No Worksheet Wednesdays!

Happy Wednesday! I'm linking up with my Chalkie brothers and sisters for our monthly linky party, No Worksheet Wednesdays! We all know that as teachers, worksheets are a necessary evil that we sometimes use. I am guilty of this practice. It is not my first choice but I admit I have pulled a worksheet or two. 

So today, I wanted to share with you a worksheet free activity I did! We are working on money! I mean, we have been working hard on money: identifying it, counting it, and now ways to make a dollar. I wanted a hands on experience for my class to find ways to make a dollar. 

I bagged up some coins (more than what they would need) and discussed how much was in a dollar. We also sang this great song from Jack Hartmann to review coins and basic counting. Then I passed out bags of coins and assigned a student to open the bags. I only used pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. 

Students had 5 minutes to work together to make 100 cents or a dollar. They were to check their math and be prepared to show their math during our math walk about. 

I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly they worked and all before the time limit. So I gathered them around and we walked to every table and had groups talk about how they made their dollar and we counted together to verify it. 

At the end of our activity, we took out our journals and students wrote the 4 ways we made a dollar. 

I was super proud of their journal entries. They wrote the correct amounts and showed the coins used. Authentic learning at it's best! Love it! 

I hope you will link up with us this week! I cannot wait to see what ideas you have! 

Another math center idea!

Happy Sunday, friends! Just wanted to stop by and give you a little something I am using this in my class this week! Going to be a bit busy with my little one's birthday party! Plus we have our PTA fundraiser event this week, teaching, being a Mommy and domestic goddess all in one!! LOL! Whew! 

Click on the pic to download your freebie! 

We are working on missing addends and wanted to give it to you!! I will be using these acorns I found at the Dollar Spot at Target (they were $3) and I know my kiddos will love to use these are manipulatives! I tell you, they love the hands on feel of working with real world items. 

The center is differentiated by addition and subtraction or both! Click on the title picture to download it today for FREE! 

Have a great week! 

Getting Hands On-- with Fun Math Manipulatives!

Happy Monday, friends! This year I have really been trying to strengthen my math centers with more use of manipulatives. I'll be honest and say that I cringe when the manipulatives are brought out:

"Johnny, please stop playing with the blocks. They are not guns!"

"Sally, please stop making a flower with the pattern blocks."

The redirections go on and on and on. 

I am sure you can relate! 

I took them out and my kids used them. My lesson might've taken longer but they got the concept. 

So, this year, our district has pushed (strongly encouraged) math centers this year. I came up with my version of a rotational schedule: 

There are many versions of this. I cannot claim credit for this as I saw this presented to me in a workshop. I adjusted and made it to suit my classroom needs. 

The favorite center in my classroom is the Hands on Learning Center. Here is where my kids get down and dirty with the standards and some fun games and manipulatives. Today I wanted to share with you some fun finds I used!

You all know I LOVE Target! I do not go to Wally World unless something major happened and I have no other choice! So I was shopping at Target Dollar Spot and saw some cute candy corn erasers, spider and bat rings, acorns.. and BOOM! My hands-on math centers were created! Look how much fun they had learning!

** I bought these after I did my centers. They were much cuter than the ones I had bought.**

These centers were sooo easy to set up! And yes! I have the same math pages I used to go along with them. We are working on addition and subtraction word problems. These sheets are also great to teach with my Math Strategy posters. We have been working on counting on, acting it out, and drawing a picture. They used the posters and key rings to help them with these. 

Click to download your FREEBIE! 

I know that using these fun little items in Math has greatly amped their enthusiasm! Hope you all can find these tools as useful as I have!

Have a great week! 

Florida Blog Hop: Back to School Edition!

Hey everyone!! Welcome back!! I am so excited to be back with these fabulous bloggers to share some exciting tips and resources with you to help you get ready for back to school or if you are already back to school to help you in your planning. 

I am the

 Please stay along with us through every hop! There is something special for you at the end!! 

Today I am going to talk briefly about building number sense in your classroom. As you know, number sense is essential for building those foundations for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. We practice it extensively, like you do, in our calendar time through skip counting, 10 more/less, 1 more/less, counting the days, place value with hundreds/tens/ones, everything so that they know numbers forwards and backwards. 

