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Workshop Wednesday: Math Games!

March 13, 2013

I’m so excited about this week’s Workshop Wednesday!

I absolutely LOVE finding and/or creating new math games for my kiddos to play, so today’s topic is: What math games do you and your kiddos love to play? Share and promote! 🙂

The first game I will share with you is called Witzzle Pro. I adapt it for my classroom, but the actual directions that come with the game are really fun, too!! The way I play in my room: no dice are needed…each set of partners gets a card (see above). I give them a range of numbers that I want them to find equations for (like 10-20). They must use order of operations to create at least one problem that will have an answer for each number in that range. All of the numbers must stay in order either forwards, backwards, horizontal, vertical, or diagonal! For example, the card standing up by itself in the picture above… the top row could be used this way:

5+6-1=10

5+(6×1)=11

1+6+5=12

but NOT: 5-1+6=10 because the numbers would be out of order.

The kids have a lot of fun with it and it’s a GREAT way to practice order of operations!

I’ve also created some math games for use in my room. All of these are FREE in my TPT store, so feel free to click on the pictures of them to download them. These games are also included in my Common Core Math Units that I’ve created- along with other games, lessons, and fun activities of course. 🙂

Place Value Game

Simplify Fractions Game

Partial Product Multiplication Game

Division With Remainders Game

Make One Whole With Decimals Game

Can’t wait to see the games you all share! Please link up to your blog ONLY (links within your blog can go to stores, of course). Make sure to also grab the banner and link back to my blog, please! Let’s follow Farley’s Rule of 3! 🙂

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Flashback, Five, and Freebie!

March 16, 2013

Linking up…

Here we go!!

1) We had a great week! First, Joanne at Head over Heels for Teaching posted her amazing bulletin board last week and I HAD to copy it. 🙂 Check hers out here.
Here’s mine!!

I had them choose a “food” figurative language phrase to “show” (not tell!) the meaning through their writing. They drew the food from their figurative language phrase:

And inside their “napkin” they wrote their paragraph to show the meaning:

My kids had so much fun with it!! The list they picked from can be downloaded as a freebie below or here. We talked about the meanings of course, before they chose. Then they are keeping this in their writing folders to use later in their writing!

2) Yesterday, we did another bloggy inspired display on the door. Amanda over at Collaboration Cuties posted a great self-esteem and community-building activity with a St. Pat’s theme. Check hers out here! It seems this time of year, the kiddos always start getting a little aggravated with each other and get what I call “sibling syndrome.” So I gave all my kiddos this list of positive character traits – which was GREAT because we talked about the words they didn’t know the meaning of and they wrote the synonyms for them… hoping this list helps add to their vocabulary!! Then we did a form of “SCOOT” -they went around with their list to every student’s desk and wrote a trait on their coin. You should have seen their faces as they read their own coins when they made it back! You could tell this really made them feel good. 🙂 I posted them on the door…

…and at the end of the month I’m going to tape them on their desk to help give them a boost when they need it. 🙂

3) Today officially started my birthday celebration weekend!! We have birthday recognitions on our morning news show, so I went up to get mine! 🙂

4) The kids had a blast playing our St. Patrick’s Day games/activities during language arts time! In fact, so much that we didn’t get through all the rotations today, so we’ll finish on Monday. They didn’t want to stop so I gave them more time than I anticipated.

Figurative Language Memory Game from My Life as a Third Grade Teacher

Simple and Compound Subjects from 3rd Grade Grapevine

Erin Go Bragh Editing from My Life as a Third Grade Teacher

Parts of Speech Coins from Collaboration Cuties

5) Don’t forget to enter my 200 follower giveaway! It’s hard to believe I’m over 250 now!! The giveaway will end Sat night and winners will be announced on Sunday!!

Happy Friday! Enjoy your weekend! I know I will! 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Workshop Wednesday- Reading Organizers!

March 20, 2013

Today’s topic: Graphic Organizers in Reader’s Workshop! What do you use to help your kiddos get their thoughts out on paper? Feel free to share a freebie for us to download, or a link to your store through your post! (Please, do not directly link to your store in the linky party!) Be sure to share in your post about how the graphic organizer is used!

Don’t you just love the graphic organizers that are out there? There are some super cute and creative ones, for sure! I’ve come across some great organizers thanks to TPT. I’ve been using some great response organizers from Krista Wallden that are super adorable and just what I need for my kiddos when they are independently reading.

I made this organizer last year for my kiddos to use during Guided Reading or Partner Reading- it’s a freebie you can download from TPT if you’d like! They write down words that amuse, amaze, or puzzle them to share with the group. We take time to discuss the words that puzzle them. I love allowing students to draw something that will help them remember what happened (a symbol or a quick illustration) because for some kiddos (especially my ESOL)- this is a better memory clue for them. Finally they summarize the chapter in one or two sentences. Click the picture below to download this free organizer, or click here!

