Place Value

My Kinders have been working with place value for the past week and a half.  They looked a little stunned the first day into this chapter, but now are well on their way to understanding tens and ones.  I needed a fun and engaging way to help them to understand composing and decomposing numbers, so I made this cute owl Place Value set (available on Teachers pay Teachers).

Hoot for Place Value.  This kit includes materials to teach numbers to 100.

I have included mini ten frames and ones for use with my elmo projector (or any document projector).

Students worked diligently to write the number shown on the white board, and then covered the number they wrote with a transparent counter.  I was very impressed to hear just how they found the numbers on the 100 chart!  My Kinders are so smart! <3

My set includes both horizontal and vertical ten frames to fit your pocket chart needs.

The kids had fun acting out counting by tens and changing to ones with this component.  The kids are holding trees with either ten or one owl - depending upon which forest they are in.  The different forests are divided by Place Value River - this helps them to stop counting by tens & switch to counting by ones.  It's so funny - once they finish counting by tens, they pop their fist on their forehead to "put the number in their heads" before jumping over to the river.  The sign holders welcomed the Owl Watcher (with TP tube binoculars) by informing her of how she needed to count in their forests.  The trees & signs are included in the set.  (You'll need to provide the TP tubes!  lol)

This is our Math Center this week.  The students put towers of ten cubes on the tens side of this page, and foam counters on the ones side.  Then they wrote how many of each onto a white board.

Math Monday Blog Hop

I have linked up with Love 2 Learn 2 Day for a blog hop of fantastic Math ideas!  Check them out!

Freebie Friday & Dr. Um... Silly Activities

I have linked up with the wonderful TBA for this week's Freebie Friday!

I also have two new products on TpT just in time for someone's birthday next week.  I know that many teachers have de-Seussified their classrooms, but our school still enjoys celebrating the author's birthday.  One is a Dr. Seuss - inspired nonsense word sorting activity.  (Is is still OK to mention his name?  Or, should I rename this product?)

Nonsense Word Sort

I Have - Who Has?

My other product is an I have - Who has rhyming word game.  This time, I decided to call it "Dr. Silly."  Thanks to My Cute Graphics for the darling cat clip art! 

Even if you don't celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday, I hope you check out these products, and consider purchasing them for your classroom. 

Jolly Snowmen Pack Winner & a Sale

Congratulations to Amy M.!  She won all five of my Jolly Snowman packs.

Amy M. won these snowmen packs.  You can get them on sale at my Teachers pay Teachers store!

Number Bond Flash Cards

Cupcake Literacy Activities

Visit my Teachers pay Teachers store for a sale featuring these, and several other, items.

Stations & Skill Spots (Plus an Update on our Heifer International Giving)

My Kinders were busy not only with holiday activities, they were hard at work last week practicing important skills with our Literacy Stations and Skill Spots.

Our Independent CD Books Skill Spot is a favorite for listening to reading.

All of our Skill Spots, Skill Tubs, and Centers have books.  The kids love to practice reading books - which they read to me during our "Book Club" time so that they can contribute a dollar to our Heifer International Read to Feed program.  **Update**  In response to our Day of Giving Challenge (click on this link to watch our AWESOME video), our wonderful middle/high school students, spectators at the 2/2/13 basketball game, two local businesses, and an anonymous donor we greatly surpassed our goal of raising $1000 dollars...  In one day our little community raised $6426.72!!

Looking for letters.  I have several of these write on - wipe off pockets with poems in them available for the Kinders.  This little boy is looking for the letter r.

Popcorn Word Wall.  This bulletin board features all of the sight words from our reading series written on popcorn shaped note paper. 

 Spelling sight words.

Pocket Chart Skill Spot.  I have several pocket charts hanging on clothing racks (much cheaper than the real ones) in this Skill Spot.  These boys are working on making numbers with the smiley face counters.

"This" Writing Station.  In this station, the kids practiced writing the word this and wrote sentences using the word.  I think by now everyone can spell this!

Word Work Station.  In this station, from The Mailbox, the students sorted -an and -ap word family picture and word cards.  They also did a worksheet featuring the word families (not pictured).

Kinders love to write with dry erase markers!  I laminated the cards from the above station to make them wipe-off for reuse.

A file folder center from Lakeshore Learning gives additional CVC word practice.

Rhyme time!  Students match rhyming picture and word cards from Apple & ABC's Valentine pack.

Valentines & Presidents

 This past week was super busy with learning and special days!  Our Valentine's Day party was another great success because of the planning done by our fabulous room moms!  (Thank you!)  The Kinders enjoyed painting cute picture frames, playing a fun (and educational - recognizing numbers to 30) BINGO game, and eating yummy treats - heart shaped fruit kabobs.

We made cute Cupcake Valentine bags to collect goodies and cards.

Because of a fog delay - turned fog day off the day before Thanksgiving, we had a make up day on Friday.  Upon entering the room one little boy said, "We aren't supposed to be here today."  Another boy responded, "Why?  Is it Saturday?"  I assured them that yes, we were supposed to be at school.  :-)  It did seem funny to be at school the day after a party day, but we made the most of our make up day by learning about two very important presidents.  We discussed the ways to research information in order to learn more about a topic.  I read the following books, and we made a chart with the facts that we learned about Abraham Lincoln.  Using the facts we listed on our chart, the Kinders wrote "reports" about our 16th president.

