Search results matching tags 'math' and 'freebies'

Multiplication Boot Camp

Anonymous — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:26:00 GMT

Hello darlings! There are only five days of school left! Ahhh! While I am usually ecstatic and jumping for joy, this year I am sad. I think it has to do with losing my mom 2 months ago and the fact that these kids show me unconditional love everyday! I will miss all of their sweetness and whining! I just hope I can keep myself busy this summer and fill my mind with other things.

On a happier note, I finally finished Multiplication and Division Boot Camp!! OMG! This went so much better than I ever imagined! The kiddos LOVED it! One of my ~~kiddos~~ soldiers even told me today that she was so excited that she made Sergeant that she was all tingly inside!

So how does it work? I give soldiers a pretest to see which facts they already have mastered. Soldiers have daily drills (timed tests) and daily P.T. (homework with flashcards). They keep track of their progress with a graph. I am the Drill Sergeant, so I wear an army hat and get into character. They love this!

Next, soldiers have to complete missions (games and activities). You should see them! Some of the games require them to do push ups and jumping jacks! It is so funny, but they work really hard!

This mission requires a lot of strategy. Can you tell he is thinking hard?

Download this game for free! IF you like it, try out the rest of the unit in my TPT store by clicking here.

Have a great day!

Amy

Montessori-Inspired Flower Math Activities

Anonymous — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:00:00 GMT

By Deb Chitwood from Living Montessori Now

Last year, I had a post here with Montessori-Inspired April Showers Activities. Today, I decided to add some Montessori-inspired May flower activities. I used some great free printables I found online to create the activities.

The hands-on activities in this post are for preschoolers through first graders. You'll find many more activities for preschoolers through first graders throughout the year along with presentation ideas in my previous posts at PreK + K Sharing.

You can find my previous posts from 2012 easily in this post at Living Montessori Now: More Than a Year's Worth of Freebies and Montessori-Inspired Activities. You'll also find ideas for using free printables to create activity trays here: How to Use Printables to Create Montessori-Inspired Activities.

This post contains Montessori Services affiliate links (at no cost to you).

Roll and Build a Flower Activity

The Roll and Build a Flower Activity uses the Flower Unit {Expanded} from 2 Teaching Mommies. I just used an inexpensive wooden tray and a basket from a hobby store for the activity.

Leaves on the Flower Stem Counting Activity

This activity uses the Leaves on the Flower Stem Counting from Mr Printables. You could make this activity easily by printing out and laminating the 2-D printables. I had found 3 adorable little clay pots for $1 at the Dollar Tree, so I wanted to make a 3-D activity. The activity as I made it required delicate cutting after I printed and and laminated the printables.

Then I added Velcro circles to the numbered circles and the flower. I added Velcro circles to the leaves as well. I glued a bamboo skewer to the back of the stem so it would stand up, and I inserted the stem into the pot filed with black beans. The tray was an inexpensive tray from the grocery store. I used small containers to organize the numbered circles and the leaves.

You could make the activity a game by turning over the numbered circles and having the child draw a number before adding the leaves. The numbered circles could be 1-10 as in the photo or could be a smaller number of circles according to the child/children's age and ability.

The flower is rather fragile, so I wouldn't recommend this version for children who aren't able to handle a delicate flower. Of course, when children are told that a material is delicate and shown how to use it carefully, they'll often be extra careful.

Hundred Chart Art Flower

For this activity, I used another 2 Teaching Mommies printable - from Flower Unit {K Extension}. The flower in the photo is the control chart with the numbered chart and directions underneath it. I used glass gems from the hobby store and a small glass bowl from Montessori Services.

Although older children can use the activity as intended, younger children could simply place the matching colored gems on the colored squares on the control chart.

Grid Work Tulip

The grid work tulip uses Grid Work Tulip from Making Learning Fun. This is a fun introduction to grid work that will be useful later on in math. It's also a good way to emphasize number- and letter identification. I used mini glass gems and a glass candle coaster to organize the gems on the tray. I also used a sugar tong from Montessori Services for an added practical life activity.

Add the Flowers Activity

Add the Flowers printable is from 3 Dinosaurs' Spring Pack Update. I used glass candle coasters to organize plastic flower gems from the hobby store (Michaels).

