It's almost May - here's a little freebie

It's almost May and I have a few freebies for you. 

Both of them are Calendar numbers for May.

You can choose between two themes.

 

This one is floral.

 

 

Click Here

 to grab this freebie above

 

 

This next one is simpler

 

Click Here

to grab this other freebie above

 

Hippity Hoppity Easter Fun!

I had great aspirations...

 

 

 

 Well, I had great  hopes...

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I started out with a fabulous idea, and just not enough time to finish it.  Sometimes life just gets in the way right? 

 

 

With the tragic demise of my computer last week, I have been struggling to finish up this Easter Unit for you.  I have managed to finish up most of the Language Arts and Math portions to this unit.  So I have prepared a mini unit which has lots of Language Arts activities, centres, and worksheets as well as some Math lessons and worksheets which are all created with Differentiated Learning in mind.

 

 

 

Some of my activities allow for each child to work at their own level using the same materials and activities as their classmates, and some of my activities provide several different copies of similar looking worksheets with each learner's ability in mind.  This way, although they will not be completing exactly the same worksheet as all their classmates, they will be completing an activity which appears the same.

 

 

 

I took some of my favourite lessons and ideas and "prettied them up" a bit.

These are all tried and tested by me in my over 20 years of teaching experience. 

 I will finish up this unit in the future and add lessons and/or activities in Science, Social Studies, Art, and Music.   And when I do, I will raise the price of this package.  BUT if you get it now for the basic price, which includes only the Math and Language Arts lessons, you will be able to download the complete unit for FREE with all the extras.   Currently it's 37 pages, but in the future it will be close to 100 pages.

 

CLICK HERE

to go to my TPT store and get your own copy!

 

Please, please, please, send me any feedback.  I would love to make sure that this package works for everyone.  I have used the American spelling for 'color' and if you would like it changed to the Canadian/ Australian/ British spelling, just drop me a line, or a comment on TPT and I will fix it up for you.

 

 

 

Calendar Numbers - Freebie

I've just completed my first set of Calendar Numbers.  I really wanted a pastel coloured set for April.  And this year Easter Sunday is in April, so why not? 

 

To download my latest freebie please

 

CLICK HERE

 

Check out some of the images below.

 

I have so say, this year I'm a bit frustrated with the holiday situation.  I don't really have any time to start doing any holiday themed work right now as we are about to perform a musical on Wednesday which will kick off our school-wide Project Chef theme - I'll fill you in on all of that in a few weeks.  It's exciting!

 

But this is the last week before Spring Break.  So St. Patrick's Day is during Spring Break, and we come back to school after Easter is done.  So when should we cover these 2 holidays?   I'm at a bit of a loss right now.  So I made these numbers so I can at least have some Easter decor in my room in April.

Math on Mondays - skip counting

Sorry I didn't post last monday, but with the Remembrance Day holiday weekend, life was a bit crazy around here.

 

But back - This week I'd like to discuss Skip Counting.

A good foundation in Skip Counting is very  important.

It helps with adding doubles, telling time, counting money, and of course, multiplication.

 

 

So we sing skip counting songs every day during my Calendar routine. 

The calendar helper points with a pointer to a large Hundreds Chart, as we sing along.

I have some skip counting songs, but I don't have the name of the CD on hand.  I'll post it up in a few days, once I find the case.

 

Anyway, so after a few months of learning these songs.  We sing two of them every morning.  Then I let the children work by themselves counting manipulatives that I have.  Now I have already posted about my junk jobs which are collections of buttons, beads, coins, keys, lids etc.etc. 

 

Well I also have a bunch of Work Jobs that I made when I started teaching. 

What are Work Jobs??? 

 

 

It's one of the original hands-on math programs.  The Author, Mary Baratta-Lorton

wrote the program Math Their Way, which I believe to be the grand-old-lady of hands on math programs.    I used Math Their Way for years as a Kindergarten teacher.  Work Jobs expands on it, and Work Jobs II expands it even more.