The kids wrote their "report" onto a page (freebie here) that was then taped to their stove pipe hats.

We learned a lot of facts about Abraham Lincoln - one being that he loved to read.  These Kinders share Abe's love of books!  

   I only own this book about George Washington - I guess I need to get some more!

After discussing our Founding Father, the Kinders made these cute George Washingtons.

Skip Counting

Skip counting is both fun and challenging for Kinders.  Long before we began our study of skip counting objects we learned to skip count by rote.  Every morning we count by ones, tens, fives, and twos as a part of our calendar routine.  The leader gets to select a pointer and points to the numbers on the hundred chart while the rest of us count.  To make things fun we add motions as we chant our numbers:  We toss ten out the window with both hands open wide or "jump rope" with ten toes as we count by tens. (We jump backwards as we count down from 100 by tens.)  We "swim" - pulling ourselves through the water with five fingers while counting by fives, and use our fingers to help keep track of the number in the ones place as we count by twos.  Sometimes we count with English accents (pinkies up!), robots, or cowboys who say YEE HAW! after 100.  Knowing the numbers to say makes counting objects so much easier because they can put their energy towards applying the skill of skip counting without having to concentrate (too much) on what number comes next.

Our leader points to the numbers as we skip count by twos.  I like this 100 chart because the cards are two sided.  Currently, I have them as shown to facilitate counting by twos.  Sometimes I slip transparent colored counters in pockets indicating which numbers to say while skip counting.  When we study money, I like to put coins in the numbers to help the Kinders to know how to count them.

Counting by Twos Math Station #2.  In this station (first seen here), students count bags of objects and record the amount in each on their record sheet.  This year I wrote numbers on sticky notes for my struggling students.  They were able to keep track of their counting by placing two objects onto each note.

Counting with fingers helps!  When counting by twos we use our fingers to help us know what number comes next - six fingers touching means that the number has a six in the ones place.  All ten fingers touching means that there is a zero in the ones place, etc. 

These girls know that 4, 14, 24, and 34 etc. are numbers that you say when counting by twos!

My Kinders love using the pointers!  This little girl, and the one below, chose to use our ginkgo leaf shaped fly swatter to count the mittens hanging on the Focus Wall.  These cute mittens - from my Cozy Mittens Skip Counting set are now in a Skill Tub.  I like to add items that we have used as a group or in stations to the Skill Tubs so the Kinders can use them for practice of skills we have covered in class.

Pots of... Smarties.  Kinders love to do math with Smarties!  Each student got two rolls (each usually has fifteen pieces of candy in them) to use for this counting by fives activity.  After the lesson was done they were allowed to eat some of the candies.  Get this workmat in my Pots of Gold freebie.

New Products on Teachers pay Teachers & a Giveaway

It's been nearly a year since I entered the bloggy world!  I'd been following several blogs and thought "I bet I could do this."  Thanks to my friend & fellow teacher, Kim C. - who encouraged me to start a blog, I am one week away from celebrating my one year blog-iversary!  Thank you to my followers & visitors!  I have enjoyed sharing my thoughts and ideas, and I hope that you have enjoyed reading them.

To celebrate my up-coming second year in Blogland, I am giving away all five of my Jolly Snowmen packs! I have included a number of entry options that include following my wonderful daughters' blogs.  All three of my beautiful girls have blogs:  Sarah is kindergarten teacher  (just like Mom - smiles!), and has just started her cute kinder blog, Emily recently graduated from nursing school (she already had a BS in psychology) & has written several popular self-published books has an author blog,  Gabrielle, my youngest, is just starting her career in advertizing, and has a fashion & lifestyle blog. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway Another endeavor I have begun this past year is making items to sell on Teachers pay Teachers.  Again, it was something I'd been following, but it was my teacher friends who suggested that I put the things I made up for sale.  I wasn't sure that anyone would want my little activity packs, but happily some of them have sold!  I won't be able to quit my day job (actually, I would never want to do that - I love teaching kindergarten!), but I do like the idea of a little extra income (for shoes & important stuff like that!).

Number Bond Flash Cards 
Cupcake Literacy Activities

I'm a Guest Blogger!

I'm so excited for the opportunity to be a guest blogger on Kindergarten Lifestyle.  My post describes my Skill Tubs and includes a link to a Cupcake CVC Freebie.  Thank you, Jeannie for hosting me on your blog!

To thank my visitors, I have another freebie for your own Skill Tubs - a Cupcake Ten Frame Memory game.

Thanks for visiting!

Linda

Groundhog Day

Just a quick post to show the cute Groundhog puppets we made last week.  I hadn't originally planned to do anything about Groundhog Day because it fell on Saturday.  But, after reading Who Will See Their Shadow This Year? I just couldn't resit making some sort of craft.  These little critters were seriously thought up on the fly!  I had about 4 minutes before the Kinders were due back from recess when I thought it up!  Luckily, they go to a special right before lunch, so I had time to whip things together for them to make their puppets later in the afternoon.  (PS  Thanks Mrs. S. for helping me with the paper plates!)

The Kinders were so excited to use their little groundhogs to predict the weather Saturday morning!  Yesterday many of them told me that they did look for a shadow - and happily didn't see one!  We'll have to wait and see if their little guys predicted correctly or not!  :-)

Some of the kids decorated their plates to look like a groundhog home.