Math Centers

For math, we will sometimes have math centers. The centers allow my students to practice certain skills independently.

One center is "Domino Addition". Students randomly select a domino from a basket. Then they "draw" the domino and change it into a number sentence. This helps them to practice their important math facts.

"Dice Addition" is another center and it is similar to "Domino Addition". Students roll a pair of dice. Then they "draw" the dice and change it into a number sentence.

Since we learned about centimeters this week, we had a measuring center. They had to measure the items that were in the basket. They needed to use the centimeter side of their rule. They would write down the name of the object measured and then record the number of centimeters long that is was.

The final center was a memory game. One game was matching coin amounts to the written money amount. Another memory game was matching the analog clock time to the digital time. My students love to play memory games.

Here are the three worksheets used for the Domino Addition, Dice Addition, and Measuring with Centimeters centers.

Luck O' the Irish

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day our writing topic was "I feel lucky when". We brainstormed all the wonderful reasons why we feel so lucky. One thing that made us feel luck today was the warm, sunny weather. After writing, each student made a leprechaun. There were some "wee" leprechauns and some with a bit o'hair on their chin. :)

 "I feel lucky when people love me."

 "I feel when I buy a puppy and a goldfish."

"I feel lucky when I go for a bike ride and get ice cream."

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

Super Hero Adjectives!

In an effort to add interesting details to our writing, we learned about using adjectives to "jazz" it up. First we read a book called Boris the Pirate. After reading the story, we found and listed all the adjectives. Then we looked for "proof" for the adjectives. For example, if the story said the character Boris was strong then we had to find out how (the proof) he was strong.

Next I had my students start the Super Hero writing activity. First they filled out a "brainstorming" sheet and listed five adjectives that described the type of super hero they were. Then they had to provide the "proof". For example, if they used the adjective 'helpful' to describe themselves then they needed to state HOW they were helpful. "I am helpful because I save people's lives." We always go through the writing process. Here are some of the super heroes and writings.

 "I am weird. I can stink myself out and fall over." :)

 A extremely fast super hero.

 A wonderfully pink super hero.

 "I am smart. I can read fast." :)

 A super hero with rocket boosters on the cape. :)

 "I am strong because I exercise."

A toothless super hero. :)

Dr. Seuss's Birthday!

Happy 108th birthday, Dr. Seuss! Even though we only had a half-day today, we still did some fun Dr. Seuss activities. To start our day, we added to our "Doodle Table". We had to add a drawing of ourselves with a Dr. Seuss hat on and also write down some rhyming words.

Then we did some Dr. Seuss math. We completed some addition problems with green eggs (and ham). With a partner, each student added an amount of yellow eggs to a plate then his/her partner added an amount of green eggs to the plate. Then they added the eggs to see how many eggs altogether on the plate. After solving the problem, they wrote down the corresponding number sentence.

Finally, we did a Dr. Seuss "adlib" for the story Green Eggs And Ham. They had to come up with a strange food for this activity. There were lots of strange foods such as bug cookies, shredded lettuce water, pickle shrimp, and egg juice. These writings turned out quite funny and the kids loved to hear stories with their names in them.

A short day but still a fun day filled with Dr. Seuss activities. :)

Mr. Twit and Adjectives

A few weeks ago, we read a book called The Twits by Roald Dahl. We were quite intrigued about how wonderfully disgusting Mr. Twit was. During a lesson about adding descriptive words, adjectives, to our writing, we used Mr. Twit as our descriptive group writing piece. First, we discussed what an adjective was and brainstormed examples. I provided them with sentences starters such as "My teacher is ______" or "A pirate is __________." Then we shifted our focus to Mr. Twit.

As a class, we brainstormed adjectives that would describe Mr. Twit. In addition, they had to provide "proof" of the adjective. For example, if a student said that Mr. Twit was scary then they had to provide "proof" that he was scary.

Here is an example of the worksheet we used. If the word 'hairy' was given to describe Mr. Twit then the student or a helper provided proof such as: His face is covered with hair. My students had to provide support for their adjective choices. It isn't enough to say that something is awesome. HOW is it awesome? WHY is it awesome? We need more information and that makes our writing more interesting. When we finished with the worksheet, I read the adjectives and proofs. It made a great description of Mr. Twit. "Mr. Twit is dirty. He has food in his beard. Mr. Twit is also ugly. He has hair sticking out of his ear. He is scary. His teeth stick out and his eyes look mean." We will use this "adjectives and proof" strategy in our next descriptive writing piece. You will have to stay tuned and find out what we will be writing about.

Kindness Counts - Helping Hands

Each week we have a "Kindness Counts" task. This week we are focusing on being helpers and saying, "Thank you" when someone helps us. To reinforce the "helping hands" concept, our "Doodle Table" is a patchwork of colorful helping hands. Each student can add a "hand" or more whenever they finish their work. The outline of their hand must overlap or touch the outline of another hand. Then they can color or decorate the hand outlines. Our goal is to have a colorful table of overlapping "helping hands". Helping each other is important and our table serves as a reminder.

Wonderful Weather

We have started a new Science unit - WEATHER! To start our unit, we brainstormed different weather conditions and listed them on a poster.

These words will be used each day in their weather journals. For one week, they will be keeping track of the weather. When they consider the weather, they have to think about how the air feels and how the sky looks. These details are added to their weather diary.

I let them personalize their weather diaries by decorating the covers.

On each page, they write the date and at least three "weather" words from our poster. After writing about the day's weather condition, they draw a picture of what it looks like. When the weather diaries are complete, we are going to use the information to create a graph.

We are also learning about tools that help determine the different weather conditions. My students made a wind gauge that will also be used to plot the wind conditions for a week or so. They will keep track of this information in their "Wind Journals". They will be weather experts.