A Little Look at Math!

Happy Sunday!  This week was parent/teacher conferences and to say that was exhausting is an understatement.  Thankfully, we were given Friday off to attempt to catch up on sleep and everyday life.  However, the catching up on sleep part doesn't typically happen in our house especially with a little 3 year old man running around.  He has other plans for his day with mommy!  :)  Love him so much! 

I am finally planned for next week's full week of learning and wanted to share some super easy and inexpensive math workstations that the owls will be doing.  The little man was my tester and was having a blast so I am certain my owls will get a kick out of them as well!

First one up is a super simple, very little prep, identifying numbers and one to one correspondence.  The large felt pumpkin is from the Dollar Store, as are the pumpkin seeds.  The little pumpkin bucket is a Target dollar find.  The little cards I made quickly to add an extra learning piece.  The owls pull out a pumpkin number card, identify the number, and count out the matching number of pumpkin seeds.  SIMPLE but effective!  *Pumpkin cards are programmed for numbers 1 - 20, which will allow for challenges.*

Second one is another simple, very little prep, counting workstation.  Pumpkin bucket again is from Target dollar spot, the black "tree" is from the Dollar Tree, and the little owls are from Hobby Lobby.  This time, the owls roll a die or dice depending on abilities and count out the matching number of owls.



Third one is simple and requires little prep.  Spider bucket is from the Target dollar spot, felt web from Jo-Ann Fabrics as well as the spider buttons, and the pocketed cubes I bought in Vegas (forgot the vendor.)  Focus once again is on identifying numbers and one to one correspondence.  The owls roll the cube, identify the number, and count out the matching number of spiders.  *I do have another cube programed with higher numbers for the owls that need a challenge.*

This last one is a freebie in my TPT store.  Click the picture to go snag it!  This is for identifying numbers and for putting them in counting order.  I included numbers 1 to 20 and four different recording pages to allow all learners to feel successful. 

 

Hope you found something that you can use this week or next! 

 

~Erin

More apples and a freebie!

I must begin this post with a big thank you to the few that left comments on the last post!  Thank you for taking time out of your day or night to read this here blog and to leave a comment.  I have emailed you each a copy of the "Letter Pickin" activity.  Enjoy!

Like I had mentioned in my last post, I am introducing themes a week in advance this year with the whole class and then adding it into their workstations the following weeks.  Today for our whole group math lesson we used the following poem to work on numbers and the idea of taking away.

http://www.alphabet-soup.net/dir2/applesong.html

 

You can click on the picture to go to the website where I found the poem.  All I did was type it up and put it onto a large piece of posterboard.  If you look closely, you will see that there is a small piece of Velcro in the first spot.  This is where the numbers were changed as apples fell down.  After we read through the poem, I called on owls to tell me what the new number was and to find the correct number card. 

 

To make this more concrete, the owls each drew a tree and were given five "apples" to start with in the tree.  As we read the poem, we moved apples down out of the tree to allow for counting and visualizing.

I also got a little jump on next week's planning and put together a simple reader that stuck with our apple theme but also helped reinforce our work with the sight words I, like, the and color words.  Head over to my TPT store and grab it for free!

Have a wonderful evening and remember tomorrow is WEDNESDAY!
~Erin

Apples, Bears, OH MY!

Happy Sunday All!  I'm enjoying a lovely Sunday with loads of laundry, cleaning, and lesson planning.  Oh the life I lead!  ;)

This coming school week is going to be filled with Brown Bear themed activities in workstations and apple learning in Science.  I've been sticking to introducing a theme a week in advance and doing as much whole group teaching as I can with it and then leaving the "fun" and "cute" activities in their workstations for the next week.  It has made my planning a little easier so far this year! 

While I was planning and thinking ahead, I got to thinking about the needs of some of my owls.  I wanted to create something that would fit with an apple theme but would also allow for some additional practice.  Some of my owls are still having trouble with distinguishing between capital and lowercase letters, so I figured I would focus there.  With this focus, blossomed the following creation.

 

Click on the picture to take a look at what is included!  I'm super excited about this activity! 

 

Because I am feeling so excited for this activity, I would like to give it away to one lucky follower!  Leave me a comment with your favorite apple activity to do in the classroom along with your email address and I will pick a winner at random Tuesday night!  Good luck!

 

~Erin

 

Numbers vs. Letters

Hold onto your hats ladies and gentlemen, I am about to blog!  :) 

Once again, time has gotten away from me and I haven't been able to get anything up on here.  I ended up getting a 24 hour flu bug over the weekend, which turned into a head cold, which led me to the state of exhaustion that I currently find myself in.  Enough whining and belly aching from me, let us get to the good stuff.

Before school started I bought this absolutely adorable book and knew that I would be reading it several times at the start of the year. 

