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Sunday, January 30, 2011

Blog Land Inspiration

There are so many wonderful blogs out there, and ideas are so abundant. Well, I love, love, love Mrs. Lee’s Kindergarten. I can always find an idea on her blog to adapt, adjust and use with my first graders. Her mitten activities got the creative wheels turning.

We have money and place value coming up and we’re still talking about Winter (thanks in part to the snow days that kept us behind), so here’s some of what we will do for math stations for the next couple of weeks.

The directions for the first download are: The students pick a mitten and write the two digit number on their recording sheet. They have to color their mitten to match the mitten they choose. I printed the mittens on colored card stock, but colored paper will work just as well.  Click on the picture to download.

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Click here for the recording sheet

 

In this activity the students pick a mitten(after I cut them out) and write the correct amount onto their recording sheet. Click on the picture to download.

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Last Week

Here’s  a little of what we did last week.

Mitten descriptive writing

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Writing about polar bears

 

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100th Day Projects

 

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Snowman Read the Room

The students had fun reading and writing the room. These are from my Snowman Read the Room Kit. I forgot to take pictures of some of their completed recording sheets.

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This week the students will read and write the room for er, ir and ur words. This is from my Clowning Around Read the Room Kit.

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Phonemic Awareness

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Some of my students are still struggling with vowels, and don’t get me started on the long sounds and reading words with two vowels. So I decided to take a step back and I made this PA game. I plan to use it with whole and small groups. This is the short vowel version. I plan to upload the long vowel version sometime this week.

Everyone will have their own whiteboard and marker. I’ll call on students one by one, read the word on the candy aloud to them while the other students write the word on their whiteboards. The student whose turn it is will have to listen for the correct vowel and drop the candy into the appropriate bag.

 Click on either picture to download.IMG_2437

 

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Valentines Day

Here is a Valentines Day game I made for math stations. The students pick a heart and make addition or subtraction sentences for two numbers. For example if the heart has 3 in the middle and 7, 5 and 2 around they can write 3+7, 3+5, 3+2 or 7-3, 5-3 or 3-2. There is a recording sheet to go with this activity. I plan to make it into a shape book and add two or three pages.

                  

Addition and subtraction Hearts

Have a great week!

Ms. A

Monday, January 24, 2011

Polar Bears, Brace Maps and Even Some Math

Math

 

Some of my students have been struggling with numbers that come between, so this weekend I whipped up these math stations. I split the sets up so the file wouldn’t be so large, and also you could just take the sets for the numbers you wanted to work with if you didn’t want to download all of them.

To prepare all you have to do is print out, cut and laminate, then place Velcro dots on the backs of the individual cards and the Velcro mate to the middle spaces on all the strips. I’ve seen games like these in Lakeshore..but it was just as easy to make.

The students take a sack and lay all the cards out, then they place the numbers that come between. I think one of the files has a recording sheet…if I left it out just e-mail me and I’ll send it to anyone that wants it.

                     Click on the picture for set 10-20

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Click the links for the rest of the sets.

 

Set 20-30              Set 30-40           Set 40-50     

 Set 50-60       Set 60-70    Set 70-80

Set 80-90      Set 90-100

 

Last Friday after  we finished our daily story problem and graph journal I looked around and all of my students were content with free choice math games. You know those days when everyone chooses the right partner and everyone’s engaged and happy. There’s a quiet hum in the room…we wish for those days everyday, but on this day it just seemed extra perfect.

 

These students are quizzing each other with flash cards.

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These students are playing an old favorite.STJ_2359

My students love playing More or War. When I first started teaching it was called “War”. Now there are so many names for it, it’s hard to keep up. But sometimes I’ll make cute playing cards and they like those, but most of them love playing with just a plain deck of cards and a felt mat. They never get tired of this game.

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This student is playing Add Ten. This has become a new favorite.

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Arctic Animals

We are continuing our Arctic Animal Unit. Each February our school has a big Science Fair, all the grades (K-8th) participate. In grades k-2 individual classes complete class projects. This year I decided to fold our study of Arctic Animals into our class science project. We are looking at the ways Arctic animals adapt to survive in their habitat, and we are looking at the polar bear in particular. The students are really into it, and we’ve learned a lot.STA_2340

Here is a Brace Map we completed as a class. The students then completed their own in our Arctic Animals Science Journals.

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Friday we did the blubber glove, and the students had a blast! It  helped them  understand what the layer of blubber beneath a polar bear’s skin really does to help it survive in the Arctic. After each student had a turn with the glove, we completed a quick Science Response sheet. I did it the old fashioned way…wrote it out then made copies.

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Today we completed our Polar Bear Tree Map.

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I hope everyone had a Marvelous Monday!

Here’s to a Terrific Tuesday, Wonderful Wednesday, Thrilling Thursday and a Fabulous Friday!

Next week I hope to blog about attending Debbie Diller’s Winter Institute on Math Stations and Literacy Stations! I’m so excited!

Have a great week.

Ms. A

Monday, January 17, 2011

Frog and Toad Bingo

Here is a “Have To” Activity for Work on Words this week. Our new story (Reading Street) is Frog and Toad.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Crash

Here is a quick and easy game I’m planning for math stations this week. This game isn’t new, I’ve seen it everywhere. This is just my version.

I want to keep addition and subtraction facts in front of my kids all the time. This is the addition version. I got a little punch drunk towards the end…so if you see errors…I’ll apologize up front. Enjoy!

                  
                            CRASH

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Sight Word Concentration and Other Stir Crazy Things

Making Word Walls Work: A Complete, Systematic Guide With Routines, Grade-Perfect Word Lists, and Reproducible Word Cards to Help All Children Master High-Frequency Words

 

Okay so all the snow days this week  gave me a chance to do something I’ve been trying to do since school started.

I love the book Making Word Walls Work. Judy Lynch was a Reading Recovery teacher (have to support my peeps) and I use this book everyday for my word wall routines. One of the activities she has is Word Wall Concentration. You pick 6-8 word wall words (that would be 12-16 words total) and place them in a matrix in your pocket chart. Then you cover the words with number cards in order 1-12 or 1-16(depending on how many words you use).

*This should be done before students enter your room, you don’t want them to see where you put the words. Then students call two numbers and you uncover the words. If it’s match then the class can cheer, if not you keep calling on students to give two numbers they want uncovered. My kids love this game, they ask to play this all the time. Sometimes they'll choose it on Fridays Work on Words and play with a partner. It’s a good review, it's fun and it helps my strugglers. I hope the directions are clear, if not e-mail me.

Anyway, I said all that to say I usually just write the words and the number cards on index cards or squares of construction paper. But a while back I decided I wanted them to be more appealing to my students…so my plan was to make sets for all the Fry words and all the words in our reading (Reading Street) series. So last night I started creating. They have ocean animals because that’s my classroom décor this year. But I felt like they were generic enough to be used anytime. Hope you can use them. Let me know what you think.

 

                        Set 1

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                         Set 2

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                          Set 3

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                     Set 4

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