Tech Tip Tuesday/Wednesday and More {FREE} Games

This whole Tuesday thing doesn't seem to be happening for me. Maybe I should change it to Web Wednesday. Or maybe I will get my act together and start posting on Tuesdays... we'll see! In my defense, there were 12 tornadoes here yesterday! We had to go into severe weather procedures and get against the wall with our heads down twice! I didn't even have all of my kiddos picked up until more than an hour after school got out! I came home and watched the news... and fell asleep. So... no blog post. Since I'm a day late I came prepared with LOTS of technology resources for you today - YAY!

I'm going to start with a share - two quick addition games that I made today. I know I mentioned this already but our pacing guide has us revisiting addition and subtraction for 6 weeks right now. I feel like we've been doing it all year! I'm trying to keep my munchkins engaged and interested by creating new games even though they are practicing the same old skills. Click on the pictures to download from GoogleDocs. All clip art from Scrappin Doodles and Just So Scrappy. Fonts from Kevin and Amanda.

Students roll a 0-9 die, double the number and cover it up. First player to cover the board wins! (I know the picture has two 8s, but I assure that the printable version has an 8 and an 18!)

Each pair of students needs counters of two different colors, one 0-9 die and one game board. Students roll the die twice (or roll two dice), add the numbers together and cover the sum. If they reach a sum that has been covered by the other player, they can "sink it" by taking it off and replacing it with their own. The game is over when the board has been completely covered and the player with more counters on the board is the winner. 

Now - Tech Time!

First up... this little ditty which we've all got stuck in our heads. There is a 1-5 version and a 6-10 version. When we do it together, everyone gets a parter to hold up the numbers together (showing doubles) and we made up a whole dance that goes with it. It's quite the workout but oh... it is so cute and so fun!







I challenge you to watch those and not sing them for the next hour afterwards! Moving on...

Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? I LOVE poetry! Even more, I love poetry in the classroom! Here are some resources I found to share with y'all tonight so that your students can love poetry too!

Poets.org - Great poetry resources, especially related to activities for Poetry Month

Scholastic Poetry Idea Engine - Interactive poetry idea engine - use it to create haikus, free verse, limericks or cinquains.

ReadWriteThink Poetry - Resources, activities and lessons related to poetry and Poetry Month

Kathi Mitchell Poem Types - This lists different types of poetry in alphabetical order, explaining what each is with an example. For many of the poem types, a website is given for an interactive poetry activity.

Basically, I started looking for sites and was so overwhelmed by the results that I thought it was better for me to list some of the sites that listed other sites... ha! Does that make sense?

Thanks for stopping by my little corner of blog world!

Double Bubble Doubles/Doubles Plus One Game

In an effort to keep an old skill fresh, I created a quick little game for my students to work on their doubles and doubles plus one fact fluency. To play the game students need a game board and a 0-9 die. Students roll the die, double the number, then cover up or cross out that number on the game board. Once all of the doubles sums have been crossed out or covered up, the move on to doubles plus one - roll the die, double the number, add one more, then cover up or cross out. First player to cover up or cross out all of the sums wins! Enjoy!

If you are looking for more ways to use your plastic eggs - check out my posts here and here from last spring for a sound activity and related facts activity! Another little way you can use them is to let your kids shake dice up in them if you are playing a dice game. We have TONS of dice games in math stations right now since we're working with facts and the kids think it's SO much fun to shake them up in the egg, then crack it open and spill them out. How are you using plastic eggs?

See y'all tomorrow for Tech Tip Tuesday!

Spring Things

Hold the phone... I'm blogging two days in a row. That NEVER happens! I guess I was just so pleased with the adorable 3D flowers we made today that I had to get on and share! I think I've had my kids do this activity and post it for open house as long as I've been in first grade, but usually we do it by assembling paper pieces. This year I wanted to do something a little more fun and after googling and pinteresting, I found a few ideas but nothing was quite perfect. So I made up my own using things I already had at home and in my craft tubs.

The final product:

To make this you will need:

green pipe cleaners (1 per student)

baking cups (1 per student)

3"-4" pieces of yarn (1 per student)

glue

scissors

construction paper

flower parts labels (click here for mine)

brown and yellow crayons

gold glitter (optional)

First, fold your baking cup in half, then in half again, and yes, one more time. Like so:

 Please excuse my dry cuticles...

