Monday, January 30, 2012

Easy Morning Work

Do you do daily data? All the teachers on my grade level have our kids work on "daily data". It's really just a question of the week and then each day there is an activity that goes with it. I use it as morning work (once my kids get the hang of it and pick up the routines) and it's a nice way to have them practice lots of math skills and there's a little bit of writing in there too.

This is the data we collected today. I call Mondays "Make it Monday" since that's the day we make the data display. Then the kids record the data in their math notebooks.

There's a different task each day for the kids to complete in their notebooks:
Make it Monday
Tally chart Tuesday
Write about it Wednesday
Three equations Thursday
Another way Friday

I give them the paper on Monday and they cut it in half and glue into the notebook so it's ready for them to complete one task each morning. Here's a look at a whole week's worth of work.


Anyway, I've been working on putting together a daily data packet for TPT and I wanted to see if anyone was interested. I made it for the month of February and I'll hopefully get it posted tomorrow.


Sunday, January 29, 2012

Our 100th Day

Well it happened a week ago but I'm just slow posting. I made the same t-shirts with my class that I did last year and once again they turned out so cute. The kids used a stencil to paint the number 100 and then dipped the end of markers into paint to make 100 polka dots. I love an excuse to dress up!
Didn't they do a nice job on those shirts? Here they're getting 10 of each item for the trail mix.
I planned so much that we ended up only getting to about half of it. We read 100 books, thought of 100 equations that equal 100, made a 100th day trail mix with 100 pieces, put together puzzles of the 100 number chart, and so much more.

Each card has an equation that equals 100, and no, that's not 100 cards it only about 85ish.
I had to glue some around the edges afterward.
Whoops, this picture is sideways! At the end of the day each child got a bookmark for reading 100 books in one day and a mini hundrend dollar notebook (grabbed those at staples last winter).

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Math Lately, in Pictures

I got some shots of the kids working on math stations the other day. Here's what we've got going on:

Power Towers- each cup (plastic shot glass, hehe!) has a math fact written on the bottom. The partner must read it aloud and say the answer before adding it to the tower. I first heard about these from Laura at The Grade Two Zoo and she found out about them at Teacher Tipster (he is hilarious!)

 Pretty impressive tower, huh?

Time Practice- first match the little circle analog and digital clocks and then practice writing and drawing the times on the wipe-off cards (found the cards at Dollar Tree awhile back).

Bang- pull a stick, read the math fact, and solve. If you get a stick that says BANG! put all your sticks back.

Doubles Cover-Up- roll a die, double it, cover up the sum.

Timed Addition- the kids love this, mostly they love pushing the buttons on the timer. I bought this (and a subtraction one too) from Lakeshore with a grant I won last year. They also love "grading" themselves when it's over.

Another grant purchase, and they love, love, love this one. Shoes off=extremely happy kids. The mat talks to them and gives them either an addition or subtraction fact and they step on the answer as quick as they can.

Connect 4- I posted about this the other day and you can get the recording paper here. That blue box you see is how I store math stations.

And here's my math station management chart . I teach two math classes so the first two columns of kids names are my homeroom and the next two columns are a different class. So only two kids at a time are at the same station and there are two (one in each class) who work alone for now. I move their names down the next day and they have two new stations (many days we only have time for one station though). And yes, those are cut up paint chips that I used for their name labels. I was going to put a little picture of the kids on their cards but Friday was day 100 and I still haven't gotten to it so chances are slim that's going to happen this year.

Monday, January 9, 2012

A freebie, a brag, and a big Roll Tide!

First let's start with the killer jaw ache I came home with a few minutes ago. Does anyone else hold stress and tension in their jaw? I have diagnosed myself with lock jaw and it kills! So is it bad that I could take and advil but instead I poured myself this?
(only the finest champagne for this girl)
On to the freebie. I went to school yesterday afternoon to get new math stations ready and I made this to go with a Connect 4 game I got at the Dollar Tree this summer. Someone else posted ages ago about the game and how they used it as a math game but I couldn't remember who or how they played. So I made this up.
As if you can't tell from the recording sheet, when a kid plays a chip they write down the number from the chip and then make an equation that equals that number. After assessments in December I realized some of my kids needed a little extra practice representing a number in many ways. You can download the recording sheet by clicking on it.

Now I don't like bragging, but I have to tell people who understand teacher stuff- so let's just call this sharing. It's really not that big a deal, but it did make my week (ok, maybe my month). I got a little blurb published in the Kindergarten Jan/Feb Mailbox magazine! It's one of those little teacher tips so it's only a few sentences. And if you read it you'll be like duh, all teachers probably know that. But it has my name under it so I feel special! I have to brag here because my other friends who aren't teachers wouldn't understand it.

I also wanted to thank Alex from the The Teacher Diaries for giving me the Versitile Blogger award. Check out her super cute editing checklist for kinders (would work in 1st too).

Well, it's time to get ready for the big game tonight. Can I get a Roll Tide?! I may need to pour another "pain reliever" for this. Also, I'm thankful I don't have morning duty tomorrow!