Roll a Santa

In preparing for Christmas themed math stations, I stumbled upon this super cute number sense activity at www.makinglearningfun.com.  I have used many different versions of "roll a something" in math stations before and I have found that sometimes the students have a hard time drawing the picture to go along with the activity.  So, I came up with the idea to make the parts for the picture and have the students put them together like a puzzle instead of drawing them.  

I took the directions for the activity from the website and enlarged the picture of Santa on our trusty copier at school.  Then I cut the picture apart making sure I had each part of Santa that a number on the die represents and used it as a template.  I cut parts from the appropriate color of construction paper.  I added a flesh color face to attach the eyes to.  

I made enough pieces to make eight Santas because 4 sets of student partners will be in this math station at a time (remember, we have 40 students in our class...).  I laminated the pieces so I won't have to make this again next year.  When the students put the pieces together, the cute little Santa looks like this:

I am looking forward to seeing the students roll the die and put their Santa puzzles together according to the number they roll!  Ho! Ho! Ho!  

Apples Hallway Display

After our students tasted red, yellow, and green apples, each of them decided which apple they liked the best.  Each student constructed an apple from a small paper plate and paper of the color of their favorite apple.  I used those apples to create a line graph in the hallway.  The students at each table graphed the choices of their table mates.  I stapled the graphs from each set of students from each table together and hung them over the graph.

Thanks to Kim Adsit for the "Apple Pie Graph" activity.  Remember we have 42 children in our team taught class so our "apple pie graph" is BIG!  I placed aluminum foil behind the brown paper to hopefully make it look like a pie pan.  

This is what I hung between the two graphs.

Love how this shared writing activity turned out!  It looks just right in our apple hallway display!  Happy fall y'all!!

Out of the Mouths of Kinders...

So, on Friday, I was teaching a math lesson on positional words. I was using an adult size chair just like the ones the students sit in as a prop.  I stood behind the chair and asked the students, "If I stand here, what am I to the chair?"  They responded, "Behind!"  I stood in front of the chair and asked the students, "If I stand here, what am I to the chair?"  They all said, "In front of it!"  This went on until I said, "What if I crawled under the chair? What would I be?"  I was waiting for the response, "Below."  But instead, from one of my friends, I got the response...., "Stuck?"  HAHAHA!!  Then another friend said, "You couldn't fit under that tiny chair!"   Well, at least they were listening!!
To go along with this lesson, we used the awesome "Little Spider" positional words book that Shannon over at
Kindergarten Hoppenings shared with us.  Thank you, Shannon!!
I also just found and pinned this little book about positional words over at Can Do Kinders!  We will be using this soon for a follow up.  But this time, I will not be using a chair as a prop.... ;-)

Common Core Math Standards ~ Free "Dates Taught" Checklist

We have been so extremely busy with our new class and life in general that we have not had a chance to update our blog.  I feel like such a slacker!  Everyone else has been doing such a great job and we appreciate all the awesome ideas we have been getting from all of you as usual!
We have been given the Common Core Standards for Math in our county and have been told which ones to add to our teaching this year along with our state's course of study. We have also been given an updated month by month pacing guide which includes the CCS that aren't already in our state's course of study.  Basically, the pacing guide is to help us stay on track so that we cover all the standards by the end of the school year. Our school uses Scott Foresman Investigations series as our math curriculum.
Anyway, I created a very simple table to help me keep up with when I teach our sweeties all the standards.  The reason I did this was because I use extra games and activities that I find from all of you or on Pinterest in my math work stations and I want to include the standard covered with those activities as well.  I want to use this table so I can reflect on what skills I have given our students plenty of opportunities to master and be able to check at a glance and see what skills I still need to give more attention to.  Here it is if you would like to try it:
Common Core Standards Math - Kindergarten
Common Core Standards Math - Kindergarten 2
Common Core Standards Math - Kindergarten 3
Please forgive my lack of cool skills when uploading documents from Google Docs.  I can't remember how to upload them unto the blog showing the actual document.  I will try to do better next time.  =)
I think my husband, family, and dog would love for me to get out of the "back to school - need to organize - need to plan ahead - want to make all the things I find on the web mode" and pay a little attention to them.  I know my poor house needs some attention as well!  What can I say?  I love this time of year!!

Shapes and Colors

We finished our 2 week unit on shapes and colors last week.  Here are a few of the highlights:

During calendar time, we used our color quilt to sort pictures that Tanya and I cut from magazines.  I would pull a picture from a big envelope and give it to a selected student and they would attach the picture to the correct color on the "quilt". I made the quilt by laminating the pieces of construction paper after I labeled each piece with the name of the color.  Then, I just simply taped the pieces together on the back.  The students loved this and now that the quilt is full of sorted pictures, we might hang it in the room as a reminder of our colors or hang it as a hallway display for a while.