Next, round of the top of your folded cup. Like this:

Now unfold it, et voila! A flower!

Next. you can have your students paint or color the center yellow for the pollen. I added a little gold glitter gel on top just to give them a little Open House sparkle.

To make the stem, I cut off the top quarter of the pipe cleaner, then cut that piece in half. The long piece is used for the stem and your students will create the leaves out of the two smaller pieces.

In order to make the roots, I used brown yarn, but you could also use twine or more pipe cleaners. I gave each student a piece that was between 3" and 4" and allowed them to cut that piece into smaller pieces to create roots themselves. 

Finally, put all of the pieces together, add the labels and draw in the soil. You have a 3D plant diagram and is cute, fun to create and educational - win, win, win!

(We're working on adverbs that tell when this week.... could you tell, HA?)

I need to add a permanent disclaimer that says "Warning! You are about to encounter photos of terrible quality!". Ugh. One of these days I WILL get a new digital camera.

But WAIT! There's more (said in my best infomercial voice)! Here's a mini math center I created to reinforce fact families. We are revisiting addition and subtraction going up to 20 right now and I needed some new materials to keep these review concepts fresh. Enjoy! Click on the cover to download from Google Docs.

Valentine How Tos and Measurement Printables

I love February... but it is SO busy!!! Groundhog's Day, 100th Day, Valentine's Day, President's Day, Dental Health... and it's been busy for me outside of the classroom too. I feel like I don't have enough time to do everything I want to do! Story. Of. My. Life. Whew. Here's a peek at what we did to celebrate Valentine's Day yesterday - it wasn't much because we also had a field trip to our district's environmental center. I rolled a fun craft into a science and writing activity - the kids had fun, they learned new things, and had a little souvenir in the form of a heart shaped crayon to show for it.

First, I told them we would be making our own crayons. One of my sweeties already knew how it worked because I had her brother last year and those kiddos made "Lone Star Crayons". But the rest of them thought this was a crazy idea - what magic could I possibly possess to make this happen! In first grade, our science standards doesn't specifically include solids and liquids, but they do include changes caused by heating and cooling. We had a discussion about what our crayons looked like to start with and how we could possibly change their shape and then turn them back into a solid again. I think they really did think I have some magic up my sleeve. Or a silicone heart pan and a toaster oven. Once we'd completed our magic and our crayons were in the oven, we gathered on the floor and did a shared writing of a how to. The kids went through each step in great detail while I scribed our intstructions. Finally, while the crayons cooled off, they went back to their desks and re-created the how to, using illustrations. They turned out SO adorable. It was such a fun activity and I love it when I trick them into loving something that sounds boring (like writing a how to)! That was the only Valentine activity we had time for but it's definitely a keeper!

And I had to share these adorable Valentines that I made for my class... thank you Pinterest and Etsy!

Wait! One more thing! I almost forgot to include my measurement stations! As with all of my math stations, there are two versions of each so I can better meet my students' needs. Click here to download "How long is it?" and here to downloand "Yarn Length Hunting".

And now off to eat the remains of those swedish fish and read... Did I tell y'all that I got a Kindle Fire for Chirstmas? I'm in love. I don't have many spare minutes but seriously, when I'm not sleeping, eating, planning or teaching... I'm kindle-ing. Love, love, love.

**P.S. I apologize, once again, for the absolutely terrible quality of my pictures. My iPhone is all I have and those pictures do not transfer well to blogland!

**P.P.S I created a new pinterest account, just for school-related things. I was getting overwhelmed by the amount of things I was pinning for personal and professional use! also I wanted to explore the idea of using it as a teaching tool - pinning sites for students, parents, etc. Do you use have a teacher pinterest? How do you use it professionally?





An ee/ea printable, eating our predictions and a little more graphing

GOOD NEWS! If you read my post from last night, you heard that I was really bummed because something I was working on suddenly disappeared in front of my eyes. So I was pretty surprised and VERY pleased when I reopened it and my graphs were all back! Yay!