You can find some ideas for presenting hands-on addition activities in my Montessori-Inspired One Fish, Two Fish Math Activities post. You'll also find ideas for counting, subtraction, and greater than/less than in my PreK + K Sharing posts. There are printables for those concepts as well in the 3 Dinosaurs pack, so you can choose the concept or concepts that are best for your child or students.

Place Value Flowers

Place Value Flower Pots is by Sarah Ridley at Teachers Pay Teachers. I added a felt mat and Montessori golden bead materials for hands-on decimal system work. Montessori-Inspired St. Patrick’s Day Math Activities also has a decimal system activity and resources for making your own bead bars.

More Free Printables

Go to my post at Living Montessori Now for links to more flower freebies from around the blogosphere: Free Flower Printables and Montessori-Inspired Flower Math Activities.

More Montessori-Inspired Spring Activities

For more Montessori-inspired spring activities, see my Montessori-Inspired Spring Themes and Activities post. If you'd like ideas for calendar-based themes throughout May, see May Themed Activities for Kids. Have a happy end of the school year!

Deb Chitwood is a certified Montessori teacher with a master’s degree in Early Childhood Studies from Sheffield Hallam University in Sheffield, England. Deb taught in Montessori schools in Iowa and Arizona before becoming owner/director/teacher of her own Montessori school in South Dakota. Later, she homeschooled her two children through high school. Deb is now a Montessori writer who lives in Colorado Springs with her husband of 38 years and their cat of 12 years. She blogs at Living Montessori Now.

Linked to Tuesday Tots, The Mommy Club Resources and Solutions at Milk and Cuddles and Crystal & Co., The Weekly Kid’s Co-op, Hearts for Home Blog Hop, TGIF Linky Party, Preschool Corner, Sharing Saturday, Saturday Show & Tell, Show-and-Share Saturday, The Sunday Showcase, Link & Learn, and Afterschool Express.

A BUNCH of Random Math FREEBIES!

Anonymous — Mon, 06 May 2013 00:33:00 GMT

Hello darlings! I am going to keep this short and sweet! It is getting to be the end of the year and I am in a sharing mood. Here are a bunch of random math resources I have used this year. I am only going to post one picture from each resources, but there are more pages in the downloads!!!!!

Math Vocabulary Posters

Addition Problem Solving Resources (11 pages)
Differentiated

Division Problem Solving

Division Quiz

Model Drawing Rubric for Singapore Math (check out my Singapore Posts for more info)

Enjoy!

What's Cookin' Wednesday (and related Fact Fun)

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 01:25:00 GMT

As many of you know, there's something about being in the kitchen that makes me giddy. I don't know if it's the smells of the good food, the family time that I enjoy while being in there, or if it's the small taste I get (remember I'm dieting now ;) )---but there's something about it. I love having my kiddos in there with me. Sometimes, though, I HATE the clean up! A couple weeks ago, they made a bar style cookie. They were called Can't Leave Them Alone bars. We made a batch, they took some over to our neighbors (who I think of like my grandparents), and we froze the rest. They freeze well, and they thawed out just in time for the kid's lunch at school. It was also a nice little snack right from the freezer with a glass of milk. :) Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of the final yumminess. I do have some pictures of my kiddos making it though ;)

He insists on doing it all by himself!

But sister had to help too. :)

He let her do the sweetened condensed milk while he dug into the chocolate chips!

Spreading the yummy melted chocolate over top.

This recipe would be simple enough to do in your classroom too if you have access to an oven. If cooking in the classroom with your students, there are MANY educational discussions to be had. :)
Math--fractions

Reading-reading a recipe, reading labels

Writing-Write a how to or writing using adjectives to describe

Science--baking is always science, right?

Health--food pyramid

I was once told by my old principal that I have a way of finding objectives to tie into the "fun stuff" we're doing. I hope that was a compliment! HAHA :)

If you'd like a copy of the recipe, you can click the image of the recipe below.

In school related news ;)

We are reviewing fact families and related facts. My students love to do dice games. I even get the big foam dice out as our intro to math lessons and let them take turns using them. They love it.

I thought this would become a fun morning work activity tomorrow (we have a music program tomorrow---so they're already going to be keyed up---need to keep things simple!) ;)

You can click the image below to grab the activity. :)

Happy Wednesday! :)

Monkey Around with Math for March

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 20:39:00 GMT

I loved math when I went to school and always had great math teachers. I have spent most of my time creating ELA materials although I do have one 1st Grade math packet filled with 10 math centers to help your students become fluent with their addition and subtraction math facts from 1-20. There is one game to review all their facts for addition and subtraction from 1-10 and then 10 games which are color coded to practice the addition and subtraction for the numbers 11-20. Here is the game board for all the games.

