Head Hunter

I'm not sure what I ever did with my free time before Pinterest...

A few days ago I pinned this activity from Hurray for FDK! on my Teaching Reading board and as I was driving to school today I decided it was necessary that I do this with my kiddos effective, today...So I quickly whipped together a list of the students in my classroom and some generic "Long I" words...Please excuse the font selection and lack of any graphic design. I taped these words to their heads (and by tape, clearly I mean packaging tape) and each student had to figure out by process of elimination which word was left on their head.

If you are looking for some better pictures, just head on over (no pun intended) to Hurray for FDK! I giggled quite a few times when I was walking around snapping photos. My girls here ganged up on me and asked to see the pic after I took it..."Hahaha Miss A, we know our word NOW!" 

Then there's Aidan...who always photo bombs my pics! I heart him.

I'm working on creating a math version of this for my kiddos that I will post when it's completed. Probably won't happen until spring break here in two more weeks...Got to survive assessments and report cards this week! 

Happy Monday bloggy friends.

Teaching in High Heels

Today we are guest blogging for Gladys at Teaching in High Heels! Head on over to check out our post!



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3.14 (Pi Day)

This post will probably only be of interest to a few of you...

...my fellow math geeks who know that March 14th is "Pi Day"! Of course I am going to read, "Sir Cumference and the Round Table" and "Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi"...

...but I am also going to do a mini lesson teaching my firsties how to find the diameter and circumference. You can grab a free copy of the template I am going to use (below). I haven't decided if I am going to have my kids use round food or some lids I have laying around...perhaps I won't use any of those either? Because of my indecisiveness, there are three pages! 

Happy 3.14!

If you have any other ways you are going to celebrate 3.14.12, please send it my way!

Math "Egg"stravaganza

So last year Team Schappel created a Math "Egg"stravaganza with second graders...It was such a big hit, we've decided to do it again with our first graders. (Unfortunately I didn't take any pics last year...Surprise, suprise!) So what is this "egg"stravaganza all about? We'll sit down if you're not already...and I'll tell you!

Last year we came up with three different activity pages, each of a varying level (grade-level, challenge, and super challenge) with six math questions on each. Before hand, we selected the page that each student would use for this egg hunt..you'll understand why in a bit!

Our fanastic parents donated the small plastic eggs, candy, and various trinkets...Once all of the eggs were stuffed, we wrote the answers to the problems on the outside of the eggs. Since we knew which questions the students were going to be completing, it was easy to know how many of each egg we needed! 

Get the FREEBIE Download Here!

This year our first graders will be completing six problems, but instead of chosing between three different activity pages...We will be choosing between five activity pages! And because I love my readers so much {yes, I am talking about you} I'm posting them incase you'd like to use it yourself! There is a sample letter to the parents, five different math activity pages, and an answer key! I promise I will take some pictures this year... 

Pinning

We're breaking the "Blogger Rules" to post a 2nd time today! My bad. There's a new issue going around with Pinterest because of a line in their terms that says you agree to only pin your OWN images or those images you've been given permission to pin. Teacher bloggers are granting permission through their blogs and the red pin button you know see over on the left side of our page. You can find out more by clicking the button.  

We think Pinterst is a great way to share products, freebies, and ideas. Please feel free to pin directly from our blog 'til your hearts content...But please remember to site the original source! :)

Fact Families and Then Some...

I feel like this is a reoccurring blog theme post, "Well, it's been awhile"...and well, it has been. I had every intention of posting what's been going on during the past week and a half, but my sinuses disagreed with that idea. I've been laying on my couch for the past 2 days thinking about getting the energy to blog. Translation: I've been watching Bravo 24-7 and pinning like it's my job.


Last week we spent quite a bit of time working on fact families. My kids were having a difficult time with simple subtraction problems...We're still making the connection that addition problems can help us with the subtraction problems! 

Freebie Download

In Everyday Math first graders are introduced to "In and Out Machines" which I forgot about since my school is using Investigations...I saw this pic on Pinterst and decided I'd have my kiddos engineer some machines of their own! Their machines are in the process of being laminated so that we can use them with dry erase markers for some practice each day.

I also found this resource and was excited to use the "Number Bonds" blank template. It's the same idea as the fact family triangle, just a little change of pace...  

Number Bonds

On a different note...This year I have some really strong readers, which I am NOT used to! It's a good problem to have! They can handle pretty much anything I put in front of them, but are struggling a bit with multi-syllabic words. Steve handed me a couple books on Friday and the geek in me can't wait to try it out tomorrow! It has about 30 scripted lessons (which usually makes me want to vomit) with accompanying student activity sheets. I'll let you know how it goes this week, but curious if any of you have tried it????

REWARDS

That's it for now...but check back soon, for Steve and I are working on a "Read-O" for each month of the school year that is sequentially created around the K-1 Common Core Standards!