First up, an ee/ea activity. We made quickly made this anchor chart of words (Mine are never as cute as the others I see on blogs because I make them with my kids... and I'm not very neat when I have to be quick! I need lessons in quick doodles!) and then the kids used markers to record six of each spelling pattern on my "Sweet Treats" printable to give them a little of extra practice for our spelling test. It seems so simple but they a) love any chance to use marker b) love candy, even when it's just a picture.

Here is a preview of our groundhog day activities and predictions (Yes, I know groundhog day is tomorrow, but tomorrow is the 100th day and our day is packed with those activities!). We're not quite finished with them all yet, but they sure were delicious today and involved these:

And finally, the graphing things I was working on last night. There is one set of 6 graphs and then two different sets of data that the kids match to the graphs. One set is just has tables with labels and numbers, the other set is missing the labels to add a little extra challenge to the activity when I place it in math stations.

I'm off to get ready for the 100th day of school tomorrow! I'm pretty sure that I am just as excited as my munchkins!!!



Graphing Activities

Bonjour! We FINALLY wrapped up our place value unit last week and have moved on to one of my most favorite units - graphing! I know that sounds totally nerdy, but I really love graphing. I think I like it because the kids get really into it and there are so many ways to make them a part of the lesson. What started out as just a couple of activities for my math stations turned into two rather large packets of activities. I thought I'd share with you gals in case anyone is has graphing coming up!

I'm pretty bummed tonight because I worked on two different (differentiated) packets of graphing activities today where the students have to match the graph to the data... and I just opened it up to proofread it and all of a sudden all of my slides went blank! I have NO idea what happened! I am usually pretty computer savvy, but I can't figure this one out. Seriously, one minute my graphs were there, and then all of a sudden they all went white! Totally bummed. The last 3 weeks have been even busier than usual and I don't have a single spare minute. Sigh. I did print a hard copy before I left school today so I'm hoping I can look at those in the morning and remake my packets pretty quickly. Fingers crossed. I absolutely love technology, but I hate it when it has a mind of it's own! On a different note, I can't wait to do groundhog stuff tomorrow! I got a new book and I have some fun things planned (Oreos are involved... yum!). After groundhog predictions and activities tomorrow, it's the 100th day on Thursday, and then FRIDAY! What a fun week! I will be back to share soon!

Place Value Math Station and Resolutions

It's January 5th and I've already "broken" one of my resolutions. I knew it would happen, but I really was hoping that I could make it just a *little* bit longer! What was my resolution? To leave school by 5:00. We get out at 3:00, can leave at 3:30 and yet, most days I stay until 6:00... or later. Have I mentioned I generally get there 45 minutes to an hour early as well? Some of that is due to the fact that I don't bring any work home, some of it because I'm an overachiever and a perfectionist, some because... I don't have any kiddos at home to rush home to! That being said, I finally realized during my winter break that I might be a better teacher if I also have a little of my own personal time too. Just to decompress a little and come back each day refreshed. Last semester I got into this routine of staying until 6:15ish, followed by an hour of Pure Barre class, then grocery store or other errand, then make dinner, then eat dinner... then fall into bed and wake up at 5:30 to start all over. I felt like all I did was sleep, eat, school. Because IT WAS all I did! So... I stayed until 6:15 today, but in my defense I spent about an hour of that chatting with a teammate so maybe I could have been on time if I hadn't been socializing! Anyway, the real purpose of this post is to share what I worked on this afternoon for my next round of math stations/centers/tubs/whatever-you-want-to-call-them. We're in a place value unit right now and my kids are truly masters of place value. So much of this unit has been front loaded through calendar activities since the first day of school and it's nice to see all that extra time paying off now! In order to differentiate and meet different levels in my classroom, there are two different versions of this station. It's a simple activity that you can make easier/harder by changing how many cards are in each set or by mixing up the formats or likewise, keeping them in like sets. I created a recording sheet but I typically either have my students record in math journals, or have their station partner check their work. I hope some of you will find this useful!

Ordering With Pictures, Numbers, Words, Standard Form - Challenge Set

Ordering With Pictures, Numbers, Words, Standard Form

What resolutions did you make for 2012? How are you sticking with them so far?

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!



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!

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?