Oh my word!  If you haven't seen this book, please do yourself a favor and click on the picture.  The book is an argument between the number 1 and the letter A on what the book is really about, a number book or a letter book.  It goes back and forth introducing numbers to 26 and the entire alphabet. 

Perfect for helping your little ones see the difference between numbers and letters and how they are used.

The first time we read the book, I used two hula hoops and simply labeled one letters and one numbers.  The owls took turns pulling a card from a bucket, telling the class if it was a letter or a number, and sorting it into the correct hula hoop.

The second time, I gave each owl the following page to sort independently and to use as a simple assessment piece.  Click on the picture to download this for yourself!

 

Please let me know if you have any trouble with the download. 

 

Enjoy the rest of your week!

 

~Erin

I'm Still Here!

Sorry all!  I have been so very neglectful to this little blog o' mine.  I assure you that I am going to attempt to get better seeing as the school year is in full swing and my little owls are really getting the hang of things.  I believe the part that has thrown me into disorganization with blogging is that our day was extended by an hour.  Now you may be reading that and saying to yourself, "An hour, so what?!?"  Well, that is one less hour each day I have with my family, which is making my juggling everything difficult right now.  I will get better with time and I will get back in the swing of things, please just be patient with me.  :)

Today was day 15 for us.  I have 15 amazingly sweet little owls this year.  They have such kind personalities and are for the most part willing to work their "feathers" off.  :)  Haha!  See what I did there?  For the most part, we have been focusing all our energy on classroom expectations and procedures.  Today was the first day of trying out 3 literacy workstations for 10 minutes a piece.  They rocked it and I was one proud teacher owl!  Literacy workstations for the time being are letter work/identification and name practice.  I really want my owls to have independence this year before I dive into guided reading groups and more complex workstation work.

Math has been pretty basic so far as well.  Lots of one to one practice and numbers up to 10.  They are doing well with this and I can already see my owls that will need more of a challenge.  Yay!

That is about all I have right now!  I've been terrible with taking pictures and that will also change with time.

I will leave you with one picture though...

 

I was surprised with this gorgeous ring two weeks ago.  We have not set a date yet but I am definitely one happy girl!

 

~Erin

Apples and ABC's

Hi all!  I hope you are taking full advantage of this long weekend!  :)

Since I'm gearing up for my owls first day, I have been planning as many alphabet activities as possible.  I really want my owls to feel success even if they cannot name all the letters yet.  With this in mind, I put together a simple apples and alphabet activity.

 

This activity can be done in two different ways.  The owls can turn all of these apple letter cards upside down, take turns flipping them over, naming the letters (if they are ready for this step,) and then dotting the match on the recording page.  Recording page is shown below!

 

The second way is to place all of the cards in a small container, the owls take turns pulling an apple letter cards, naming the letters (if they are ready for this step,) and then dotting the match on the recording page.

 

Since it is a long weekend and I'm beyond excited to meet my owls on Tuesday, I have uploaded this activity to my TpT store as a freebie!  Click on any of the pictures to snag a copy for you and your lovelies.  Comments and/or feedback is much appreciated!  :)

 

~Erin



 

 

Alphabet Fun!

Sorry all!  I really need to get the hang of this whole blogging and going back to school business.  I'm beginning to realize that I may have to actually plan my blog posts ahead of time and not just do the "by the seat of my pants" approach. 

My little owls will officially arrive on Tuesday.  I am all planned for next week and am looking forward to starting another school year. 

This will be the start of my 8th year and each year I feel like I get a bit better at the whole beginning of the year part.  I've learned that it is alright to slow things down at the beginning.  I'm really focusing on having my owls build their stamina and to really model my expectations.  Please make sure to hold me to this if you notice that I'm posting things that seem to go against this!

With this in mind, I have been looking through Pinterest to find simple alphabet activities that would allow all to participate even if they don't know all the letter names yet.  I came across this...

I love this!  What a simple way to get all the owls working with letters at the start of the year.  Click on the picture to look at some of the other ideas that were listed.

 

Now this activity is ideal if you have a circle table, which I do not.  I didn't want to give up such a great idea because of a lack of table, so I created my own version with posterboard.

 

 

For the letters, I simply used foam letters that I had laying around the house.  I wrote uppercase letters on glass beads that are used in vases for a decorative touch. 

 

 

I had my little man test out the activity!  He pulled out a letter glass bead, looked at the letter, and found its match around the circle.  He did really well and told me that it was "fun."

 

For my owls that already know their letters, I will have them tell me the letter's name before they match it.

 

I also made a set of uppercase letters using water bottle caps.  If this goes over well, I will change out the letters manipulatives to keep the activity fresh and exciting.

 

~Erin