring the rice, which I may or may not be a little addicted to.

I do have some helpful hints to pass along. I was dying my rice with vinegar, which is what I had on hand. It works well, but it is stinky. I bought some alcohol for this batch and it works pretty much just the same, but it doesn't stink nearly as much and it was dry in about an hour. Also, I noticed when my kids were using the antonym shaker, the word cards were getting all bunched up in the neck of the bottle. They didn't have that problem with the synonym shaker. When I compared them I saw how much less rice was in the synonym shaker...that's the only difference, so that's go to be why.

So...here's the new addition to the shaker fam! Isn't she cute?

She's all pink and heart-y! This activity is a little different. Inside the bottle are 21 words that fit into three categories: Valentine's Day, Groundhog Day, and Presidents Day. The kids will shake up the bottle and when they find a word, they'll have to decide which category the word best fits into. The word "holiday" is also in there as a bonus word that would fit into all of the categories.

The freebie file contains everything you'll need, besides the rice and juice of course :)
Just click on the picture below to download it from GoogleDocs.

Have fun shakin it up!