 

 

Click on the photo above to check out the amazon listing. 

I strongly recommend checking if you can find this book at the library, or molding away in the back of your school bookroom, because the ideas in it are fabulous.

 Check back for my post on how I put my own Work Jobs together.

I use them for everything.  Addition, Subtraction, Skip Counting, Estimating, patterning...

  

 

Here we have playdough "cookies" from my Work Jobs. This child is skip counting by 2's.  To start the unit, though, I ask the kids to group the counters by the number they are using so that they can visually see what's going on - it's just a bit time consuming.

 

Birthday candles - this child is starting to group by 10's, but they just can't help sorting them by colour first can they?

 

This child is grouping by 10's as well.

I give each child 5 minutes at a Work Job (I actually call them Math Boxes in my classroom), and then they rotate around their table to the next one.  There are six children at each table, so 6 rotations lets them experience all the Math Boxes at their table.  I do this A LOT.  Because I want to increase their exposure to the manipulaties, so that they can stop playing with them.  The more exposure to the manipulatives, the less they get distracted during a lesson, and the more learning occurrs.  That's my theory at least.

 

Thanks a lot for stopping by today.

Math on Mondays - 10 Frame Games

 Yeah, are you sick of 10 frames yet???  Next week I promise to move on to something else.  But 10 frames are soooooo useful.  This week we were working on 10 frames and number concept.  I really want my students to be able to visualize those 10 frames in their heads.  It will make addition and subtraction with 2 digit numbers so much easier to learn.  So we were working as a group and I was flashing up the 10 frames with the candy corn  - see last week's post.  But I realized that some of the children were getting bored and not focused on what they were doing.  Something I learned from all my years of teaching Kindergarten, was that you can turn simple lessons into a simple game and the students LOVE it!  It doesn't even need to make much sense to you as an adult, just turn it into a game and the kids love it.  So I decided, on the spur of the moment, to turn this activity into a game.

 

I partnered them all up and gave each child a 10 frame, some bingo chips and a stack of 10 frame cards - you can see them in the middle of the photo above.

 

 Then one child turned over the top card and placed it in the middle.  They then raced against each other to fill their 10 frame to match the card.  Once they were done they stood up.  The first one to stand up got a point.

 

I also told them to let the youngest start with the cards first to prevent arguments over who started.

 

As you can see in the photo above, this works with groups of 3 as well.

 

I let them play for 5 or 10 minutes, until they got bored. 

Nobody kept score and no one really knew who won, but it was fun, and they practiced number sense.  Super easy and really fun!

Math on Mondays - Cute Candy Corn 10 frames

10 frames are amazing, aren't they???

I love how much it helps children organize their thoughts.

10 frames help children keep track of counting,  see number relationships, learn addition to 10, and understand place value.  Check out this video below to explain more about the value of 10 Frames.

 

 

I use 10 frames that I have photocopied out of my teacher's blackline masters from a program called Math Makes Sense 2.  I have hundreds of bingo chips from the dollar store that I keep in little plastic containers with a lid (from the dollar store). 

 

 

I also have made a series of these little cards from another blackline master from my teacher's blackline masters.  I mounted them on card stock and laminated them.

 

 

 

To spice things up for my kids, I found these FREE candy corn 10 frames from

Caitlyn Clabby.  Click here to download. 

She also has tons of ideas for using them in her classroom on her blog.

 

I used them to introduce addition in a whole class activity.

I stuck the candy corn up on the board with a magnet.

Then I had the children replicate it with their own 10 frames and bingo chips.

 

 

 

We did this for a while and then I started combining them together as this set of candy corns goes up to 20.

 

 

Once I combined the chips to "make 10"  I pulled out the candy corn that had the answer on it.