We had a special "shape snack" on Friday to celebrate the end of shape unit!  We asked parents to help send in the ingredients.  For rectangles, we had graham crackers and cheese.  Our squares were "Life" cereal and Cheez-its.  Fruit Loops and banana slices were our circles.  For triangles, we had Triscuit Crisps crackers and Bugles!  Our students thought the special snack was delicious!

After reading Brown Bear, Brown bear, What Do You See? we made these necklaces for a lesson in symmetry and as a retelling aid for the students.  We got the idea from the website www.makinglearningfun.com.  The students and parents LOVED this activity!   

Our next unit of study will be The Farm....  EIEIO!!  

Math Work Stations Set Up

I worked in our classroom for a few hours on Sunday.  My main focus was setting up a system for the students to find their math work station.  Taking what I learned from Debbie Diller, I decided to use the same pocket chart we use for literacy work stations and just turn the pockets over and add a label for math work stations.  Below is a picture of what it looks like during our reading block and the literacy stations that the students rotate through.

Tanya glued the icons for each literacy station to a library book pocket.  At the bottom of the pocket chart, are the craft sticks with the student's pictures on them that we use to place in the pockets so the students will know which station they are supposed to work in.  We will use the same method for math work stations and it will look like this:

I turned the same pockets over and attached a label that has a 1-5 in a different color with  "Math" written in multi-color under it.  For example, there are 2 pockets that have the number 1 on them but one of the pockets has a red 1 on it and the other pocket has a blue 1 on it.  The same goes for the numbers 2-5.  This is the "Stations" chart behind my small group table.  The "Stations" chart behind Tanya's small group table has the same labels but the colors on her pockets are yellow and green.  This will make sense when you see the next picture.  We put 2 student's pictures in each pocket.  The students will take a look at the "Stations" chart and see what color and number is on their pocket.  Then they will go to this shelf:

We are fortunate that Tanya's very sweet father in-law built this fabulous cubby/shelf for Tanya several years ago.  She used to use it as a binder holder and cubby space for her students but it has been quite a while since she only had 20 students in her class. So, we found a new fabulous use for it!  Here is a closer picture so that you can see how the tubs are labeled to match the pockets in our "Stations" charts:

The students match the color of the number on their pocket in the "Stations" chart to the color of the number on the tub.  They will use the materials in the tub to do their math task.  Thank you, Debbie Diller!  Later when we have math work stations at the computer, pocket charts, or other areas of the room, I will label those areas the same way I labeled the tubs and the students will go there to do their math tasks. Right now, we aren't meeting with small math groups yet and we are still working on the procedures so the students are only going to one station a day.  We will teach them how to clean up and rotate to another station soon.  

The number 1 tubs have pattern blocks in them.  Last week the students got to freely explore the pattern blocks.  This week, I added  pattern cards that I found on www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com   If you haven't been to this awesome website and checked out the "my printables" tab, you really should!!  The tubs labeled 4 have the play dough I made and shape cards for play dough that I also got from that great website.  She shares lots of free printables!  

The students also freely explored unifix cubes and counting bears last week.  This week the unifix cubes are in the tubs labeled with the number 2 with some pattern cards I made a few years ago.  Counting bears are in the tubs labeled with the number 3 with 1 to 1 math mats that I got from mrswilliamsonskinders.blogspot.com.  

The math mats help with one to one correspondence.  The students have not freely explored our geoblocks yet, so that it what is in the tubs labeled with the number 5.  

The students loved the math tasks they did today!  We will tweak a few things tomorrow and keep on keeping on!!  Hope at least some of this made sense!  HAHA!  And, that someone got something out of it that they might like to try.  Today was our 13th day of school.  Only 7 more days until another visit from Zero the Hero!  Our students can't wait.  I am so pleased with how math is going so far.  Hope it continues!

Too Cute, Had to Share!

Our little "cowpokes" spent part of each day last week exploring math manipulatives.  So far, they have had the opportunity to explore pattern blocks, linking cubes, buttons, geo-boards, and teddy bear counters.  They have really enjoyed getting their hands on these materials and they have been so creative.
We love it when our students carry over what they have learned from one subject to another subject.  An awesome example of this showed itself to us on Friday when one of our cuties created what is pictured below.

This is our friend Carson, he was exploring the teddy bear counters and was proud to announce to Tanya, "Mrs. Wildman, look!  The bears are the class and we are in group time doing the morning message!"  Notice he used the lid to the tub that the bears were in as the SMARTBOARD!  How fantastic is that??!!  L-O-V-E it!!

We know he has been paying attention!  This made our day!  So glad I have a cell phone with a decent camera on it.  It was definitely a "Kodak moment"!  =)