Here is a sample of the monkey and banana cards- You don't want to turn over a banana card!!Here is a sample of the playing 11 fact cards.

Of course your students will love to win the Top Banana Award!

If you'd like to check it out and see all the materials included in this 114 page packet, just click on the picture below. I have put it on sale until March 24th when I return from my vacation.

Last year I wrote some math problem freebies for March. They are some of the first products I put in my store and they are still free and great for Grades 1-2. They are aligned with the Math CCSS. Since I love to write stories and books I really enjoyed writing word problems. You can download your free March ones by clicking on each picture below.

So do you think I should keep writing word problems? Hope you'll leave me your thoughts.

Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students.

Positive and Negative Number Game

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 23:58:00 GMT

Last week, we were focusing on adding and subtracting integers. If you remember, I wrote a post about how I got the students to understand the process here, but they really seemed to need a bit more this year.

So after scouring the internet, I found this really fun game that cemented the idea for them. If you click here, you can get all the templates for FREE. Now, let me explain the game to you.

This was played in pairs. The students were each given a game board and recording sheet to share between the two. They then used some sort of marker (paper clips are the perfect size for this, but my students also used pieces of paper or eraser) Player 1 rolled the die. That told them how many spaces to move either up (if even) or down (if odd). Starting with a point total of 20 points each, the students then set up an addition problem and added their point total with the number they landed on.

For example, if the student rolled a 6, that meant they moved up 6 spaces. It put them on +2 (let's say) The student would add 20 + 2 for 22 total points. The next move, that player rolled a 5. They had to move down 5 spaces to put them on -3. The student then added 22 + (-3) for a total of 19.

The first player to 100 points is the winner.

The kids LOVED it! They were literally cheering when they got positive point totals. It was fun!

One thing that I would caution is that my students wanted to add the number they rolled instead of where they landed. So if they rolled a 2, they wanted to add 2. If they rolled a 1 they wanted to add (-1). When I noticed that, I had to redirect the entire class and put us all back on track. But they finally understood and we were on our way.

This game is now in my "May Do" center for Math Workshop. They are so happy :)

Snap Cube and Lego Centers!

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 18:08:00 GMT

It's so hard to find good, engaging centers to keep the kids moving and working! So I wanted to share with you some fun centers I created that involve developmentally appropriate practice and the academic rigor your administrators require!

Snap Cube Centers

These are fun centers using those snap cubes that sit in a bin in the corner of your room! You know... those blocks that every time they get brought out get turned into snap cube guns.. I HATE that sound - kids playing guns!

So how it works is the kids get a card with an image on it. They have to count how many blocks it took to make the pieces to those images to recreate it. You are given several recording options for the kids to be held accountable! I have them in all sorts of topics - sight words, letters, numbers, and even a monthly set with themes to make what's going on!

Here is a little freebie for you to try them out!

Lego Centers

Now that we have those snap cubes working let's get the Lego's out! These fun and engaging centers get kids creating sight words with Legos and counting how many it took to make them. They can even record the colors they used if you give them their own print out of the word.

These are done to scale and you have two options to differentiate for the time of year or for students.

These are currently only available in PrePrimer and Primer lists! So not as many options but SUPER fun! I get lots of comments that the boys will love them BUT my entire class really loves going to the Lego center!

What centers do you love? I have found that I put the MOST work into prepping and planning my centers each week! Am I alone here?

Valentine's Day....Again

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 02:50:00 GMT

With February fast approaching, that means Valentine's Day is just around the corner. I know that many people are gearing up for parties and celebrations but, eh, that just isn't me. I shared with you last year that I really don't make too big a deal out of this day of love, but I do like to do two little things that the kids really enjoy. These are the same activities I shared with you last year, but I know that there are many more people joining me along on this journey and I wanted to share them again :)

Of course, the students will pass out valentines to their classmates. I am not into spending a ton, so I made these Valentine's Day Homework passes. I know my kids will love them, and they didn't cost me a dime :) Win-win! Feel free to print out a copy for yourself. The download includes a "Love, Your Teacher" AND a blank one for you to sign, or just keep as is!

