I'M SUCH A SLACKER!

Hey, y'all.  Sorry I have not posted anything lately.  (Not that anyone is just waiting for my words of wisdom or great ideas or anything.)  We just finished our 7th week of school and I am bushed!  I always forget how much work the beginning of the school year is, but I start remembering really quickly.  Anyway, I hope to post some pics of our literacy work stations this next week.  Plus, we are learning about apples and pumpkins, so I will try to post some pics of some of our favorite activities.  I hope you all are having a great year so far.  Remember, it will get easier.  Keep repeating that and see if it helps. :-)

Math Work Stations

I am so excited to try Math Work Stations this year!  I just love Debbie Diller and her books.  I had bought her Literacy Work Stations book several years ago and used them in my class.  They have worked wonderfully!  This summer, I bought her Math Work Stations book.  If you haven't checked it out, I would encourage you to.  It is awesome!

We are in our 3rd week of doing them, and the students are doing great.  There are 5 types of work stations:  beginning number concepts, addition/subtraction, place value, geometry, and measurement.  I do 2 different activities for each station for a total of 10 work stations.  Here is my work station chart for my kiddos.

Using simple numbers for each station is easier than having a card with the name of the work station.  I also use a storage system that is labeled with the numbers for easy matching.  Here is where I store my math work station materials.

Students simply find their picture to start.  The 2 numbers next to them are the 2 work stations they will do for the day.  My students do 2 math work stations per day so every student gets to do them all during the week. 

Here are some of the activities my students have done this week.

For place value, I have 2 students play Race to 100.  Students take turns rolling a dice and adding that many cubes to the place value mat on the 1s side.  Whenever a student gets 10, he joins the 10 cubes together and moves them to the 10s side.  The first person to reach 100 is the winner.  You can also play this game with pennies and dimes.

Hint:  It is important for the students to have different-colored cubes.  Less confusion that way.

A really fun activity for the kids is playing Odd or Even? with a ladybug mat and black cubes.  Students roll 2 die and add the numbers together.  They place that many black cubes on the ladybug mat in groups of 2.  If the number is odd, they write the number on the side of the ladybug mat labeled odd.  If the number is even, they write the number on the side of the ladybug mat labeled even.  This is a great activity for visual learners.

For a geometry activity this week students used shapes to make insects.  Not sure what kind this is, but it's cute, don't you think? :-)

For addition, students worked on acting out addition problems with insect counters.

Students love doing this activity.  There are several cards to choose from that fit into this 100s chart tray.  Students choose one and try to decide where the numbers go.  It has become a game to try to get all 100 number tiles in there before time is up.

There are a lot of great activities in Debbie Diller's book, and I will be trying them all before the year is out.  I hope you all enjoyed the pics.  Have a great day!

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

We have started our study of insects, which goes perfectly with our Eric Carle study.  He has done a lot of stories about insects:  The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Very Quiet Cricket, The Grouchy Ladybug, etc.  We started our study by learning the parts of the insect.  We learned the song "Head, Thorax, and Abdomen" by Dr. Jean.  It is sung to the tune of "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes."  Try getting that song out of your head after singing it all day. ;-)Then we used candy and other food items to make a model of insects.  Here are some of our insects.

Eric Carle Art Activity

After finishing our Colors unit, we move on to our Eric Carle author study.  The first Eric Carle book I ever bought was Draw Me a Star when I was doing my student teaching.  I found a great activity to do at http://www.ericcarle.com/ a few years ago, and it has become a student favorite every year. 

First, we read the story.  Then I give every child a square of aluminum foil.  I let them select the color or tempera paint they want to paint their foil and they finger paint the sheet.  We do this the 1st day and let it dry overnight.  The next day, I give each child a copy of a star printed on white cardstock.  The children cut it out and spread bottle glue all over one side of the star.  I give students a small piece of aluminum foil in each color.  They then tear small pieces of painted aluminum foil  and press it onto the glue until the whole side is covered. I try to get students to not leave any white spots in between the colors, but some do better than others.  We let them dry overnight and repeat with the other side the next day.  After letting them dry completely, we hang them up around the room for the rest of the year.  They look just like Eric Carle's art technique, don't you think?