An overview of our week!

Well, the weekend is almost over and I'm just now linking up with DoodleBugs and her Five for Friday Linky Party. After a short week the previous week, due to two teacher workshop days and Columbus Day, this week seemed a little long.  Here's a peek into our week.

This week we read a cute monster story that is in our reading program called Start the Show. It's about 100 monsters so we made monsters. They loved this project and the monsters they made were so cute. I got the patterns for the monsters from Joan Orchard at www.somewhatsimple.com

We also focused on the 3 sounds of /ed/ this week in reading. The monsters in our story hunted, mended, started, rested.... you get the picture, right?  Then I needed to teached the other 2 sounds of ed, /d/ and /t/.  Fortunately I had already made posters and bingo boards last year so I pulled those out and we went to work. Next week we will be using the word sorts in this unit to help reinforce this skill. You can purchase this packet by CLICKING HERE!

This week we had another Mystery Reader! It was a parent from my class and I was so pleased because he didn't tell his daughter that he was coming! It was a mystery for everyone!

RAIN

It rained every day this week and all of you teachers know what that means.......INDOOR RECESS! We did our best but boy do they get wiggly when they can't get outside and run around.

Since we couldn't get our wiggles out I decided they needed something that would really motivate them for learning. We started subtraction this week and I decided I would teach them subtraction with Fruit Loops!!! They absolutely loved it! On the first day I told them to build 8 with their Fruit Loops. Then I told them to eat 4. You should have seen their eyes! My kiddos suddenly sat up a little straighter and quickly became engaged with subtraction. I made task cards that we used to play Scoot. They carried their Fruit Loops in a baggie with a label on them.

We also made a Fruit Loop Subtraction book. They built a number, then covered over the amount of Fruit Loops that needed to disappear.

If you would like to purchase my Fruit Loop Subtraction Unit, you can purchase it by CLICKING HERE

It's a Giveaway!

I'm joining up with Fran at Primary Essentials for a big Giveaway!  Check out all the great prizes donated by TeacherPayTeacher Sellers!

I'm so stinkin' excited about reaching such a awesome goal!! 500 TPT followers!! Really??? For me?? YaY! 

Last week my TPT store reached 500 followers.  To celebrate many TPT store owners donated items to my giveaway celebration.  There are four giveaways: three K-2 and one 3-5.  Check out all the great goodies below and use the Rafflecopters to enter all the giveaways!

The Following TPT stores donated to this giveaway:

Primary Essentials

Sara Frampton

Chelsey West Andrews

TheHappyTeacher

iHeart Teaching

A Grace-Gilled Classroom

Christine Maxwell

Teaching Tykes

Powerpoint Gaming

Mrs. Roltgen

Teaching Superkids

The Following TPT stores donated to this giveaway:

Primary Essentials

Elementary Creations

KB3Teach

Georgia Peach Teacher

Countless Smart Cookies

Joyful Projections

Just Ask Judy

Nancy Strout

Laughing in Second

The Chocolate Teacher

The Pioneer Teacher

The Following TPT stores donated to this giveaway:

Primary Essentials

Brittani Black

Isla Hearts Teaching

Cahill's Creations

Miss Stedman's Class

Partyin' with Primaries

Gluesticks 'N Giggles

Amy N

The Teaching Treehouse

Easy Teaching Tools

The Following TPT stores donated to this giveaway:

Primary Essentials

Everything Just So

Music in the Middle with Mr. D

Mr. Peterson

Mrs. Schlachter

Pam's Place

Carol's Garden

Jan Gervais

Michelle Dupuis

A Plus Kids 

Let's be honest as you enter these giveaways.  You actually need to already be a follower or become a new follower for each category.  Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway a Rafflecopter giveaway a Rafflecopter giveaway a Rafflecopter giveaway

That's all I've got!  I'll see you around the blogging world!

Five for Friday! A Linky Party!

Wow! What a busy week. I, for one, am glad it is Friday and it's a long weekend to 

boot. Yay! Today I'm linking up for Five for Friday with Doodlebugs. Here's what was 

happening in our room this week.

