Finally Finished Number Chat Cards

I thought I would have this up sooner but man I have been tired this week. 

Click here to see how to use these in your classroom!

Click on the picture to check it out! 

The first 2 people to comment and tell me how they are going to use them in their classroom I will send it to you for free. Make sure to include your email! 

Happy almost Friday! 

What Did You Learn?

WOW! Today was a jam packed day full of PD! I did a total of 9 presentations...CRAZY FUN! I always enjoy presenting to teachers. On Monday I got to attend a Kansas math conference and promised to come back and share what I learned. 

I don't want to share everything that I learned tonight because I am SUPER tired but I will share a fun idea!

One way to get students to begin looking at numbers and quantities is to use "number chat cards." A number chat card is a card that looks like this:

You would cut the card in half to make two separate number chat carts. The students will use the cards to begin to create math conversations. For example they will usually begin talking about what items they see. "I see apples, corn, and a pie." Then it might move to talking about the attributes these items have. "I see a red apple, that is round." Next the students will begin to notice the quantities of each of the items. "I see that there are 4 apples, 3 pieces of corn, and 2 pies." Students will then progress to comparing the quantities. "I see that there are more apples then corn because there are 4 apples and 3 pieces of corn." Once students seem to understand talking about these items then the teacher can guide them to begin talking about addition and subtraction with the cards. For example, If I add the apples and corn together I will have 7 items total. There are soo many different skills you can hit with these cards it is unbelievable! 

This weekend I am going to work on making some of these cards so be on the look out! TGIF tomorrow woohoo!

New Look and We are Mathematicians Freebie

I love the new look of my blog! Kassie did such a great job! In honor of the new look I decided to create a little freebie. I have been reading the book called "Math Exchanges." It has such great information for small group math and for creating little mathematicians. I created this subway art in these mathematicians from the book! 

Click on any of the pictures to download! I hope you enjoy the freebie and my blogs new look! Happy almost Friday!

Math ideas to ponder...

I am currently reading the following book:

I am on the 4th chapter and I am LOVING it. I wanted to share some ideas/thoughts I have come across while reading: 

1. "We can make a shift from mathematics as something we simply do to a way in which we live our lives, relate to each other, and wonder about our world (Wedekind)." 

I think that is pretty powerful! Many times we teach our students to "do" math, but we don't look at it as something that surrounds us. If teachers change their thinking then I think they will change their teaching! 

2. The role of the teacher is to provide experiences, but it is the role of the student to raise their own questions and create deeper understanding. 

If the teacher is able to successfully set up math experiences for students that guide them to a deeper understanding, than students are doing most of the work. This is a great shift in the math world for teachers. Our students need to be asking the questions. Our students need to be justifying their answers. Our students need to create their own understanding. 

3. "In order to achieve a deep and true understanding of mathematics, children must first see themselves as becoming mathematicians (Wedekind)."

Wedekind does this by talking with students about mathematician statements. An example would be "Mathematicians are curious." Some statements focus on building a mathematician community, while others focus on a specific process or content. 

Here are come resources:

This one is from Amy Lemons who I love! 

This is a really cute unit on TpT that I liked! 

I hope everyone is having a great Friday! Next week we sign on our house...woohoo! 

Math Practice Standards DONE!

I am so excited to share with you my newest creation....Mathematical Practice Standards for Kids!

Click on the link to check it out! If you are teaching the Common Core then you definitely need this in your classroom! 

P.S. I will give it to the first person who comments below! 

Math, Math, Math

Since I am officially now the Math Instructional Facilitator for the elementary schools in my district I thought I would share some great math resources I learned about a couple of weeks ago! Our district is partnering with a neighboring university for a math grant and I got to participate.

One of the MAJOR components that we learned about was the Math Practice Standards for the Common Core...I mean Kansas College and Career Readiness Standards! Our state is now calling them that for budgeting reasons! (what a mess!) Anyways the Math Practice Standards are in ALL great levels and there are only eight! I am working on creating kid friendly posters for these, with kid friendly questions! I will hopefully have them up at my TpT before the end of the weekend!

Here are some great resources we learned about at the institute:

Cheat sheet for Math Practice Standards

Grade Level Common Core Flip Books

Common Core Learning Progressions

Common Core Worksheet Resource

I can't wait to share more math resources with you throughout the year! 

Thank you and S'more Measurement

Thank you all for the sweet comments! I won't be leaving any of you in blog land....I love you all too much! I can't wait to share with you all the new and exciting things with my new job!!

This week we are starting measurement and I created a new unit to help us meet those Common Core Math Standards for Measurement!

-Measurement Anchor Charts

-Resources

-Nonstandard Measurement with Marshmallows/Crackers

-S’more Craft with Sorting Standard/Nonstandard Measurement

-Measuring with different tools (2.MD.1)

-Comparing Two Measurements (2.MD.2)

-Estimating Lengths (2.MD.3)

-Finding the Difference Between Two Measurements (2.MD.4)

-Assessment 

I hope everyone has a GREAT week. The kids start spring break on Thursday! We have a pd day and work day. 

We have been up to...

Wow! I can't believe it is already December! We have been very busy in my class. Last week we finished up our unit about life cycles, studying the life cycle of a flower or plant. We made a really cute project...too bad it isn't spring time already. I did hang them out in the hall, to brighten up the place!

