Primary Chalkboard Take Me to Vegas!!!

VIVA LAS VEGAS!!

 Can you picture it now?  YOU in LAS VEGAS? 

How about YOU in LAS VEGAS attending a one day session of the SDE conference?

Primary Chalkboard is giving away YOUR CHOICE of a 1 day session at SDE!

So, will it be Singapore Math, Differentiated Instruction, I Teach K, I Teach 1st, or the newly added I Teach 2nd? 

How fun is that?

BUT, that's not all, we're also including a $25 gift card to the SDE bookstore, CRYSTAL SPRINGS.

So, NOW can you picture YOURSELF in VEGAS?

Oh, you say you need money for airfare, hotel accommodations, or just some spending money while you are here?  Well, we've got that covered, too.  How about  

THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS IN CASH

to help you out with that?!?!?

NOW, can you picture YOURSELF in VEGAS?

Here's how to enter for a chance to win.

Hop through our Facebook pages and collect a tip for your (possible) visit to Vegas.

Be sure to "like" each page as you hop through so that you can collect the tip.

Each tip will have a number on a playing card.

Add the numbers together and enter the sum  on the Rafflecopter on the Primary Chalkboard blog for a chance to win.

Be sure to add a comment and include #primarychalkboardsendmetovegas.

For an extra chance to win this, take a selfie, post it on IG with #primarychalkboardsendmetovegas 
Don't forget to tag us in your picture! @primarychalkboard

The winner will be picked on April the evening of April 5th.

A HUGE thank you to SDE (Staff Development for Educators) for their kind and generous donation!

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! 

Who's on break!! I am!!!

Can I say Christmas break? Whoooo!! These past 2 weeks have been totally crazy! No, crazy may not be a good vocabulary word. bedlam. Bat-poop crazy. I am so tired, I want to retire hectic!! Take me away, Calgon!! hectic and crazy!! Who's with me? Plus, it was a full moon! WTHeck???

Yes, friends. It was that kind of week and then some! We are not even going to go there! But I will go and show you some things we worked on. A bit late, but better late than never, right?

We worked on gingerbread men and had an amazing time at our gingerbread decorating event! The kids had a blast and we did a cross text compare and contrast on some favourite gingerbread stories! 

It was just too fun for words! I think their favourite was "Gingerbread Cowboy!" 

"Giddyup, Giddyup as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!' we'd read and pretend to ride a horse!! That might have something to do with that being their favourite story! *Maybe*! LOL!

Then we did the cutest writing activity from my Gingerbread Adventures pack:

Gingerbread similes! They came out absolutely ADORBS!!

They had so much fun making and writing about them! Even the boys were excited about making them! We also worked on a few other centers:

Compound Cookies

 Gingerbread Digraphs

I wish I had taken pictures of the other centers but we were... BUSY!! I was busy getting ready for our gingerbread party! Check out the pics! 

After they made their houses, I had a BINGO game and a holiday photo booth! 

If you'd like to plan a gingerbread decorating party for next year, head over to the Primary Chalkboard where I posted some free downloads of the forms I used! 

Then if we weren't busy with that, we made these adorable crafts for the parents!

I do not know who the original creator of this craft is but if you know, please let me know so I can give you proper credit!! But these are ones that I love to make every year! This year, I filled them with fake snow! uhhh... not fun! I basically had to jam them in with a pencil!

I also loved how I packaged them! Again, sorry for being late but an idea for you all next year! I used Solo cups and some of that paper filler from the Dollar Tree, some ribbon, a homemade tag, and there you have a thing of beauty and love!!

A great, inexpensive yet heartwarming gift for the parents from the kids! 

And to end my week.. I had a workshop today! How nice... I had grades due, set up my classroom, clean up from the bedlam that was the week of Christmas break, and they tell me I have a workshop?? Well, it was actually a great workshop!! I loved it and learned some great tools to use to go along with Common Core Math and they will not cost me a billion dollars to incorporate into my classroom. the good news is, I already incorporate a lot of it anyway! 

Here's one that I will be using with and making with my kids in the new year! Bean sticks! Have you heard of them??

Photo courtesy of Catherine Kuhns

Me either! Again, if you are the creator or this, please let me know so I can give you credit for this! When speaking of number sense and base ten, the presenter Catherine Kuhns (click on the pic above to visit her site and see her awesome resources!) suggests having students use these instead of ten sticks! Genius!! I agree! She showed some pictures of students using these when showing 6 tens = 60 and then 6 tens and 1 ten = 7 tens or 70. It was amazing! Then there were slides of moving on to add ones! Just loved this idea because the kids could actually SEE the ten on the bean stick versus the lines on the tens rod! So, I think this will be a new project!

Catherine also showed us a great resource for those who use rekenreks:

It's called Number Rack and it's a FREE app! I downloaded it on my iphone and its pretty cool. There are some paid versions from different software companies. Just check them out. I know The Math Coaches Corner also has some great resources, too!

Anyhow, that's what we've been up to!! Hope you all have a great weekend and I'll be back soon with some treats for you!