One Week Down…Can I Get a What! What!

The first week of school always drains me. I couldn’t lift a finger to type a sentence, or a word or a letter…not even an emoticon. But I have enjoyed every minute of it! I love my sweet new crop of first graders!
This summer I got a chance to sample one of these babies.

I’m sure everyone remembers my sad tale of Bertha…if you need a refresher click here. I’ve been able to store all of my school files onto this jumpdrive. I’ve even saved my morning music and writing workshop music onto this. It keeps me from carrying several jumpdrives back and forth to school and I can store all the files I’ll need for lesson planning in one location. I love it!

Number Sense Weekly Plan:
My first week flew by and I have a lovely class. I can’t wait to post pictures of what’s been going on. I have to get all my my permission slips back from parents first. This week and last we’ve been focusing on number sense. Here is my weekly plan:

Monday: The Essential Question; How can I break _______ apart? Last week it was how can I break 5 apart. This week it’s six. Students are given connecting cubes and they can break their set of cubes into two parts. Then we talk about the different ways the students broke theirs apart. We list all the combinations on a chart.

Tuesday: The Essential Question: How many ways can I break ______ apart?  The students are given a part-part mat and they can either work alone or with a partner to find all the ways to break that number we are focusing on into two parts.

Wednesday: We Complete whole group story problems using story mats. Students can share a story problem aloud while we act it out using our story boards.

Thursday: We complete a partner activity. This week we are using this.

Friday: The students work alone or with a partner to write and illustrate a story problem using the number we are focusing on.

Each day we play a game using our focus number. We’ve played Shake Those Beans, On and Off, Spill and Record, Give Me______. I try to think of easy games that the students can play independently.
This is what we used today to find all the different combinations of Six. Click on the picture to download your copy. I made it on legal sized paper…so adjust your printer accordingly.

I have fixed the link from private to public...sorry..the first week back will do that to ya:) How about some feedback if you download????


Here is the activity we did last week. Click on the picture and it will take you to the post from last year so you can download your own copy. The students had to assemble some of their cookies out of the jar and some of their cookies inside the jar.



I hope had a wonderful day! Hopefully soon I can post pictures of my wonderful students. Have a Terrific Tuesday!