Number of the day

During our calender time each day, we work on showing the number day of the month many different ways. Usually we show it in ten frames, dot cubes, fingers, tally marks, tens and ones, number line, coins and ordinal number.  Now it's the kids turn to work on showing the number of the day themselves.  I just made this sheet for them to use.   I included a page of coins for them to cut out if they choose to use this as one of their ways.  We did this for the first time today on just plain paper but I thought this sheet may be more appealing for them and more organized.  On the back side I want them to show the number using equations: addition, subtraction or both! My hope is they will show flexible ways of thinking about numbers.  They have watched and worked with me all year on this and now it's time for them to begin doing it themselves.

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Stylish Blogger Award

Thanks so much for the many bloggers that passed on this award to me.  What a nice surprise and pretty cool too!  So, for my acceptance speech I would like to thank the following, I couldn't have received it without you:


Laurie Hilton-morningsunfirst grade
Sarah Paul-snippetsbysarah
Mandy Collins-mandy'smemories
Sarah Claborn-aburstoffirst
Sarah Stoll-teacherscannotlivebyapplesalone


Thank you all so much.  I love making games and then helping others.  I'm getting so many great ideas from other's blogs, so it nice to be able to give back.


So, here are the rules for receiving this award:
1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 5 recently discovered great bloggers.
4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about this award


7 things about myself


1. I've been married for over 30 years, (I deserve an award for this one)
2. I have twins, plus 2 more
3. I'm a breast cancer survivor
4. I love to run, well jog is more like it but saying I'm  a runner  sounds much cooler
5. I can't sing and when I do people wince.  I'm telling this because I soooo want to be able to sing and admire those than can.
6. I'm from a multigenerational teaching family
7. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE teaching and eating brownies, not necessarily in that order (depending on the day).


This was a lot of fun, and hats off to the people that started it.  Wonderful idea.

Ruby Bridges

Our school has an awesome group of people that work in it and we have all come together to make a Black History Museum.  Each classroom picked a famous African American to learn about and then made a display to help teach the rest of the school about their person.  The displays are hung out in the front part of our building so everyone can view the wonderful, creative products.  My class learned about the brave little girl, Ruby Bridges.  We then made a life size Ruby and used tear paper to fill her in.  I traced my smallest girl and then cut  out parts for the kids to work on.  Then we put her back together and you can see what she looks like.  She is beautiful, the kids did a fantastic job!  We also wrote and interactive piece in Ruby's voice to go along with her on display.  We decided together what she would say and then each child got a part to write and then I put it together and made a speech bubble to go along with our piece of art.  I hope you enjoy looking at this.  As more get hung up I will take pictures and post them.  

Here's our finished Ruby, didn't they do a great job?

Here's a picture that has some of the kids in my class, do you see Ruby with them?  The class looks so small because the day I took this picture there were 4 absent.  Although I really missed the ones that were at home, I kind of liked having a small class.  Hopefully they will all be in school on Tuesday.

Spring Counting Cards

I'm still on my Spring kick.  In math we are moving into Ways to Make 10 while we continue with  Recognizing and Writing Large Numbers.  So, I made these two games with these concepts in mind.  The directions are on the recording sheets.  I'm going to probably make more of these so that there will also be a way to make 10 using subtraction if the students want.  The cards were so large that I needed to have 2 downloads, so make sure you get both.  Thanks for all of the encouraging words from everyone out there.  I'm glad you like the stuff I make.  I LOVE doing this.  I need to find some more idea's.... 

Download #1                 Download #2

Shamrock 10's and 1's

This is part two.  It looks pretty much the same as the one I posted last night, but the tens are now in an attached row of 10 cubes or a ten rod and the ones are by themselves.  I numbered them with an "a" after the number so that you can tell the difference between the two.  I did this on the recording sheet also.  Just another way for the kids to count higher numbers and get some place value work in there also.  Happy almost Valentine's day to everyone.  Have a fun time tomorrow with your class!!!

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Shamrock Counting Part 1

In this first part of Shamrock counting, there are cards that have boxes on them that the students will group, count and then record on a sheet.  Each card is numbered so that when the kids record, it is easier to be able to look at the answers and assess how the student performed.  I haven't tried this yet, but I may give the kids a vis-a-vis to circle the boxes to help them with the counting.  Not sure yet, but it may be a good tool to help those that need the visual as they group.  I have another one that I will post tomorrow that are true tens and ones that the student will count and then record the same way as they do with this one.  Here in Virginia, we are having nice, Spring like weather!  It's going to be close to 70 degrees by the end of the week, YIPPEE!!.  The groundhog was right!  We'll be seeing real shamrocks before we know it.

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Valentines Hearts

Several years ago I read on Pro Teacher about an idea for Valentine's Day that I fell in love with. Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of the very creative teachers that came up with this idea, but if you ever see this post, than THANK YOU so much, because this has been such a fun, successful art/valentine project that the kids and families love! I've been doing this for the past 3 years and I have kids that tell me that they still have the posters up on their walls.  That is just awesome.  So, we've been working again this year and they just seem to get better each time we make them.  So, here's what you do:  instead of having the students bring in those store bought valentine's, I ask the parents to send in craft stuff like foam hearts, ribbon, stickers, anything to decorate a Valentine's Day poster.  In the class I have the kids write something nice about each classmate.  I then type these out in different fonts (it was time consuming the first year, now I just save them and reuse or retype over the ones I have).  Then as you can see in the pictures, we painted the large hearts, decorated them and then glued on the strips of paper that have the nice things they all said about each other.  One more thing, no one makes their own.  Everyone makes one for someone else.  That's a big part of the fun.  I hope you enjoy these as much as we do.  It's just so nice and each kid is on the same playing field with this... no more having kids come in embarrassed that they don't have valentines to hand out to their friends.  Everyone has a BIG, BEAUTIFUL poster all about themselves

Here is a work in progress.  This is after the kids finished the first part which is to paint the large poster hearts.  The look so pretty!

Here are samples (I know I went overboard, they are just sooooo pretty I wanted to share all of them but I restrained myself!) of the finished products.

I put this one in just so you can get a perspective of how big the hearts are.  The one that this child is holding was made by his best friend in the whole wide world!

Is It An Asking or a Telling Sentence?

My kids have a LOT of trouble knowing the difference between an asking sentence and a telling sentence.  How many of us ask the kids a question like," who has a cat?".  Then the hands go up and you proceed to get statements like, "my grandma's cat sleeps with her" or  "I saw a cat  today".  So, I thought this may help them start to think about the difference between the two.  They need to read the bunny sign and then decide which pile it goes in.  When they are finished they must (well, at least mine) write out some of the sentences and put the correct punctuation mark at the end.  This is a follow up to the "Is It a Sentence?" cards I made back in January.  Wow, that seems so long ago! Enjoy.

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I Hit 100!!!!

Little things make me excited and I'm very excited today because I hit 100 Followers!!!!!  Thanks everyone, it's really cool to have this many people like the stuff that I make.  I've got several idea's in the works, so keep watching.  Like I said below, I'm ready for Spring.

High Flying Contractions

Aren't we all just a little bit sick of the Winter?  I know I am, so I've made some contractions worksheets using graphics form d.j.doodlers Spring collection.  Can't you just feel that March wind blowing?  I may eventually make these in color, but I thought it may be fun for the kids to cut and paste these and color if they have time.  Enjoy a breath of Spring, it will be here soon.....I hope.
 

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