But, since you are a follower on my blog....if you leave a comment below (or email me at TeachinginRoom6@yahoo.com), I will customize the passes for you. Same deal as last year...You MUST be a follower of mine here on the blog. Just leave the name you would like me to write on there (Love, Mrs. Jones or whatnot) and your email address, and I will get them to you as soon as possible. :)

Another thing we will be doing is in math. You see, just like last year,
we are beginning our study of solid shapes, including surface area. I am going to have the students do an introduction concept lesson on this skill, using Valentine's Day as my hook. The students will have to figure out how much wrapping paper will be needed to cover their valentine box.

The basic idea of the concept lesson is to allow the students to explore this big concept of surface area without a formal lesson. It is to give them a chance to discover for themselves what the big idea of the skill is before I simply tell them. So for this lesson, the students will be given a box, and some construction paper (the wrapping paper), as well as a ruler, scissors, pencil and paper. The will be asked to figure out EXACTLY how much paper is needed to cover the box with no overlap.

If last year is any indication, this is a HARD lesson, but doable. The students will struggle, but there are some ways they can figure it all out. They will be frustrated, but if they use some of the problem solving skills they have, they should be able to tackle this. It is "backwards" from the normal teaching, but that is the idea. I want them to see what they can do before I simply tell them. It helps them to internalize the idea before I just give them an algorithm. This is what I did with the fraction concept lesson and the students are all the better for it.

Though, as a teacher, it is really, really tough to see the kids get frustrated. It makes me frustrated. However, the end result is worth it. I will report back and let you know how it goes!

And for more February Freebies, visit Laura Candler's awesome link up! There are lots and lots of ideas for you to use in your classroom during not just Valentine's Day, but all of the other February happenings.

Center Fun, a couple freebies, and a new product

Anonymous — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 01:26:00 GMT

Wow! What a blog post title, huh?

I feel like I've been neglecting this little blog of mine again. How does everyone keep up with everything? I truly don't see how to be a mommy, a wife, a teacher, create things to help my kiddos, do laundry, cook, clean,---EGADS! There's so much stuff to do all the time. I'm frazzled.

Do you know what I do when I get frazzled? I BAKE!! People this chic should not be baking unless someone is around to take it off my hands.

THEN, we've been house hunting (Still)....what an awful process. I don't remember it being this bad several years ago, but my family has expanded by 2 kids and some animals since the last time I went through this. It's so stressful. Do you know what I do when I get stressed? Yep, I bake!!

See---I started making small cookies...this is just a salad size plate.

But, eventually my cookies ended up being biggins.

Yep, same plate---triple the size.

Baking tip....a box of instant pudding in your cookie mix---OMGosh! :)

Then, after this whole house ordeal----

They are like Hostess Cupcakes...

Now my pics aren't the greatest, but the taste---OH MY! Then again, they could be awful and I'd still say they tasted heavenly because it's Chocolate, and I'm stressed! :)

Okay, I need to focus here.....back on track.

Can I just say how much I'm loving my new center pack?

This past week was one of the best yet for my students at stations.

They really enjoyed all the stations I set out for them.

I should them how to play Catch a Snowflake during Guided Groups last week. They played this over and over at groups. The variety of levels that are included kept all my learners engaged.

They've also enjoyed the journal prompts as most of them have them talking about winter and snow! :)

In math, per our Envision Series, we are working on skip counting. I used my cute graphics to whip up a few skip counting sheets.

There's a page for counting by 10 to 120, counting by 2s to 20, and counting by 5s to 120. I used the counting by 10s as a quick check. They cut them out and glued them in order to a construction paper strip. You could also use a sentence strip. You can click HERE to grab you a copy of the skip counting sheets.

The last thing I want to share with you is my new product.

I am totally pleased with this packet. I hope my kiddos enjoy learning about the landmarks. I've included two different readers (and the black/white version to match).

You can click HERE to check it out!!

One thing before I go.....what do you do when you get stressed/frazzled? Do you bake, do you work out, shop? I'm known for retail therapy too! OY! Such bad habits I have!

Middle School Math Freebies

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 00:33:19 GMT

Okay, first of all – I’m so sorry about the typo in the title of my last post! Ugh…made my stomach turn when I saw it. I know that my typing (and my spelling skills) need work sometimes but a mistake in the title? So sorry! Good thing I never claimed to be perfect, huh? [...]