Saxon Math FREEBIE!

It's still H.O.T. in Missouri ~ 107 degrees today!  I was going through all my math stuff today and thought I would share my printable math calendar pages I created to go along with our Saxon Math Meeting.  I know many of you do not teach Saxon but if you use any of these same components, these pages might work for you.  If you teach Saxon (1st Grade) then this should be perfect!

Last year, I found that my kiddos needed something more to keep them engaged during our math meeting.  We started using white boards - but some aspects were hard for them to do on a blank white board and then I saw lots of doodling... SO - I came up with these pages to help keep them engaged, on track, and as a nice reference for many of my kiddos - especially my intervention students.  I used these two pages copied front to back for the first 40 lessons:

After the first 40 lessons - I began using one page with all the calendar components.  To save paper, I placed these pages in plastic sleeves and students used (skinny) dry erase markers to interact with their calendar page.  It definitely helped keep my kiddos on track, focused and my intervention students loved having the resources at their fingertips to answer questions and follow along.  Click on any of the pictures to download for FREE!

I'm not sure how many Saxon Math users are out there ~ but I hope you find this to be a good resource.  I would love to hear your thoughts!  My TPT 20% off sale ends tonight, Friday, July 6th at midnight.  Have a wonderful weekend and stay COOL! 

Sums of 10 Lickety Split ~ Freebie!

Our class has been working on adding sums of 10.  I really want my students to be fluent with these facts.  I tell them all the time they should know their facts "Lickety Split".  So, I made up a game to help them practice.  There are several ways you can play this game, however, we started out like this.  I made a target on our whiteboard with 10 in the middle. I explained to them that 10 is our target - we need to add 2 numbers to make 10.  I then put numbers from 2 to 9 around the outside edge of the target and chose a student to come up to the board.  The rest of my class had the same target at their desk.  I put them in plastic sleeves so they could use a dry erase marker to write on and wipe clean easily.  The class will be racing against the student at the board to try and fill in their target first.  When a student has their target filled in (whether they are at the board or at their seats) they yell "Lickety Split"!  If all of their answers are correct - they win!  The students erase their sleeves and I pick a different student to come to the board.  If the student at the board wins - they get to stay at the board until someone at their seat beats them. I hope that made sense. ??  Here is a picture of one of the targets in a sleeve using a dry erase marker:

After we played several games using this target, I decided to create some different targets with the numbers in random places.  This way I could give students different game boards and those with wandering eyes couldn't just write down their neighbors numbers.  They HAD to concentrate on their target.  They loved trying to be the first one to say "lickety split".  I have also had two students say "lickety split" at the same time.  That's ok... we can have a tie! I let one person go to the whiteboard and the other person use our smartboard.  It gets quite competitive but I have seen great improvements in the fluency of these facts.  I also place these targets in one of our math tubs with a sand timer and students can race against the timer or each other.  

If you are interested in trying this game with your students, I recently uploaded this game for FREE at my TPT store.  Click on one of the pictures below or go to my store using the link on my sidebar.

I would love to hear what you think about this game!  I hope you can use it with your kiddos too!  I love my students to know their facts "Lickety Split"!!  

Apple Activity Freebies

As I planned out the week, I decided to make a few apple activities to go along with what we will be learning.  I purchased Mrs. Magee's Johnny Appleseed Unit and can't wait to  do all the activities with my first graders.  If you haven't checked it out you should.   This week we will be making applesauce, taste testing a variety of apples, try apple juice, make our own little apple pies, and try apple cider.  We will then graph our results about which apple item is our favorite (which is included in her unit).  I will be taking lots of pictures this week since it is Spirit Week. We have lots of dress up days to add to the excitement!

Here are the apple activities I created. They are nothing fabulous, but thought I would share.  Just click on the picture to download.

I decided to create a rhyming word coloring page to go along with our -ump word family this week.  I also made a word activity page based on our last few word families.  Students have to read the word and figure out if the word is a real or non-sense word.  I made two versions to differentiate for students who are ready to read blends and digraphs.  I also whipped up another word activity to see how many words students can make using the letters in the word apples.  I love the book by Dr. Seuss - Ten Apples on Top.  So I thought why not Ten Worms on Top?  I thought my students could show different ways to make ten by drawing and recording their problems.  I found a great resource at mathwire.com that allows students to use ten frames to help organize ways to make ten. I will have them use this first before they make their worms.

I absolutely love the fall weather and hope it stays this way for a while.  I'm looking forward to all the apple activities and I hope you all have a fabulous and fun week!  

Math Stations and Math Cards Freebie

Math stations are up and running and I want to share some pictures of how our first full week of stations went.  I introduced our pocket chart and our numbered tubs for our stations.

I wanted to put the kids pictures on their cards, but for now just wrote their names.  I made number cards to match all of our tubs.  I also have Meet the Teacher cards but will not use those until we are working efficiently in our stations. I will post these cards as a freebie if you are interested at the end of this post.  I was able to walk around and observe students working.  Here is a picture of our math tubs - labeled 1-10.

Here are a few of the stations we were working at this week.  The first few stations were making patterns with linking cubes.

Another station was rolling a die and coloring that amount of boxes on their recording sheets.  Partners were taking turns to see who would reach 100 first. 

I hate how are desks are old and mismatched...but even more they seem to twist and turn throughout the day.  I'm constantly squaring them up again.  Anyone know any tricks to keep your desks in pods?  See the orange cone on the desk in the background.  I use these as a classroom management tool. I will post about those later. 

