Simple Spinner

I hope everyone had a great 3 day weekend with lots of fun, family, friends and football! I'm stopping by really quickly to share a very simple spinner. I'm going to use this to add some challenge to some of my math games. For those of you who use Envision, I like to take those topic games and turn them into file folder games for math stations. I will use these spinners with some of my math games from last week to add a little challenge and continue building our number sense. The idea is that my students will still spin the game spinner or roll a die, and then spin this and have to add or subtract 1 or 2 from that number. It would also be a great addition to a game like Chutes and Ladders. Of course there are a million uses for a spinner and in the near future I plan on making different spinners to help me differentiate activities - they might say things like 10 more, 10 less, etc. Anyway, click on the images below to download my blank spinner or my programmed more/less spinner. It took me less than 5 minutes to make this, but hey if I can save you 5 minutes by sharing it with you, I love that!Have a FANTASTIC week!



Synonym and Antonym Memory Game

Y'all... I am tired of this rainy, gloomy, windy, cloudy weather in North Texas. I have one fear - lightning. I realize the chances of being struck by lightning are slim, but there's still a chance! I had to run to my car one afternoon last week through rain with thunder and lightning, and I can only imagine how funny I looked running in my boot, with a look of terror on my face!. Anyway, this is what I'd like to say to the weather around here:

How cute is that?! It's from the adorable April Showers kit I bought from Just So Scrappy!

We are working on synonyms and antonyms this week and I made these memory games to go over both. There's a recording sheet to use after the students play. Click the graphic below to download from google docs.



One more way to use those Easter eggs!

Since there's one week left before Easter, I wanted to find one more way to use those plastic eggs. This week I'm going to use them in a math center. I'm going to put 2 number tiles into each egg and have the students "hatch" the numbers and create related number sentences. Click the preview below to download it for yourself!

PS - Stay tuned. I have a fabulous giveaway planned if when I get 100 followers!

Spring Themed Science Center

I got this idea back in January at a baby shower, believe it or not, but hadn't quite figured out how I would use it in my classroom. At the shower, we played a game where various baby items were placed in numbered lunch sacks and we passed them around and tried to guess what was inside. While standing in Dollar Tree with plastic eggs in hand, it finally came to me - I'll put items in the eggs and have students guess what's inside by the sound! I've created a recording sheet that I'm sharing this morning so you can all use it too!

All you need for the activity is 8 plastic eggs, each with a number 1 -8 on it, items to fill the eggs - rubber bands, jelly beans, toothpicks, erasers, cotton balls, rice, paperclips and pennies, and this recording sheet. Students choose an egg, shake it and record which item they think is in each egg based on the sound. Of course, you could use any items, you'd just have to change my word bank. For extra challenge, you could also remove the word bank. Another way to add more challenge is to have two of each egg and have students identify two eggs have the same item as well as identify what the item is. Click on the picture below to download the recording sheet.



Have a super week!

Alligator Addition

We're revisiting addition and subtraction. Again. This time with facts to 18. Last week we were reviewing doubles, doubles plus one and 10 plus facts, so I created this "Alligator Addition" activity for our math center. I'm excited about it since it could be used for ANY addition or subtraction facts or skills. All you have to do to create it is write the addends on the egg halves and the sum on the alligators. It's a much cuter and kid-friendly version of the part-part-whole model we use for addition and subtraction. I traced my alligators and eggs using patterns from a book called Making Big Books for Children Vol. 2, however the next set I make will be using the blacklines I created on the computer. My kiddos thought the alligators were so cool and really liked putting the pieces together and making them "hatch". Once the group pieced it all together, they all chose 8 facts to record and then wrote a related fact for each one. Next week we are reviewing related facts and fact families so I wanted to warm them up a little last week by including that. Plus, I always want them to have to think a little, rather than just record.

Here's a picture of mine, before I gave myself a hand cramp cutting them out.



And the card stock mess in my living room afterwards... but they turned out SO cute!

Click the preview to download the file. Just FYI, for some reason there is a blank page attached to the end that I cannot delete.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a fantastic week blog friends! Only 4 more days until my spring break - when is yours?

Great Finds at the Dollar Tree!

How much do you love the Dollar Tree? I always come out of there with bags of random loot, but hey, they're only $1, right? Check out what I grabbed yesterday - I CANNOT wait to use these! (Please ignore the ugly carpet in the background...I'm renting!)

I hope you can read what's on them. These are going to be so great in my enrichment tubs, centers, small group... the list goes on! I'm actually thinking about making some of my own for their take home fluency folders as well.  The 4th pic is a pack of 4 blank spinners. Not sure what I'm going to use those for yet but the possibilities are endless! I also stocked up on more clothespins (you can never have too many!), more plastic tubs (again... never too many!), and Easter/Spring pencils. Have you found anything great at Dollar Tree lately?