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Saturday, October 12, 2013

Another Week Down!

I can't believe another week has passed. This was a fast one, too!

MONDAY
Monday was the kickoff for blends month. We will be focusing on s blends, l blends, and r blends in phonics/spelling for 3 weeks. I actually went ALL out and planned an activity that involved a blender! What better way to introduce your students to blends than to make a smoothie in a blender??!
I bought this teeny tiny blender from Wal-Mart. We put a can of apple juice and half a bag of frozen chopped fruit in it. We talked about the properties of the fruit/juice before blending it and predicted what would happen once we pressed the button. After it was all blended, we discussed how the properties changed (gotta throw in some science!) and how the same ingredients were still there even though you can barely tell what it is made of. THEN, we related it to blends in words and tried our apple strawberry peach banana smoothie! They were THRILLED, to say the least! It was a great way to get us started and to help them remember why a blend is a blend.

Despite the two cups you see with smoothie still in them, the kids LOVED it!

Also on Monday, we finally talked about the math word for those "corners" on shapes. We made shapes on pieces of construction paper and used Do-a-Dots to count the vertices. What you see below is one of the construction paper pages underneath my document camersa, projected onto the Promethean Board. We used index cards and tape to label the shape. 

Then we continued to work in our shape book foldable that you can find here.

TUESDAY
We started patterns in math by using pattern blocks and macaroni to make patterns!



You can pick up this macaroni pattern freebie here!

WEDNESDAY
We FINALLY started Read to Someone after 6 weeks of Read to Self--took us that long to get it down, BUT the important part is that they got it down. They did fantastic with Read to Someone!


On Wednesday nights at church I assist in the gardening hobby bible class for 1-4th grade (I am NO gardener, by the way!!). We planted some seeds last week and, thanks to a bunch of rain last weekend, we were happy to see that they had sprouted!

We did sidewalk chalk after spending time in the garden; one little boy wrote this little reminder for us all. :)

I also shared this #midweekconfession via Instagram.

THURSDAY
Thursday brought additive patterns. Yikes. My class didn't have a clue. At all. Lots of ::face palms:: from yours truly. 
We got through it. But it was not easy. :) We will for sure continue to spiral review additive patterns.

Thursday night I almost completed level 79 of Candy Crush--I have been working on it here and there for A MONTH! A MONTH!!!! And I am STILL working on it because 2 moves to get those last two blocks of jelly was just not enough!     :O      >:(       :(

FRIDAY
Skip counting! We started out by reading this book:
This book was a GREAT introduction for skip counting!! GREAT! The animals in the book are competing for title of "King of the Jungle" and must find the fastest way to count to 10. Pick it up on Amazon here. I highly recommend it. 

This activity was the perfect lead-in for some exploration time with skip counting. We actually only had time for just the first page, but this is the investigation page we completed:


Click on the above images or here to download this freebie.

I gave each student a hundreds chart, counters, and the recording sheet (from above) and let them have at it. I loved seeing all of their little brains working. They had some GREAT ideas and thinking. Wonderful insight for me.

Counting by 1s to 48.


Skip counting by 2s to 48:


Check out her towers--she was skip counting by 2s!
On the recording sheet, they were allowed to use it however they chose. Some used it as a work mat while others used it to record the numbers they counted. That also gave me some insight as to what they knew about skip counting.

Phew. It was quite the week. And aren't you proud that I shared more than just math?! We do a billion things each day, but math just makes the most interesting pictures. ;)

What exciting things did you do this week??

5 comments:

  1. I MUST share your blends/smoothie idea with our 1st grade teachers! Whatta NEAT idea!
    I canNOT believe 1st graders are exposed to the word vertex at their level! That's amazing. I use that math vocab word with my 4th graders. Things sure are changing....
    I can relate to your candy crush frustration. I was stuck on evil level 65 for 3 stinkin' months!! Love Candy Crush, but ohhhh, the frustration. I'm stuck on level 100 now (2 weeks).

    Ali
    Teaching Powered by Caffeine

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  2. I have definitely bought the same book twice! It must mean that it's a really good read!

    Sara :)
    The Colorful Apple

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  3. So many wonderful ideas! I have to try the counting exploration. Our SMART goal, right now, is on counting by 5s and using tallies. Your ideas will definitely support it!

    Marcy
    SearchingForTeacherBalance

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  4. It looks like you had an amazing week! I've seen blender worksheets, but never thought to make a smoothie in a blender to introduce that concept. I will be using that idea for sure!

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  5. Love your idea of blends and smoothies. It is great when you can combine subject areas and have such a memorable lesson

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