Sunday, January 20, 2013

Wintry Words Freebie and a Free Font!

Happy Sunday!! Hope you are having a great LONG weekend! :) I made a quick little word work center last night and decided to offer it as a freebie to you!




In Wintry Words, students will manipulate letters from winter words to create new words. This is a great opportunity to learn how to look for patterns in words!













You can download it from either shop:





Also, I hope you stopped by last night to check out my font freebie for you!! Here it is, in case you missed it:









I'm super excited to use it! Feel free to grab it and then let me know what you think! Use the font for whatever you like (commercial products, freebies, etc.); just be sure to include a link to my blog! :)


















Saturday, January 19, 2013

FREE Font!! :)

Well, I started making fonts last summer, got them all ready to share, and then it TOTALLY got pushed to the back of my mind!! I found myself with some time to "relax" today and ended up rediscovering them! Here is one called Frogs and Cupcakes (duh):



I'm super excited to use it! Feel free to grab it and then let me know what you think! Use the font for whatever you like (commercial products, freebies, etc.); just be sure to include a link to my blog! :) Enjoy!!





Sunday, January 13, 2013

More Odd and Even Fun + Freebie

We spent a good part of the last week learning more about odd and even numbers. We discuss odd and even every day in calendar so they had background before we did this number investigation.

First, we did an Odd Todd and Even Steven activity inspired by The First Grade Parade. We made some numbers using marshmallows and then paired the marshmallows to see if it was an odd number or an even number. After we identified the numbers as either or even, we wrote the numbers down and placed them under Odd Todd if the number was odd or under Even Steven if the number was even. Some of the numbers we used were 16, 14, 22, 9, 6, 7, 5, and 19. (Of course, I have no pictures to show for any of the above events; I'll work on that!).

After that activity, we coded to the numbers we discussed on a hundreds chart (one part of our calendar time is coding a hundreds chart with red for odd and blue for even, so they were very familiar with and ready to do it during this lesson--and, again, no pictures). It looked something like this:


We coded the numbers but didn't see a pattern. I then challenged them to complete the rest of the first three rows on the hundreds chart (and they were VERY excited about that). They were instructed to build the number using marshmallows, figure out it was odd or even, and then code it. I do have pictures of this part!! Notice how each student sorted them:










They did such a great job!! As you can see, not all of them used the work mat as it was intended and that's okay! Several of them needed the graphic organizer though, so it was good for those ones. We discussed it afterward and realized that the pattern on the chart was an AB pattern and that it was just like the pattern on our calendar hundreds chart. They also talked about how if you count by 2s (starting at 0) then you will only say even numbers. They made all sorts of connections here!! 



To further reinforce, we completed another investigation on the next day. I put a random amount of items into different cups.


birthday candles, two-color counters, buttons, pencils, dice, hippo conuters, paper clips, etc.



The students counted the items and recorded the number of items as either odd or even. Pretty simple, but GREAT practice (counting and identifying odd and even).

Next year, I will actually flip-flop the coding activity and the cup activity. I didn't this year simply because I didn't plan the cup activity until after we had completed the coding.

Here is the work mat and the recording sheet from the cup activity. Grab the freebie by clicking below:



Thanks for stopping by! And if you are looking for additional activities to teach odd and even be sure to check out my Odd and Even Numbers Pack!!





Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Yummy Doubles and Giveaway WINNERS

We have been learning about doubles in math since right before Christmas break. To further explore doubles we did this cute little activity yesterday that came from Bishop's Blackboard. The students turned a healthy snack into math manipulatives, specifically doubles dominoes:




Mrs. Bishop (from Bishop's Blackboard) used graham crackers, frosting, and chocolate chips. I had to use different materials to meet the lame state nutrition guidelines (but it was STILL fun and tasty!). We used graham crackers, cream cheese, and raisins. The cream cheese was fresh out of the fridge so it was slightly stiff and the kids had a little trouble spreading it on the cracker. It was fine though and the activity went well, so no biggie.

We also used a recording sheet for the activity made by Carrie at A First Grade Teacher's Passions and Obsessions.


Click on the above links to access the activity and recording sheet from these ladies' blogs!

In other news------I decided to pick three of you to win my Odd and Even pack giveaway since I took only just a wee bit longer than I said to pick winners! :)

And the winners of the Odd and Even pack are....


Ronnie
vhair61215@gmail.com

Teri
acupcakefortheteacher@gmail.com

Cindy
ccfirstteacher@gmail.com

Congrats and thanks for entering, everyone!! :) Be looking for your Odd and Even Numbers Pack to arrive in your inbox!!

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Cool, New Find

I'm sure you have seen these cubes before and it is nothing new to you but since I just jumped back on the primary grade boat, I consider it a fun, new find!!




I picked up these cubes the other day at Mardel because they were fairly cheap and cute/fun. I plan on adding these to our ever-expanding word work activity library. I made the following activity to go along with the cubes. In the following activity, students will roll a blend die, write the blend down, and then write down words that start with that blend.

Students will follow the same procedure for the word family dice (except, of course, the words will not start with what is rolled). 


In this game, students will practice their decoding skills by rolling 1 blend die and 1 word family die to make a word. After reading the word, they will decide if it is real or nonsense and then write it in the appropriate column.
I have added these activities to my Google Docs so that you can use them too! :)

Speaking of which, what is going on Docs now?? When I try to embed a document into a blog post the preview looks all funky and no longer has a hyperlink to the site (even after resizing it). No hyperlink = no way for you to download the file. This does not please me. Anyone else notice this problem?? Am I going to have to go back and fix ALL of the files I have ever embedded so that people are still able to access them??!? >:(


Also, don't forget to leave your email to win my newest pack, Odd and Even Numbers! Click on the picture to find the giveaway post.


Saturday, January 5, 2013

Odd and Even Numbers!

Well, this is my final Christmas break project. It's back to reality after the weekend. What an awesome two weeks it has been!!!
I sat down to finish up my lesson plans and make one little odd and even activity--48 hours later, I have this Odd and Even Activity Pack! (That's usually how it goes for me!) I am especially excited about this one because we will be using this next week in my classroom!













This 104-page pack includes:


  • anchor charts (including a rhyme to remember what odd and even numbers are)

  • hundreds chart puzzles

  • games

  • practice pages

  • editable files so you can customize some of the activities

  • and a fun little monster craftivity!









You can view the product in either store by clicking below!







Comment below and I'll choose two of you to win a free copy of the pack! Don't forget to leave your email! I'll pick a winner Sunday afternoon. :)

Friday, January 4, 2013

I Like Rain Because...

This post is wayyyy overdue, but hey--it's here!

We studied weather in science way back in September. When talking about precipitation, we did this fun little activity about rain. First, we used TumbleBooks to view this book:


Some of the content was a little above the kids' heads, but it was a great read anyway! They really enjoyed it (of course, they enjoy every book we read on TumbleBooks)! After reading the book, we discussed why we liked rain and then recorded some responses on an anchor chart. Finally, the kids wrote their own sentences about why they liked rain. I don't have any close-ups of their writing (bad blogger) but I do have a picture of the bulletin board I made out of the prompt PLUS a copy of the prompt for you to download (redemption)!

I made the umbrella out of butcher paper and the clouds are just cotton balls glued onto cardstock. I know--fancy.


Click on the image of the document below to download a copy of the raindrop! Please comment if you like it enough to keep it--lets me know that someone is out there reading this little blog! Enjoy! :)