I’m glad you found The Trip Clip® blog! I’ll post here about new activities and clipart, fun ways to use The Trip Clip products, and topics I’m passionate about like finding learning opportunities in everyday life and supporting working moms. I love to hear from others, so leave a comment any time!
30 Beginner Secret Message Puzzles & Riddles
Secret Message Puzzles (or Cryptograms) are great for teaching problem solving that helps in math, science, and computer programming. And they’re super fun, too! These 30 puzzles are all at the beginner level to help young kids learn the rudimentary skill of using a code. They’ll also be practicing letter recognition and early reading skills.
Learn more about how to teach using Secret Message Puzzles.
When kids are ready, they can move up to some harder puzzles where they have to start thinking about how letters and words fit together to figure out the code for themselves.
Buy the Beginner Pack of 30 Puzzles on Teachers Pay Teachers
You can also print more difficult puzzles, or even create your own puzzles with custom phrases on The Trip Clip website.
Posted in For Teachers, Math & Science, Reading, Travel & Outings
Leave a comment
How To Have a Conversation & Interrupt Politely
I’ve created a number of checklists about how to have a conversation as well as how to interrupt politely. These may be helpful reminders for kids as we enter the holiday season and spend lots of time socializing!
You can try all of these for free, or edit them to make them just right for your family.
How To Have a Conversation: Free or Edit
Conversation Topics: Free or Edit
How To Interrupt a Conversation: Free or Edit
How To Interrupt At Work: Free or Edit
How To Interrupt At School: Free or Edit
Posted in Life Skills, Special Needs
Leave a comment
Math 1 Digit Addition: 50 practice sheets
I created a packet of one digit addition practice sheets using The Trip Clip® and I’m selling it on Teachers Pay Teachers. There are 50 1-digit addition practice sheets that introduce simple concepts one by one and get harder as you go. Great for teachers and parents to introduce some simple addition math practice.
- Graduated learning
- Adding 0 (10 sheets)
- Adding 0 and 1 (10 sheets)
- Adding 0, 1, and 2 (10 sheets)
- Adding without carrying (10 sheets)
- Adding with carrying (10 sheets)
- 30 problems on each sheet
Posted in For Teachers
Leave a comment
Foreign Language Support
The Trip Clip® offers a lot for customers whose native language isn’t English, or those who want to learn a second language. Many of the activities allow you to enter your own text, which means you can enter English, but you can also enter Spanish, French, Chinese, Tagalog, Hebrew, Arabic, Korean, Danish, or pretty much any language you want! You can make any list in any language, and you can also make Bingo boards, word search puzzles, cryptogram puzzles, and count on it games in other languages.
Click here to learn more about using The Trip Clip® in many different languages.
A very helpful customer pointed out last week that support for foreign languages had stopped working correctly at The Trip Clip®. I fixed that issue, and subsequently found other places to improve the foreign language support more broadly. As always with software, sometimes it’s a two steps forwards one step back process, so let me know if you try writing in a language other than English and see anything that’s not working the way you expect. I’ll do my best to get it fixed quickly!
Posted in Customers, Foreign Languages
Leave a comment
Story Retell Worksheet
A story retell helps kids organize and describe events to enhance reading comprehension. This picture checklist shows kids and teachers how to work through all the steps in a story retell.
Go here to print it as is right now.
Go here to edit this to make it just right for you.
I also made a version of this story retell picture list for teachers that I offer over on Teachers Pay Teachers. That version comes with some writing pages so that students will have a place to write out their answers for each part of the story retell.
The suggestion for this came from Amy, a teacher in Minnesota. I thought it was a great idea, and Amy helped me identify some additional clipart to add to the website to make this possible.
If you have ideas for lists or other materials you’d like to make using The Trip Clip, send me an email and let me know what it is!
Posted in Customers, For Teachers, New Clipart
Leave a comment
More Packing Clipart
I continue to get good suggestions for new clipart to add to The Trip Clip website. Many of these suggestions represent changes to travel due to Covid – but there are also a few for beauty routines and even a couple for packing for a camping trip!
Posted in New Clipart
Leave a comment
Grade School Activity Pack: 15 Free Pages
These activity pages are great for keeping kids entertained and even learning a little something when you’re traveling.
You can print them as is for free, or edit them to make them harder or easier or just simply print more!