This week we have been working on sums of 10. My kiddos used my pumpkin task cards to play Scoot. Each card had a math problem with a missing addend and the sum was 10. We are still getting the hang of Scoot but I must say, they ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!

Have you all heard about Heidi's Songs? I love them for teaching Phonics! When it comes to teaching sounds Heidi has a song for it. I was fortunate to meet Heidi at a SDE Conference last year. My kids love her songs and when I teach a sound using one of her songs they never forget the sound. This week we used her /ar/ as in Pirate song and /er/, /ir/, and /ur/ Mr. Tiger song. 

We also went on a treasure hunt looking for ar words. Once we found all the words it led to a treasure chest filled with candy bars! Then we made these cute pirates.

Every week I partner with our 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Waugh, and we invite a Mystery Reader to our classroom to read to our students. Our kiddos have no idea who is coming to read. Our mystery guest could be another teacher, principal, board member, parent, grandparent, or someone from the community. We encourage our guest readers to bring a few of their favorite stories to share with us. This week our guest reader was the dad of one of my students who is also a teacher at our school. His son had no idea that his dad was going to read to us but he was very happy when he found out. One of the books that he brought was Blueberries for Sal. One of my many favorites.

We have been working on sums of 10 for a few weeks now and this week we learned this cute song. I only have 10 students, so I broke my class up into two groups. One group picked a number between 0-10 and sang the first two lines of the song filling in the blank with the number they picked. Then the other group huddled together to figure out how much they would need. Then they sang the last four lines back to the first group. This was such a fun activity! I loved watching them as their little minds went to work solving the problem. The song is not an original of mine. I found it online a while back. Here is a copy of the song. 

Last but not least, is our trip to the farm. We have been studying animals for about 3-4 weeks and it was time for a field trip. We visited a local farm and saw lots of animals, went on a wagon ride, and had a yummy ice cream snack. Then when we returned from the field trip we did a writing activity.

Happy Friday 

and have a great weekend! 

Math With My Firsties!!!!!

Don't you love it when everything goes as planned??? I have been creating and tweaking this Math Unit for over a year. I want my kiddos to be critical thinkers but I also want them to know their math facts. One of my goals is for them to know their math facts to 18, addition and subtraction. Last year we did a one minute math assessment almost everyday and I was amazed at how well they did! They improved week after week. I was thrilled to hear from their second grade teacher that they were scoring very high on their assessments this year. Yay!!! Another goal I have is to be more mindful of teaching math vocabulary and to teach them to be critical thinkers. So far, we are off to a great start.

We have been working on addition facts. I've been using the Smartboard to introduce what addends equal the sum of 6. Of course my kiddos are always excited and engaged when we use the Smartboard. For this lesson I put an interactive die and a blank die on my SB along with a circle. My kiddos took turns coming to the board and  rolling the die. Then they moved circles onto the blank die until they had a total of six. Then they wrote the number sentence below it.

Techie Tip: Give your kiddos a large pompom when writing on the SB. I found they struggled writing with the markers. Now I put a marker in my pocket so that when they write with the pompom it works!

Another activity we did this week was Don't Spill the Beans. They loved it! I used some old play dough containers that I had saved and made some cute labels for them.

Then I put in some bean counters I had purchased. I put 6 beans in each container.

I used this response sheet for them to write their number sentences on. You can get a freebie by clicking here!

I also did an activity with missing addends. I gave each group of 2-3 some cards, 0-9. Then I gave them a game card that had two missing addends with a sum of 7. They had to find two cards that would equal 7. Then they put their number sentence on their response sheet. They loved the kitty cards I made!! They are sooo cute! The clipart is from Melonheadz!

Along with hands on activities I have been doing one minute assessments every day. Everyone gets a math sheet with 20 problems that they have to do within a minute. I start off with 3's. It's only addition in the beginning and they equal 3 or less. Once they are able to do 20 problems in a minute, with 100% accuracy, they move on to 4's. This is done as a group activity but each student is at their own level.

All of these ideas are available in my Number Sense Unit. It is over 250 pages long and filled with lots of hands on activities. You can get it by clicking here!