Weekly Math Tubs

Ten Frame Toss Up
The students matched the ten frame card (bus) to the numeral card (school).  There is a recording sheet to dole them accountable but I didn't use it this time around.


You can find this activity in this pack, Back to School Activities by the Printable Princess.

Subitizing Pumpkins
Student matched the numeral card with the ten frame.

You can find this activity in this pack, Subitizing Pumpkin by Patty Rutenbar.

Ten Little Pumpkins
The students counted mini pumpkin erasers (from Target) onto the mats to match the numerals.

You can find this activity in this pack, Pumpkin Sorting Fun by Kroger's Kindergarten.

Frankie Roll and Cover
The students roll two dice and cover up that number with a Frankenstein head eraser (from Target).

You can download this FREEBIE here!

Colorful Cats Counting
Students spin and then build the number using cat erasers (from Target).

You can download this FREEBIE here!

Weekly Math Tubs (with Freebies)

The last year was a rough year for me in all parts of my life.  Part of that was letting this blog go.  I am hopeful to start blogging what I am doing in my room more. 

So to jump in, I wanted to share my math tubs with you for this week.  Each week I have 5 math tubs that rotate to each table on different days.  We start our day with math so this gets us going as son as the bell rings.  I try to vary what is in the tubs as far as skills go.  The beginning of the year is a lot of counting practice.

Here is what my kids did this week:

How Many Spiders?

My students counted spider rings (Dollar Tree) onto the the X's and then used dry erase markers to write the numeral to match the amount.

You can find this activity in this pack, Halloween Math by A Special Kind of Class.

Missing Ghosts
My students used dry erase markers to write the number that is missing in the sequence.

You can find this activity in this pack, Halloween Math by A Special Kind of Class.

Pumpkins on the Fence
My students used pumpkin erasers (Target Dollar Spot) to count out onto the mats.  You could easily do orange playdough balls or pompoms as well.

You can find this activity in this pack, Halloween Math by A Special Kind of Class.

Colorful Cats Spin and Graph
My students used cat head erasers (Target Dollar Spot) to spin and create a graph.  The spinners I use can be found here.

You can download this FREEBIE here.

Frankie Ten Frame
My students used Frankenstein erasers (Target Dollar Spot) to spin and then count that many Frankensteins.  The spinners I use can be found here.

You can download this FREEBIE here.

I hope your kids love these games as much as mine do!!

Cubby Storage

As I enter my 13th year of teaching, I am finding myself more limited by restrictions as to what I can and can't do.  Many of the "fun" things I have done in the past are no longer fit our daily lesson expectations.  This has left me feeling less creativity and excited about my teaching.  That in turn made me feel like I had nothing worthwhile to blog about.  I realize that maybe if I strive to find the things I can still do, it will bring my enthusiasm back.  Blogging about my ideas will help me look for those things.

So without further ado, I thought I would shown some Dollar Tree and Target finds for organization.  I have these cubby spaces above my students coat hooks.  In the past, I had cheap plastic tubs from Walmart in these but they only went partially up for height.  I wanted the nice collapsible cloth containers but at $5 a pop, there was no way that was happening with 26 cubbies to fill.

While browsing at Dollar Tree, I found these in the Spring that are finally full size.  At only $1, this was definitely my sign!  When I got mine they only had blue, orange, green, and pink (and some tan and grey).  So I stocked up on those colors.  Now they appear to have more colors....online at least!

Then I needed a way to label them because I am very OCD and can't handle it to NOT be labeled.  I tried my normal labels and taping them on.  Fortunately they kept falling off.  I thought about pinning them on but didn't love that idea.  When perusing the "Dollar Spot" at Target, I found these mini clothespin chalkboard tags.  It took me a couple of tries at a couple of Targets to find enough but I was finally successful. (I added the UPC in case that helps you track them down.)

Using a Silver Sharpie, I added the names to the chalkboards and viola!  I am happy with how my new cubby area looks and it was much cheaper than it would have been in the past!

Teaching Kindness

There has been so much going on.  I now have a 3rd grader and and Kindergartener!  Where has time gone.  Between dance, piano, taekwondo, Girls on the Run, and other activities we have been beyond busy.

With everything going on, we wanted to bring our kiddos back to thinking about others.  After some thinking and a LOT of googling, I found this great idea over at TeachMama.  It is a 25 day countdown about the true meaning of the holiday.

I am giving my kiddos the same challenge of the day.  I remind them about their challenge if I see them during the day.  They tape it to their desk at school to remind themselves.  At dinner, we are talking about what all of us did to meet that challenge and think about others for the day.  They are LOVING this!

I am also doing this in the classroom.  I am introducing the challenge of the day in the morning and we are talking about them at the end of the day to see how we did.  I am hoping this gets us all thinking a little more about other people around us.

I highly recommend heading over to TeachMama to grab this FREEBIE to enjoy with your students!

So what have you done for someone else today??

Currently September

So it's not technically September here but I've been reading the Currently linky for a long time so I thought I might as well try it out.  I am linking up with Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade.

Listening....to a thunderstorm.  It came on really fast and has been going on for over an hour now.  I do love the sound of rain.

Loving...an extra day at home.  That's right.  I will actually get to sleep on a Sunday without having a million things running through my head that I need to worry about for the next day.  Plus I get to hang out with my own kids for an extra day and with them you never know what will happen.

Thinking...about the lesson plans I should be doing rather than this : )

Wanting...my hubby to be back home.  He's off in Minnesota at a Rennaisance Faire.  He's a pirate in a band.  Yep, it's for real.

Needing...motivation to do the lesson plans that I am avoiding.  Including sub plans for Tuesday.  Yep, sub plans...after a three day weekend...in Kindergarten...on day 14 of school.  Thankfully I have an awesome sub to leave them with while I do a math training.

3 trips...Ireland, Australia, Africa...no real reasons behind any of them.  Just places I haven't been and seem like they would be neat to visit and say I have seen.

So that's me currently.  Hop over to Farley's to see what everyone else is up to.  And hopefully I will be back soon!

First Day of School

It's that stressful time of year.  Tomorrow is our first day back.  I get to meet everyone and run around like crazy all.day.long.  But it is so worth it.

I don't know about you but we will be reading Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes and watching the video.  We will also go on a scavenger hunt around our school to get to know where everything is that is Pete the Cat theme. 

With all of our Pete the Cat fun, I was so excited to find this freebie from Live Love Laugh Kindergarten.  It has a cute first day certificate and a hat for the kids to make!  I LOVE IT!!  Please go check it out.  You won't be disappointed!

Hopefully I will be back to share some more soon!  Enjoy your first days!

Book Talk Tuesday

So it's been a long time.  Hopefully I will get better about sharing on here this year.

Have you seen the link up over at Mrs. Jump's Class?  I LOVE finding new books so I have been watching this link up all summer.

I wanted to share one my favorite books to use.

Chalk by Bill Thomson is an amazing wordless picture book.  The quick version of the story is that a group of children find a bag of chalk at a playground.  When they start to draw with it, their chalk drawings become real.  It is a lot of fun until someone draws a dinosaur.  Then they get creative on how to get rid of it.  I enjoy talking about how these kids were really using their imaginations and problem solving skills.

The illustrations are breathtaking.  I use this book a lot when we do our in depth illustration study.  I love to show how Bill Thomson made the pictures look as real as possible.  

We talk about all of the details that are included in the picture (the background, the weather, etc.)  

I also LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the emotions shown through the pictures in this book.

If you have never seen this book, you should check it out.  You will not be disappointed.

What are your favorite children's books?