Here are all the ways kids can learn from these activities:
- 3 BINGO boards to keep kids entertained and practice reading and spelling
- 2 hard mazes for hand eye coordination, handwriting, and problem solving
- 2 word search puzzles to practice reading and spelling familiar words
- 3 drawing and coloring activities for handwriting skills and creativity
- 2 crossword puzzles with picture clues for some spelling practice
- A cryptogram puzzle for spelling and problem solving practice
- Tic tac toe, dots and boxes, and hangman to practice turn taking, problem solving, and spelling
All the activities are designed to fit on a kid-sized clipboard, like this one from The Trip Clip that also comes with an attached, 4-color pen for great screen free travel fun.
Posted in For Teachers, Travel & Outings
Leave a comment
Thanksgiving Activity Pages: Coloring, Crossword, Word Search, and Cryptograms
This Thanksgiving-themed activity book lets kids practice hand-eye coordination, handwriting, spelling, and problem solving. There are 2 coloring pages, a crossword puzzle with picture clues, 2 word search puzzles and 2 cryptogram riddles, both at two difficulty levels.
You can print them for free, or edit them to make them harder or easier, or simply make more! Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted in For Teachers, Holiday, Travel & Outings, Writing & Spelling
Leave a comment
30 Animal BINGO Boards & 97 Animal Calling Cards (PDF)
Animal Bingo is fun for young kids and great letter recognition and spelling practice. It’s also great vocabulary practice for ESL students.
There are 2 ways you can get Animal Bingo:
You can purchase the PDF on Teachers Pay Teachers. The package includes 30 pre-made Animal Bingo Boards, plus calling cards available in both small and large format. There are 97 different animal pictures. Once you download the BINGO boards and calling cards, you can laminate them to make them sturdier and reusable.
Alternatively, you can purchase the BINGO activity on The Trip Clip website to create an unlimited number of animal BINGO boards of your own design. It will be fun on a trip to the zoo, or even a walk around the neighborhood with a little customization. Luckily you can easily switch out an individual picture and change the text underneath. You can also use The Trip Clip’s BINGO activity to make lots of other kinds of BINGO boards, like basketball BINGO, concert BINGO, grocery store BINGO, car BINGO, and much more!
There are lots of different ways to use BINGO boards beyond just getting 5 in a row. Here are the ideas I’ve come up with:
- 5 in a row: Have your kids find 5 in a row (across, up and down, or diagonally) to win.
- Fill the board: For more of a challenge, have them try to find every item on the board.
- Time them: If they want to turn it into a game, time them to see how long it takes them to find 5 in a row, or find everything on the board. Then see if they can beat their time the next time.
- How many? You can also make it competitive by giving them a board each time you get in the car, and count how many they can find by the time you get to your destination (or by the time the food comes at the restaurant, or by the time you board your airplane, etc.)
- Cooperative multiplayer: If you have multiple kids, print the same board, and have them work together to find everything on the board.
- Competitive multiplayer: If you have multiple kids, give each one a different board, and see who can find five in a row first.
- Competitive multiplayer 2: Or, if you have multiple kids, give each one their own board, and see who can find them all first. If no one finds them all, the person who finds the most wins.
- Want more ideas? Try these very versatile Alphabet Bingo ideas, or these Chores Bingo ideas!
- Have your own ideas? Please send them to me!
Posted in For Teachers, New Features, Reading
Leave a comment
Kindergarten Travel Pack: 15 Free Activity Pages
These activity pages are great for keeping kids entertained and even learning a little something when you’re traveling.
You can print them as is for free, or edit them to make them harder or easier or just simply print more!
Here are all the ways kids can learn from the included activities:
- 2 BINGO boards to keep kids entertained and practice letter recognition and reading simple words
- 2 easy mazes for hand eye coordination, handwriting, and problem solving
- 2 word search puzzles to practice letter recognition and reading simple words
- 4 drawing and coloring activities for hand eye coordination and creativity
- 2 first letter crossword puzzles to practice first letter sounds
- A scavenger hunt counting game that introduces simple graphing
- Tic tac toe to practice turn taking
- An alphabet game that practices first letter sounds and writing and spelling simple words
All the activities are designed to fit on a memo sized clipboard, like this one from The Trip Clip that also comes with an attached, 4-color pen for great screen free travel fun.
Posted in For Teachers, Travel & Outings
Leave a comment
The Trip Clip Blog 