Photo Randomness

I've got no real direction for this post, just random photos that I've taken over the past month or two at school!

On the 100th Day we read One Hundred Hungry Ants and viewed the book on youtube. We paused the video and made the lines of ants with unifix cubes (1 line of 100, 2 lines of 50 etc). Would the ants have gotten to the picnic faster if they stayed in 1 line? My kids couldn't decide, they were very divided in their opinions!

This is the rotation board I've been using for about 7 weeks (this term). I love it, so easy. I use photos of my kids to show what group they are in (covered with the smilies). Easy to change kids to different groups when needed. Also the flowers are my spelling rotations using Words Their Way.

At the start of this term, we did a lot more work on making inferences and visualising. I got these poems from Deanna at Mrs Jump's Class. I have this awful wall that can open in my room so I put them up there to try and add some colour. This was before it was finished, I have 26 kids so there was a lot more of their work to add when this was taken.

Here was a chart I made up when we were focusing on inferring and others when we were learning length in math.

Have a good weekend everyone! :)

Teaching Math Routines... so you can teach small groups

First up, can I give a big thank you to the lovely ladies who have volunteered to align some of my packs to the common core. Even though I don't use it myself, the majority of people who download and purchase my products are from the U.S. so it only makes sense to make my packs as user friendly for them as possible. I already have a number of packs aligned so over the next few weeks I'll be updating many of my packs to include this information.

The first pack I've had time to update is my new 173 page Teaching Math Routines pack. I finished this pack before my eye surgery but have only just got it listed now. This pack was created as I tried to teach my firsties this year many of the types of math activities, or routines, we do during math workshop so they could be successful and independent while I worked with small groups. 

The 10 routines included in this pack are:

• Matching activities (2 centers)
• Spin, Tally and Graph activities (2 centers)
• Bump games(12 game boards)
• Tic Tac Toe games (6 game boards)
• Using a 100 chart (2 centers)
• Task Cards (2 centers)
• Dominoes (2 centers)
• Write the Room activities (2 centers)
• Pocket Chart activities (2 centers)
• Independent Work (4 worksheets)
• Bonus Thinking and Listening with Unifix Cubes whole class activity.

The aim is that once students know the routine I can swap out the centers and they will transfer their understanding of how to play/what to do without me having to reteach or explain it each time (who doesn't get tired of kids not knowing what to do when it's the same activity, just different content!!). As the year progress, I add different routines to the mix, but this gets me started with working with math groups for the first term. 

I have included in the pack a sample schedule for the first four weeks of teaching kids these routines, although you don't have to follow it. It was just what worked for me this year with the bunch of kids I have. I also explained how I introduced each routine, so that they practice it multiple times over the week to help them learn the routine. There are 2 centers for each routine so that kids can practice each routine with different math skills or concepts. 

Each activity comes with a cover for your baggie or folder and an I Can chart to help kids be independent. 

 Here's a little of the 173 pages!

 

As always, it's 20% off for the first few days. Sorry to bombard you with new products over the past two days, once I get back to school I'll have other things to post about!