 

 

This is another new feature I'd like to add to Math on Mondays

 

TEN MORE:

 

Here are 10 more resources using 10 Frames or Candy Corn (or both)

 

1.   Young and Lively Kindergarten has a great FREE pumpkin roll and cover 10 frame game. 

2.   Rachel Koontz has several FREE resources including worksheets using candy corn.

3.   Kreative in Kinder has FREE pumpkin ten frames.

4.   Illuminations have some great FREE software activities using ten and five frames.

5.   Confessions of a Primary Teacher has some double ten frame worksheets.

6.   Pink Polka Dots has some FREE cute pumpkin ten frames.

7.   Two Fulbright Hugs  has some great FREE10 frame spinners.

8.  Mathematical Thinking has a FREE 10 frame snake which is fun to play.

9.  Marcia Murphy has a numbers 0 - 10 colouring book using 10 frames.

10.  Elena Ortiz has a great free scarecrow 10 frame game.

 

Math on Mondays

Well I'm going to try something new here on Savvy Teaching Tips.

 

Welcome to Math on Mondays.

 

I love, love, love teaching primary math.   It's so much fun and there are so many fun games you can play with the kids.  And the kids usually love these too.

 

Before I start with today's topic, I just wanted to give you a basic (very basic) overview of what the most important parts of the curriculum are here in BC. 

 I'm sure they are very similar to the Common Core goals in the U.S.

 

About 5 or 6 years ago, our math curriculum changed dramatically here in BC.  Now the focus has changed from simply getting the correct answer, to explaining HOW you got the answer you did.

 

Things got really vocabulary heavy overnight.

 

You need to know the math vocabulary to explain your thinking clearly.   Well, I teach in an area of around 75%- 80% English as a Second Language learners.  We call them ELL here in Vancouver.

 

That means there needs to be a lot of time for the children to 'play' and use the language that they are learning.  We call it "Talking the Math"  or "Using Math Words".

 

Of course, GUIDED play is what I mean.

 

So today I thought I'd give you some steps that I use with my students to achieve guided play.  Because, really, by Grade 2, they should be able to use manipulatives as learning tools more than playthings.

 

So on to Today's Topic.

 

JUNK JOBS.

 

 

What is junk??? Well, you could actually call it Re-Using - remember the 3 R's of Recyling.??

Basically I use whatever I can save until I have enough to make a jar of 'Junk'.

 I used to teach at an Inner City school where the parents did not have a lot of money to donate to the school and the PAC (PTA) did not really exists at all.  So what that meant is that I needed to get resourceful and collect whatever I could to make tubs of manipulatives.  You can also ask the parents to donate things from home.  I'll explain more about this later on in this post.

 

 

When I first introduce the junk to the class I usually sit them all in a big circle on the carpet, but my class is too big for my carpet this year, so I need to get them to work at their tables.  I give the children a few minutes to play with the junk they have.  Then I give them a task like make a pattern.  I leave it really open-ended at first.  Some kids just want to play, and if they don't do my

task the first day, that's OK.  Every 5 minutes or less we rotate around to the next seat and use that Junk.

 

It takes about a week, but the kids really need to get that touchy-feely stuff out of their systems.

And after a while we can get down to learning some concepts with this junk.

Also, the best thing about this Junk is it's free.

And another great thing about it is that it is mostly objects that the kids see in their daily lives, so it helps them make connections between concepts and the world around them.

 

Here's a sampling of some of the "JUNK" in my classroom collection.

 

 

BUTTONS

BOTTLE CAPS

 

  COUNTER TOP CHIPS

 FROM  A HARDWARE STORE

OLD SCRAPBOOKING LETTERS

  SEQUINS FROM AN ART STORE

LEFTOVER DIE CUTS FROM HOME

 

MARKER LIDS WHEN THEY DRY OUT

BEADS, BEADS, BEADS...

 

 BREAD TAGS

JUICE BOTTLE LIDS

 

FOREIGN MONEY OF LITTLE VALUE

 

KEYS FROM A HARDWARE STORE

 

Be imaginative, you can use all sorts of things.

There's around 20 different kinds of things in my Junk Jobs collection.

 

Next time I'll show you how I store these things.