Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Gingerbread freebie if you want it! :)



Hi all! 

I posted a simple patterning freebie to my TpT store. There are gingerbread boys and girls on the page. Students can make a pattern of your choice OR of their own choice. I’m doing this with my students tomorrow (12-19-12) and the plan is to ask them to create their own pattern.

I was thinking it would be a good formative assessment if you were to ask your little ones to create a certain type of pattern (AB, ABB, BAB, etc.) before gluing them down. Simply walk around with your clipboard and check for understanding!

Click the picture to get it!
 
If you like it, please consider rating it!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that your week/break is going well! 
My heart is heavy and I'm still in shock after learning about Friday's tragedy. I've been loving on my sweethearts A LOT these last few days! Events like that help me realize/remember that my priority is my students and their safety when they are with me at school. 

I hope I make it very clear to them how much I care for them! God Bless!

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Early Christmas Gift/FREEBIE!


Merry Christmas to my followers/stumblers! J

My students and I just got done learning about plane shapes and solid figures (3-D shapes). I’m all about decodable/emergent readers to help my students learn about concepts while becoming more fluent readers so I created a book to help them with those very things!

It is FREE on TpT so go get it! I would REALLY appreciate it if you would “Pin It” and rate it if you like it! Here are a few pictures from the file:





Click HERE to get this free shape book! Enjoy!

~Mary~

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Reindeer Games!


We had fun playing reindeer games yesterday and I wanted to share some pictures! My students were really excited when I began discussing these games! They had a blast!


 This game is called "Reindeer Run". Students practice sums to 12 by rolling two dice and adding/counting on the dots. These two boys really got into playing!



In the photo below, he is adding 4+3 to see how many spaces to move is game piece.


These two little sweeties are playing, "Catch that Reindeer!" One player hides Rudolph behind a shape. The other player calls out the name of the shape and player 1 picks up the card to show whether Rudolph is hiding behind that shape or not! It encourages students to call shapes by name and increase their shape naming fluency. The pack includes 3D shapes and plane shapes. I'm waiting until next week to introduce 3D shapes!





Both games are in my Have You Seen My Reindeer? Math and Literacy Activities pack on TpT. Click here to see it. Thanks for stopping by!

Mary 

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Shapes!


We’ve been working on Envision Math Topic 8: Shapes! My Math intervention group has been struggling with recognizing and naming the shapes. So instead of completing page after page of shape recognition worksheets (BORING!), we got out the pattern blocks and use them! Genius, right?

Okay, so it isn’t the most original and cutting edge idea in teaching but the kids still had fun!

First I asked them to pull out certain shapes from the plastic box I store them in. Then, I asked them to make hexagons, trapezoids, and rhombuses (rhombi?) out of smaller shapes (another REALLY difficult concept for my struggling firsties!).

After that, the real fun began! I told the students they could play with the shapes and make whatever they wanted! This was a big hit!


Just wanted to share the photos of their “free style” creations! So sweet!


"I made a triangle!"

"I used a hexagon and three little triangles!"

"Mrs. Underwood! I made a pattern!"

I asked her which shapes she used to make the pattern. She replies: "triangles and trapjoys!"

"Do you like my pretty flower?"

"I'm making a puppy!" I am using a hexagon for the head and diamonds for the ears!" Oh, and she also used a "trapjoy". How great is that?!

"I used lots of shapes to make a transformer!" It REALLY looks like one doesn't it?! :)

What do you do to help kids with shape recognition & breaking apart shapes? Anything good on TpT? I'd love the advice!

OH! One more thing...


IF anyone is interested, I made some word work task cards for my students to use at a magnetic white board/chalkboard center. I used Treasures Reading Series Phonics skill words. My kids typically end up fighting over who gets to go to the center when I have it available! It's available on my TpT store for $2.50. Click the picture to visit my store and grab it.