But then, I decided it was about time I created some more to use during my Guided Reading groups- some that are short and to the point like this one (because Lord knows, we don’t have all day in groups!!), but that are aligned more with Common Core. There are so many things we are trying to do in groups- assess fluency, comprehension, word accuracy… I do NOT have time for the kiddos to fill out a giant organizer, too. These organizers help give me a snapshot of their comprehension, or provide a TRUE mini-lesson guided page. And even better, these will save paper, too! 🙂 They will be on sale through Saturday, 20% off, so grab them up while they are super cheap!

Click the preview picture above to download, or click here!

Now it’s your turn!! Grab the button below and make sure to link back to this post from your blog! And as a bonus, when you link up to your blog post, you will get these organizers emailed directly to you for free! 🙂

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Five For Friday, Flashback, & Freebie!

March 22, 2013

Hello my BBBs! (That’s Best Bloggy Buddies, of course!)

You are gonna feel some SERIOUS love in this Friday post. Watch out! 😉

1) Ok, clearly we all have bad days and need to whine a little. I have really tried to keep all my blog posts positive because I know we don’t all want to hear complaining all the time. But yesterday, I had a little pity party, and I was overwhelmed by the amount of love and support I received from you all, my BBBs!!! It makes me so glad to be a blogger- this really is such a special community we form here in bloggy land. You people are awesome. 🙂 Thank you so much to Julie, Jessica, Tamra and Sarah, Christy, Elizabeth, Amy, Molly, Theresa, Jess, Ashley, Angie, Melissa, and Caralee for really lifting my spirits yesterday!! 🙂 (Sorry for not linking, Angie- if you read this and you have a blog, shoot me your link so I can make sure I’m following you!)

2) I interviewed yesterday for literacy coach here at my school. Sorry for the vagueness yesterday- I was back and forth on whether to announce it, but I decided it would be ok. 🙂 I REEEEEEEALLY am hoping and praying I get the job because it has been a dream of mine since I became a teacher. Fingers and toes crossed!! Thanks so much to those of you who have also been saying some prayers with me! 🙂 Again, BBBs!!! 🙂 🙂

3) Three women we learn about in 4th grade are Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. SADLY, they are at the end of our year because we go through our Social Studies chronologically, so we don’t have enough time to really get excited about them before THE TEST! But this year, I changed that. I decided for our biography unit, we would read about these fabulous women, research about them, and write about them! We started off reading about them on PebbleGo.

If you haven’t checked out this amazing site- DO IT! It is fabulous at giving “basic important information” just right for elementary schoolers AND it reads it to them if they need that accommodation (my ESOL kids and lower readers used this feature).

We also read these books:

This way, I’m able to integrate all that Social Studies content into my Language Arts time, and not ever have to physically teach it in isolation during “Social Studies!” I love doing that- especially now with Common Core and the huge push for nonfiction- integration is HUGE! Elizabeth Leads the Way is a GREAT book to use to teach strong leads. Moses is wonderful for context clues and imagery. Step-Stomp Stride is awesome for teaching vivid/powerful language. So as we learn the information taught through the biographies, we are learning reading and writing skills, too!

4) I’m so excited to say that the Workshop Wednesday Linky is successful! 17 AWESOME bloggers linked up this week!! Check them out by clicking the button below if you haven’t already! There were some GREAT resources shared!

(And don’t forget, you can always link up late- the linky stays open until the next Wednesday!) So I’m going to go ahead and get a paid subscription to inlinkz so we can have our cute thumbnails on the linky each week. I will post the week’s topic on Sunday and/or Monday so you can be prepared if you want to join in!

5) You know I can’t leave a Friday post freebie-less.

So here’s a cute one I hope you will find useful! 🙂 Enjoy! Graphics are from Ashley Hughes!

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Tried It Tuesday!

March 26, 2013

I am so excited to be linking up with Holly’s FIRST EVER Tried It Tuesday Linky!!

This is one I’ll definitely be consistently linking up to! 🙂 The rules are to write about anything you have tried and describe what worked (and maybe what didn’t).

This week, we are wrapping up area and perimeter, so I used Blair Turner’s Dream House Project for a culminating activity! It’s a freebie she shared with us on All Things Upper Elementary!

The students designed their dream home by drawing the floor plan. They had to label and color each room, then find the area of each room. Once they found the area of all of their rooms, they added them together to find the total area of their house! Because I wanted my kiddos to get some practice with perimeter, too, I added an extra “direction” to it. They had to find the total perimeter of their house as well. They had such a great time designing, and then sharing, their houses! They certainly got creative!! Check some of them out below.

He has a Basketball room, an XBox, PS3, Wii room, and a Candy room!!

She has a pool, cat house, dog house, AND a backyard in the middle of her house! 😛

The only thing I might do differently is to limit the number of rooms they can have. It took me quite a while to actually go through and check them. (Am I admitting that I’m a lazy teacher??)

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow to link up with Workshop Wednesday!! Tell us all about your favorite mentor texts you use to teach author’s craft!

Workshop Wednesday: Math Games!

Flashback, Five, and Freebie!

Workshop Wednesday- Reading Organizers!

Five For Friday, Flashback, & Freebie!

Tried It Tuesday!

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