Search results matching tags 'silly' and 'math'

Rhombus.

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:22:54 GMT

The other day, we were reviewing shapes. For some reason, most of the shape names aren’t too tricky. Circle – well we all know that. Square and Triangle too. Rectangle can be challenging, but a little explanation of the two short and two long sides usually does the trick. It’s the darn Rhombus that gets us every [...]

100th Day!

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 23:24:42 GMT

Well, it really doesn’t get much better than the 100th day in kindergarten. It’s kind of like Christmas, Valentine’s Day (coming Thursday!), and the Fourth of July wrapped into one. Well, it is in my class anyway. I used an entire bottle of glitter to make this for the doorway: We sang our hearts [...]

Ten in the bed.

Anonymous — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 14:22:05 GMT

This week, I was fortunate enough to have a visit from the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Coordinator for my district. She is leading a book group I’m partaking in on the book Number Talks and volunteered to come in and demonstrate with my class. It’s always eye opening for me to sit with [...]

Hidden treasure.

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 15:03:13 GMT

As any of you know who have taken over a room from someone else, there is often hidden treasure lurking around every corner. The room I took over at my new school was from a teacher moving schools and changing grades. She took most of her belongings, but left quite a bit too. I tried [...]

20.

Anonymous — Sat, 19 May 2012 11:42:30 GMT

Yesterday we took our field trip to the beach. Wow – as if on cue, after a cool and rainy week, the sun came out and warmed us to the point of leaving our jackets and sweatshirts in our backbacks. On the bus ride I sat with Billy. Never one to shy away from difficult [...]

Octopus!

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:25:29 GMT

Oh shapes. We’ve been really trying to master our shape identification, especially the harder ones – Rhombus, Trapezoid, and Hexagon. Most kids get the good old Circle, Triangle, Square, Oval, and Rectangle, but the other three are just plain hard. In order to meet the end of year benchmark for shape identification, they need at [...]

Cups.

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 12:03:05 GMT

As we head into the Spring, our assessments are showing a few sprouts really struggling with number identification (especially teen numbers) and certain sight words. After vacation, Mrs. D. came in with a new game – one I’d never seen used in kindergarten, cup stacking. Now I’ve seen cups stacked as a game, but this [...]

Double dog dare.

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 09:32:00 GMT

I've written about it before. My dear friend, Mrs. F. teaches third grade. I see those big, almost gangly, third graders limbering down the hallway and I know there is a universe between them and my tiny sprouts. Sometimes I forget how challenging the academics can be as the children grow.

Yesterday in the teacher's room, I ran into Mrs. F. at the copy machine. We began chatting about this and that (her son just turned one and is quite simply one of the most adorable little boys in the world...) and I couldn't help but notice what she was copying.

"What is that?" I asked with a tinge of fear.

"It's their homework for tonight," she replied.

I picked the paper up and studied it. I was intrigued by her 'double dog dare' - I loved that. As for the actual math problem, I kid you not, it might has well have been in Chinese. Here it is:

"Um, I see the multiplication sign, but that's about all I see..." I mumbled.

She then proceeded to try and explain to me how this problem would be worked out. Mrs. F. is a patient person. She's an amazingly gifted teacher. She achieves amazing results with her students. She was totally lost on me.

I was polite because she's my friend. I nodded and said 'yes' and 'ah, I see' from time to time, but really I felt like Homer Simpson with 'Turkey in the Straw' going on in an endless loop in my head as she spoke.

Today she emailed me to let me know nineteen out of her twenty-one students got it correct. This did not make me feel any smarter. I adore kindergarten and never want to leave it... bumping into Mrs. F. making copies only reiterates this for me.

New Math.

Anonymous — Fri, 20 May 2011 19:40:00 GMT

Well it's been raining all week long here... we haven't been able to go outside at all and I swear I can see the skin literally crawling on some sprouts... as I drove home today, thankful for a respite for a few days, a math formula popped into my head.

Now I teach kindergarten. We don't do much algebra, so I have no clue how accurate this is, but here it is:

A few clarifications:

I realize the + in front of rain kind of looks like a 't' making it look like 'train' which would totally change the formula... it's not. It is a + not a 't'.
X = the grade level exponentially increases the value... maybe it should be -X because the lower the grade the higher the value
Y = Teacher Frustration

There you have it... the new math! I'm praying for sunshine and rainbows next week!

Marbles.

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 20:25:00 GMT

I forgot this funny tidbit from our one-hundredth day… Audra had brought in her collection of marbles to count. She diligently counted and recounted them with no issue. We even gave her a tray to use so they wouldn’t roll around the room.

At the end of the day, Audra raised her hand, I walked over and she showed me four loose marbles.

“Oh Audra, you better put those with your others, you don’t want to lose them,” I warned.

“No, Mr. ________, these aren’t mine…” she began.

I cut her off with, “Wait, I didn’t think anyone else brought in marbles…”

“They didn’t, someone has lost their marbles!” She exclaimed.

Not being familiar with this idiom, she didn’t get the humor in her statement, but I sure did and wanted to share the joke.

I shouted across the classroom to Mrs. D., “Mrs. D. someone has lost their marbles!”

She laughed and I repeated myself a few times for added effect.

We identified the owner of said marbles and headed home for the day.