Another station was using pattern blocks to create any shape.  Students had to record the shape they made and then count the number of shapes in their pattern.  At the end, they count the total number of shapes they used.  Take a look:



Another pair of students are playing a "Go Monkey" game, similar to go fish except they are matching number words to numbers and tally marks to ten frames.  Great practice and math talk happening at this station.

Another pair  of students used dominoes to record numbers and add them across.

And finally our number writing folders are a big hit.  Students must write their numbers from 1-100 and then they will get a new page to continue on to 200.  It will be stapled on top.  Students cannot move on if any numbers are written backwards or out of sequence.  I highlight these and they go back and fix them before moving on to the next sheet.  Last year I had a student make it to 1,000!  She was so excited.

At the beginning of this post I said I would share the number cards I use in my math station pocket chart.  Here they are! 

How are your math stations coming along? 

First Day Math Explorations

Today was our first day of school.  We did lots of getting to know you activities, rules and procedures, smartboard activities - just to get the hang of using it - read alouds and discussions... but toward the end of the day I planned 4 math station rotations to explore some math manipulatives.  Even though it was fun for the kids, I can gather a lot of information from the way the kids use these manipulatives.  We had a pattern block station, dominoes, unifix cubes and large foam dice station.  As my students "played" I noticed some of the patterns they were creating.  We did not use any templates so I was impressed to see some of the awesome patterns.  Take a look:

At our dice station, I gave students a piece of blank paper and a pencil and they could roll the dice and write numbers or write numbers after adding the dice together.  I really left it open just to see what my kiddos would do.  Here are the dice I used:

Here are a couple samples. I was so impressed to get this:

I also saw students just writing numbers after they rolled:



I really enjoy walking around and observing my first graders so I can see where students are so I can meet them at their level and build upon their prior knowledge.  All in all, our first day went well.  I can't wait to see what our second day has in store!  Smiles ~

Place Value Poem ~ Freebie!

I have been updating some files for the new school year and here is one that I just made into a document.  I used this last year and wrote this poem on chart paper for us to refer to when we were working with place value and then again when we started double digit addition.  It really helped some of my kiddos to remember to always start in the ones place.  I did not make this up... I can't remember where I found it - maybe a mailbox magazine? If you know who wrote it, let me know so I can give the proper credit.  If you would like a copy of the poem click HERE.

I have some other things I've been working on too and will gladly share also when I finish, in case it will work for your classroom.  For now, I'm off to CARS2 - taking my 3 kids to the show this afternoon.

OH - and I want to thank Dee Dee Wills of Mrs. Wills Kindergarten for giving me a shout-out about my blog last night!  I appreciate her kind words.  Isn't she the greatest?

Smiles ~ 

Smilemakers makes me SMILE!

SO ~ I just placed my annual order to smilemakers... lots of fun stuff but I just LOVE their stickers.  While I was shopping around I came across these:

Even though I have fallen a bit behind in the Math Work Stations book study, I loved the idea of the using the hundreds charts puzzles.  When I ran across these boards I was a little excited because it offers 6 different double sided puzzles that increase in difficulty. {I'm thinking DIFFERENTIATION} AND if you flip them over they all have a blank hundreds chart that you can use with dry erase markers for quick assesments or one-one practice.  It also comes with a guide for intervention strategies.  It is listed for Kindergarten and up.  Needless to say I added them to my order so I hope it was a good purchase.  Has anyone else seen or used these before?  I will let you know how it goes as I introduce them this fall. SMILES~

New Math Curriculum ~ SAXON.

So yesterday I decide to go by school to pick up my new teacher guides and check out the new math series our district just purchased for K-3.  Here is what was waiting for me:

There were 7 boxes of stuff... plus crates to put things in.  I started with OPEN THIS BOX FIRST.  So I found out there are 135 lessons and crates to put all the lessons into ~ GREAT... because my file cabinets are pretty full.  The 3 boxes you see on the right are ALL worksheets.  I started putting the worksheets into the folders and filled each crate... here is what it looked like after about an hour and a half:

Each crate has a lid and you stack them on a base that has wheels.  There is a small crate that goes on top to hold learning wrapups and other small manipulatives.  After I put it all together, I rolled it down to my classroom. 

I am very nervous about the meeting board.  The dimensions are outrageous and I have very LIMITED space in my classroom.  I don't have any large bulleting boards and my smartboard is right in the middle of my front wall.  Where am I going to put this?  I wish I had the space like Ms. Van Orman of First Grade Fun:

 

Her board looks AMAZING!  However, I just DO NOT have the room.  Just to prove it to you I will post some pictures of my classroom last year.

Here is a picture of my classroom from the door.  I will be changing LOTS of things this next year...PLUS my room has been painted including a new accent wall. (YAY)!!  But this will give you the general idea of the room in my classroom.  The window wall has shelves built in so I could not put it on that wall due to the kids cannot reach it or be interactive. 

I know what you are thinking... what about the back wall where the moose and bookshelf are now?  Well another addition to my classroom ~ a new whiteboard takes up that wall that is 4ft by 8 ft.  Here is another view of my classroom looking back the other direction.

NO room here!  You can see at the left corner I put my word wall on my cabinet doors last year.  I REALLY didn't like this and have now decided to put my word wall on my new magnetic white board at the back of the room... to allow for a more interactive WW.  But, I may have to use the new whiteboard for my SAXON meeting area.

My question is... teachers who are using Saxon... Could the meeting board be made for the smartboard and be interactive so that it does not take up so much space?  Does that go against the whole SAXON philosophy?  I just think if we have this technology available, the students could do the whole meeting process on the smartboard.  I have searched thinking that someone might have had the same idea and made a Saxon Meeting Board into a notebook file.  No such luck {sob}.  If anyone has ideas, I would LOVE to hear them.  Thanks ~ in advance!