Mother's Day Is On the Way

Our first activity for Mother's Day this year is here!!!!

 

My kids will each get one of these to draw a picture of their mom or grandmom. This is such a quick and simple gift to have them make! After they draw and color their pictures, they get to sign it with lots of love!!

 

I can't wait to see how their pictures turn out!! My kids' artwork always makes me smile! :) When they are complete, we will "frame" these GORGEOUS portraits on construction paper... And then we will send them home. What a very special and unique gift for each momma!!

 

We will continue to add new Mother's Day fun as the date draws closer!!

 

AND -- If you'd like to use this in your classroom, please click here.

 

 

Fourths

This week I reviewed fractions with my students and introduced 1/4. We discussed how the line means out of. This could be one out of four pieces, one out of four in a group, or one group out of four groups. I made an interactive math sheet. The students loved interacting with something they were reading!

You can have it for FREE here:

One-Fourth Interactive Reading Worksheet

Leafy Learning

This week my class will be learning all about leaves. Lucky for me, I have a large amount of weeds in my garden beds so those will be our free leaves to learn with in class. I wanted my students to be interactive when they read but I couldn't find anything I liked. So I created an interactive reading worksheet for leaves. While the students read about leaves, they place the picture of what they are reading about into the correct spot so that they create a diagram by the end of their reading. Check it out!

You can have it for FREE here: 

Leaves Interactive Reading Worksheet

Balancing Equations

This week we tackled the challenge of balancing equations. They handled it like champs! First, I had them pretend that they were a scale as we all stood with our arms out. I put two numbers on the board and we all tilted to show which one was more or less. Then I brought in the equal sign and the word balanced. I emphasized that all the equal sign means is that one side is the same as the other. I wrote 2 + ___ = 5 on the board. Then I had them come up with ideas of how we might solve this. I asked: How can we BALANCE this equation? Some ideas were to draw dots, use a number line, use a hundreds chart or to count on. Someone also mentioned our missing number song. For this, we use a part - part - total mat and some red dots. The song goes like this: 

After we sung our song, I gave them a worksheet I made to help them balance equations. 

You can have it for FREE here:

Balancing Equations Sheet

-Crazy S

Spring Has Sprung?

Only half a day until .... SPRING BREAK!!!!

Math Story Problems

After attending Kindergarten Conference in February, I came back refreshed and ready to rock some new concepts!! One of the ideas I brought back with me was to have a number of the day. We've been doing this about once a week, so this past week's lucky number was -- 6!! The class made a chart all about the number 6.

I wrote the number six inside the inner circle and they told me the information to put around it. It is spelled - six. We listed the kids in the class who are 6 years old. We can "show" it by making six dots or tally marks. The students came up with all of the number sentences that equal six. (They are getting pretty good with thinking of number sentences - this can take a while!!) I challenged them by asking how many pairs of pants would be needed for 6 legs. Then I asked them how many pairs of shoes would be needed for 6 feet. That's when one student pointed out - "Hey! 2 + 2 + 2 = 6!!" And another noticed - "There are three groups of two in 6!" There are sooo many concepts that can be covered just by using this simple activity - and it's student directed learning! I wrote my own story problem and then had the students create their own story problems. They could write about whatever they wanted... as long as the answer was 6.

Here are some of their story problems --

Aren't they great?? My class LOVES being the teacher and creating problems for others to solve!

Hope you enjoyed the beautiful Spring weather over the weekend!

~~ The Princess :)

A Crazy Princess First...

Happy April Fool's Day 2014... a very fitting day to have our very first post! ;)