Wishlist Wednesday!

Joining up again with Hanging Around In Primary for Wishlist Wednesday!  
Visit other great teachers to get a special 20% off an item in their store.
 I'll give you a hint on the item in my store... we will be celebrating this holiday soon and it contains great printables for L.A. and math!

Check out a few pages from the product!
You can grab this at my store by clicking here!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Math Madness Monday!

Today I'm linking up with Diana Lynn for some Math Madness Monday!  Feel free to join the fun and check out some great ideas from other bloggers by clicking here!

Here are a few ideas that have helped my kids in math:

Math Fluency:

Each night, I have my kids complete a similar version of minute math. Usually, in Minute Math, children have a minute to do as many problems as they can. With this activity, it's the opposite - they do all the problems and write the time below. You start with a column of simple math facts that you can make with Excel. When the students are ready, they hit the timer, complete the column, and write how long it takes to complete.. Each week, they try to get a better time with new math facts.  They love trying to beat their own time.

Here's an example:

EngageNY also has some great free resources/timed sprints that have helped my kids work on math facts as well.

Math Games:

I love to play math dice games in my room.  I'm down for trying anything to get kids to practice concepts in a fun way and keeps them interested. That being said, if I do a dice game, it's only with foam dice! It makes everything so much quieter!  If you don't have foam dice, pick up an 8 1/2 X 11 piece of foam to use as a sound buffer.  You'll thank me!

Here are some other fun dice games you can play with your kids at home:

10,000 Dice Game (older kids)

Dice Games for Preschoolers

Number Representation:

For the younger kids, I worked on a Number Representation Activity which works great as a center.  Children try to match up all the different ways to show a number. They also use the greater than/less than cards to compare numbers shown in different ways. Check out Number Match Up here!

Here's an example:

Feel free to share some of your tricks or ways to practice math fluency.

March Activities!

Despite the snow piling up outside, I'm convinced that spring is around the corner. At least I hope so!

This week, I learned the hard way that a laptop and a large cup of coffee are a disaster waiting to happen. If anyone has had a laptop that has met the same fate, all you can hope for is that you can recover your files and your hard work won't be lost forever.  I encourage everyone to back up all your files! 

Now, let's get onto the fun spring and St. Patrick's Day activities.

March is a great time of year.  They say it comes in like a lion and out like a lamb.  With my kinders, we wanted to show it!  The kids loved the lion/lamb paper plate activity.

First, we painted the lion plate since

the lamb plate is made from just a plain white plate. 

Then, we added the eyes and ears.

You can grab the templates here.

Lion

 Lamb

Let's hope for some lamb weather soon!

This year, I created a NO PREP St. Patrick's Themed Language Arts and Math Printables. It includes a family project (all letters are included), writing activities, and lots of  great math printables that are aligned with the common core  for grades 1-3. 

The family project came out great!  I decided to print mine out on green tag board.

Here, we practiced adding together multiple addends with our Over the Rainbow Game (that's what one of my kids called it!)

 Here are some more of the activities:

Check it out by clicking here.

In the past, for St. Patrick's Day, we made these Wish Upon Rocks.  

First, we painted them green (just don't use washable paint, it'll just wash off)

  The reality is that after painting 10 or so rocks, your table really looks like this!

When they were dried, we added glue and gave them a little shimmer by adding green or gold sparkles.  

 All done!

For Dr. Seuss's birthday, we created Dr. Seuss hats. Who knew that red gummy savers would be in such high demand? So, we settled for some rainbow hats!

We also love to make leprechauns.

Stay tuned for some more March activities!

Pintastic Ideas for March

I'm joining Pawsitively Teaching and Inspired Owl's Corner for This Month's Top 3 Pinterest Picks Linky!

Hope you find some great ideas here or from the other great teachers that have linked up!

I love this idea for St. Patrick's Day using Fruit Loops! It's also great practice for the little ones and their fine motor skills. The finished product is even cuter! Check it out!

'

Click here for original pin

Even though there's a lot of snow outside, I'm thinking spring and I'm excited to get our chicks in the near future!  

Click here for original link

Last but not least, how can we forget about Dr. Seuss's birthday on March 2nd?  I used to make the hats in the picture below, but how much cuter are these?!  I will definitely be trying them out!

 Click here for original link

No more Nilla cookies for me!  Oreos, here we come!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out some of these great ideas.

Venn Diagrams

Kids love to talk/write about themselves AND they love to create Venn diagrams in language arts.   

So, I decided to combine them and create this FREE activity. You can grab the Comparing Friends activity for free here.  Afterwards, children can write about the information on their Venn diagram using some of the compare/contrast words below.

This activity inspired me to create some Venn Diagrams for you to use in the classroom.  They come in lined, unlined, and colored versions for students who need a bit more visual support.   Check out the Venn diagrams by clicking HERE! 

I used the comparing people Venn Diagram to compare friends. 

 Then, we did some writing using the compare and contrast words from below.  Here's an example:

Put it all together and you have a fun display in your classroom. Plus, the kids learn a lot about each other!

Compare and contrast keywords

Feel free to share some of the favorite people, places, or things your kids like to compare/contrast.

More February Fun!

I figured I'd start another post with some more February ideas.  Scroll down to see some additional ideas and activities for Groundhog's Day, Valentine's Day, President's Day and Dental Health Month.   Below, you will find some easy crafts to do for Chinese New Year.  I always find a great parent or two that celebrate and want to come in and share a little about their heritage.  Parents are such a great resource to use, especially to share holiday traditions.

For Chinese New Year, the kids made a very easy lantern as seen below: 

Here's how:

Fold a large sheet of construction paper in half (lengthwise) and draw about 6 or so lines (equally spaced) on one side touching the fold.  

I have my kids open it back up and decorate it. When they are done decorating, they fold it back in half and cut on the lines (careful not to cut through to the other side).  Then, roll it up and give a staple to the top and bottom.  Add a handle (just a strip of paper) with a staple and you're done! 

  

Here are some of the lanterns:

Here they are working on them:

 Parents brought in all of these fun items below to celebrate! There were masks for the kids, small stuffed animals for each of the animal years, and a great dragon head to do the dragon dance!

Click here for some free printable masks and more for Chinese New Year.

The day wouldn't be complete without some red envelopes and chocolate money!

So... I'm also a bit excited about a new center activity called Number Match Up 1-20 for the younger kids to practice various ways of number representation.

Students can match up a number card (two choices of monsters or flowers) with the various ways to represent that number.  

Students can find all the ways to represent a number, match 2-3 cards that show the same number, and use the cards to compare numbers.

There are number cards for numbers 1-20 shown in the following ways:
tally marks, tens frame, pictures, equations, number/word,
and recognition of  the number that comes before and after.   Follow-up printables for the center and comparing numbers are also included.  

Check out Number Match Up 1-20 here.

Here is part of the center in action:

You can also use it to compare numbers

 shown in different ways:

More to come!