Do you do math centers in your classroom? We have math centers incorporated into our math block to help build and foster these concepts for our students. It is great for working those trickier concepts with a smaller group than whole group.

I wanted to share a paid product with you that I created for number sense.

click on the picture to grab it! 

There are 6 Centers dedicated to helping your students master Numbers Sense to 120-- One race at a time! 

Number word cards (for display at centers)

120 charts (with color saver version)

Pit Crew Place Value Game

Ready, Set, Count

Winner’s Circle- I have, Who has

Build a Dream Race Car

Quad Races: 10 more/less, 1 more/less (with color saver version)

Race and Roll (+1, +2, -1, -2)

There are 6 Centers dedicated to helping your students master Numbers Sense to 120-- Once race at a time! There are games and activities built for independent, pair, and group settings.

As a little preview of my pack, I have a FREEBIE set that goes along with it. Please click on the picture to download it! 

I hope that you have enjoyed hopping along with us! 

Now here is the other fun part! Have you been grabbing the clues (If you need a reminder of what to do with each clue, click here! ) through our hop?? Be sure to join us on Instagram! 

Don't forget by linking up and getting all the clues, you can win these prizes!!

Here is your CLUE!!!

Don't forget to write down the letter from each of your hop stops! :)
Solve the mystery word and post a selfie on instagram with your answer!
Don't forget to add

#OrangeHop2014!

That way we can find you for the drawing! :)

Now onto the next stop, sweet Kimberly from The Learning Tree! You all will adore her! She is so FUN and CREATIVE!! 

If you want start from the beginning, please click on the "First Stop" below :

Let's FOCUS here!

Ha! Must tell myself that ALL.THE.TIME! I am what they call a piddler, wanderer, absent minded... okay-- maybe a little ADD. Staying focused is sometimes hard for me, especially, now that I am almost back to school. I do not want to enter my classroom and see it so empty of children and life and worse--cluttered. That's when I lose focus! But I am not here to talk about me being focused!

Let's talk about FOCUS BOARDS! We all have them in one form of another. Do you have a 

word wall

data wall

calendar wall 

writer's tips wall

what is science wall

etc... you get it, right?? 

**by wall I mean some area or space designated to learning!**

If you don't have wall space dedicated to this, no worries, there's always magnets, clips, charts that you could use! 

SO, what a FOCUS BOARD?

1. Easy to set up!

2. Easy to change

3. Are colorful and inviting

4. You can refer back to your learning target in a large, visible way

5. Children will flock to it like moths to a flame when needed

This is what I had to work with last year-- still do...

I put Reading Counts points and Star Student of the Week. Now are these useful? Yes, but I wanted my kids to interact with the wall and content!! You cannot see my calendar wall, which is just as sad because I moved to a digital one on my ActivBoard but that was sad, too (sorry, no picture as I am still on vacation!). It just had shapes, months of the year, a 100s chart... Not much-- it really didn't convey what we were focusing in class. 

This year, I got smart (it took me a while! LOL!) and I started creating math and writing focus boards in my classroom. Those were two areas I wanted to work on hard this year! I am working on student data notebooks and there is that reflective piece that comes along with it! 

I created a focus board for math that would help students FOCUS on the strategy we are working on. I plan on setting this up instead of a calendar wall and making it a math focus wall. That way, I can refer to the one strategy we are working on and focus on that! Again, this comes back to that reflective piece-- when working on your data notebooks with your students and looking at their test and data, you can ask them, which strategy they used, did it work, could you have used another strategy? Kids just need that visual!  

click on the pic to grab it! 

I plan on just pinning sheet protectors up on my board so that I can exchange the strategy of the week or put them in as I need them. 

I also created a key ring set of math strategies that the students could keep in their desk so that when they are working at their seats, they can refer back to that. 

I hope to have some pictures of my finished math focus board soon! Not allowed in my classroom, yet. :-( Really excited to work on this with my students this year! And hoping I stay focused enough to get my classroom de-cluttered and organized!! LOL! FOCUS!!