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"!!  

Leprechaun Twist and Super Scientist in Full Swing!

So I know it's been forever since I've posted, and I could tell you all about my horribly busy life...(teacher, mother, student, wife, etc.) - so pretend I did {Blah, Blah, Blah} - Now I feel better! :)

I just had to share these Leprechaun posters we did when we returned from Spring Break.  The wanted posters are from Erica Bohrer and you can find them here.  Instead of drawing a picture this year, my kiddos dressed up as leprechauns.  Yep!  I bought a green plastic hat, bow tie, shamrock sunglasses, and some stick on beards and my students were transformed!  We laughed so hard and had so much fun taking these pictures. Here are some of my students  leprechauns!

Even the GIRLS wanted the beard and mustache! 

I printed out their pictures, cut them to fit the poster and they loved writing about the wanted leprechaun (themselves)!

I wanted to share some photos of my SUPER scientists (and I do mean SUPER)!  I am amazed every year at how excited and very serious my first graders are about their experiments.  If you would like to know more about the Super Scientist Experiments in my room, you can read my original post along with some freebies that accompany this project.  Now to see the magic:

  Erupting Volcano

Tornado in a Bottle

Oil Bubbles

Rising Heat

Magic Milk

Liquid Mix-Up

Screaming Glass

Acid Test

Dancing Raisins

Air Pressure Water Rocket

We still have many more left and they can't wait until it is their turn.  I love to see their eyes light up, and the "ooohs" and "ahhhs" and "wows" as they perform their experiments.  I hope to make a presentation with all my super scientist experiments so that students (and parents) will have a keepsake of all the awesome science experiments we did throughout the year.  

Tomorrow is Friday... Yay!  Going to see Hunger Games this weekend.  Any fans out there?  Can't wait!

Have you lost your rainbow?

Have you read the book "The Leprechaun Who Lost His Rainbow" by Sean Callahan?  We created some rainbows this week!  In this story, the leprechaun is named Roy G. Biv.  We talked about the colors of the rainbow and the order of the colors using this leprechaun's name.  The little girl in this story has to help Mr. Biv build a rainbow by putting items into his hat that match these colors.  When he has something for each color a rainbow magically appears out of his hat.  This story inspired me to create this fun writing prompt and craft that goes along with the story.  

The students had to think of items that belonged to them that were a color of the rainbow and write about it.  In the story, the little girl had to place one item that was very special to her that she did not want to give up, but sacrificed in order to make the rainbow. At the bottom of the paper, the students had to tell me which item was the most precious to them and why.  Here is a student example.  I apologize for the pics. I took them with my iphone and they are just not very good.  

Here they are lined up in the hall:

I guess it's time to take my snowflakes down.  They are clashing with our spring writing!

The kids enjoyed coming up with items they would put in the hat and what item they would sacrifice.  I have included the writing page I used below.  The kids loved this book and as soon as I put it back on our seasonal shelf, they were fighting over who gets to read it again first.  

On another note, our super scientists have been going great!  I can't wait to paste some pictures and information about what awesome scientists we have in first grade.  Happy Wednesday!

Dr. S Inspired -ink Word Family Freebie!

I know that Read Across America Week is over, but last week our word family was -ink.  I couldn't help but make a connection with the book "Oh the Thinks You Can Think"!  So we read the book and put together these funny little guys from the book.  I drew these on a piece of paper and then copied onto construction paper. 

Students then turned them over and wrote a silly sentence using their -ink words.  Here was my example:

Sorry for the crummy picture.  You don't actually realize how filthy your whiteboard is until you take a close-up picture.  Anyway, we tried to THINK of as many -ink words as we could.

Here was our chart of -ink words we thought of after reading the book:



After we created our chart the kids got to work making their "Think Characters".  We hung them from our clips from the ceiling so we could see our words and the sentences we created.  Here are a few examples of the kids work:

Here is another example.  I just loved the faces they put on these characters!

I scanned my drawings and placed them in google docs in case anyone would want to make these cuties with their kiddos.  The scanned images are not that great so I apologize for the quality but hope you can make it work if you like the idea. I can't believe tomorrow is already hump day!  Only 3 more days and then our Spring Break begins!  The weather here has been beautiful - sunny and 70 degrees!  Hope this beautiful weather continues into next week.  Have a great evening!

Click on either picture to download the patterns or click HERE!

A little behind...and some Dr. S fun!

I forgot to share these projects we did back during President's Day.  They turned out so cute I just had to share them. We read the book "If I Were President" by Catherine Stier and then wrote what they would do if they were President.  Then they decorated a picture of themselves to look very Presidential.  Here are a couple of the finished projects.

 If he were President, he would make the rules!

She signed her name Mrs. President!  Too cute!

Nice beard!

One of my favorites.  She added red marker to her lips for lipstick! 

So last week was Read Across America week and we celebrated Dr. Seuss' Birthday.  We had a little birthday snack made with these:

Our snack turned out like this and we sang Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss before we ate them!

One of the Kindergarten teachers made some Truffala Trees and decorated her door like the Lorax.  I just couldn't help but share since I thought it turned out so adorable!

Our word family this week was -ink.  We read the book "Oh the Thinks You can Think" by Dr. Seuss and made the cutest book character to write our -ink words on.  I forgot to take pictures of them but I will take some pictures next week and upload the patterns for them.  They turned out super cute!

We read "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss and then cooked up some delicious green eggs and ham of our own.  We graphed our results - if we liked them or not - but had to add a third category:  Liked the ham but not the eggs.  Here are some pictures of our day:

Yum!  We even added some cheese to our eggs.

Of Course, I had to eat them too... Here I am enjoying some Green Ham! Hope everyone had an awesome week.



Permission to Pin!

Thanks to Laura Candler for creating the Permission to Pin post that explains Pinterests Terms.  I absolutely LOVE Pinterest and have included a button in my sidebar that means you have my permission to pin anything from my blog.  I also have a link in my sidebar if you would like to follow me on Pinterest.  This is a super quick post but hopefully if you haven't heard you can go to the above post and read all about it!

Happy Pinning!