We read the following books all week and talked about the main idea. We wrote the main idea of each book on a sentence strip and then compared/contrasted them all. (Common Core all the WAY!)

In writing we are working on our small moment unit, which is my favorite. We have been reading some mentor text to help us understand what I small moment is. 

In math we took our unit assessment and reviewed odd/even numbers. I had to of course make an Even Steven and Odd Tod like Cara did! Hers were just sooo cute! 

Today we started our new unit about shapes. We started off learning about points and line segments. We used dry pasta to help us make line segments and connect them to make shapes. This was a great hit with the students! 

Lastly I leave you with a picture of lil helper...he can't wait for Santa to come! 

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What a Week....

My kids were coming off of a 4 day weekend and I thought they would be fine but noooooooo! They were crazy!!! By Friday I finally had them all back to normal, but here's the catch....they have another 4 day weekend next week!!! Every other week in October is a 4 day weekend for the kids!!! What was the calendar committee thinking! ;) We were able to do lots of great stuff even though they were crazy!! First off I wanted to share with you are second grade meeting pictures from Wednesday! I of course decorated the conference room to perfection for all my other second grade friends!!

It was so much fun!! I love getting together and talking about what we are doing in our classrooms!! My teammate will be planning the next one in November so I will share more pictures then! 

This week we talked about character traits! We learned about George Washington and Abe Lincoln. We completed a Venn Diagram of the character traits that they both have! (I forgot to take a picture of it though!)

We read the following books, which were really good because they were bogged down with facts. The kids were able to understand them! 

We also talked about adjectives, which went along just perfect with our character traits. We read the book The Biggest Pumpkin, then wrote adjectives that described a pumpkin!

If you are looking for some GREAT pumpkin ideas check out Cara's pumpkin post at First Grade Parade!

I started teaching my small group regrouping addition with 2-digit. We are going to be doing it whole class next week and I am a little frightened!! I think some of my kids might cry!! Wish me luck! I introduced it by making these quick flip chart sequencing the steps! 

I don't know why it is upside down....silly me I guess! Check out my post here for more information about the flip charts!

Since I was took the time to take pictures, I will also share with you what we are doing this week!! We are sticking with the theme of character traits and we will be talking about Martin Luther King Jr.! 

Again..I guess I turned the phone when I was talking the picture! Sorry!

We will be making this craft that I found on pinterest and made my own templates for. The students will be writing character traits on each square. 

Last but not least they will be making this craft of their own personal character traits that is inspired by Mrs. Cupcakes back to school activity here! I also used a worksheet from What the Teacher Want's post here! Once they were combined they looked like this:

It turned out pretty cute thanks to both of those ladies mentioned above!

Well I am off to sit on my bed alll day and do homework in my p.j.'s! It is raining and gross outside! Have a great weekend!

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Candy Math Freebie!!!

We have been working on a little bit of alegebra this week in the good old second grade!! (I can't believe it!!) We are working on how to solve problems with paretheses! Today I introduced the concept and we did a lot of praticing. Most of them are picking it up but I have a few who are going to need some more time or just need to tune their ears in and listen!! :) Tomorrow we have an early release day so I figured we need to do something fun! We are going to practice solving parenthese problems with licorice! I have made these cards the students will use to make problems. They will then add the licorice for the parenthese. I made a recording sheet for the kids to show their work and for accountabibily! I of course want to share it all with you!

Click here to download your own copy! I still can't believe I have only 2 weeks of school left after this week! I am super excited to get everything ready for Camp Learned A Lot! I will be sharing photos and activities after next week! Happy Tuesday!! (Super excited for Real Housewives of OC!!)

Math Freebie

Happy Monday! NOT!! I was totally not looking forward to being at school today because of my relaxing 3 day weekend. The kids were good and everyone seemed to be in a great mood today! I wanted to share a little freebie I am going to use as one of my centers this week. I had found these great x's and o'x during Valentines Day at Target. I had created a math game of tick-tack-toe for the kids to play. They LOVED it! I used the same facts but I made it match my April Centers.

Click here to read the original post.

Click here to download!

I hope everyone has a super week!!! I have Common Core Training on Thursday and an Early Release day on Wednesday! Woohoo!



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Homophones, Area, and Rocks Oh My!

This week was a short week but we were able to get a lot of activities done. The first thing we worked on this week was homophones! My kids loved talking about homophones and came up with some great words that I didn't even think of. We made these cute pears from Pinterest I found!

The kids had to write their two words and then use them in a sentence. If you are looking for a homophones unit head on over to Jen's blog because she has created another amazing unit!



We also talked about area. I am letting one of our interventions come teach my class because she is hoping to get her own classroom next year. It has been great working with her and planning lessons together. She had the kids figure out the area of their name. They looved this!

On Thursday I had the kids figure out the perimeter and area of a house. We had fun reviewing both concepts!

We also finished up our rock unit. We did a writing project from Lindsey's rock unit about our favorite rock. The kids loved making these and they turned out soooo cute!!

Tomorrow we will be going over to my parents house, where my brother (19), my husband (25), and myself (24) will receive EASTER BASKETS! I think my mom still thinks we are her babies. Oh well! That is totally fine with me! She always gets me a super cute outfit!! Happy almost Easter!


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