Ten-Frame FUN

Helllooooo! Yes, I am still alive. Yes, I am BUSY, BUSY, BUSY. But yes, I am still here! I think about this little old blog often but lately it has had to fall to the bottom of my priority list. :( I'm not back to the same capacity as before when I regularly blogged, but I hope to at least have new resources to share and blog posts once or twice a month. :D

Let's talk ten-frames.

Do you know what a ten-frame is? Do you use ten-frames in your classroom? If you teach math in the primary grades, I hope your answer to both questions is YES, of course! :)

Using ten-frames helps students work specifically on subitizing, composing/decomposing numbers, making 10, relationships between numbers, etc. These simple, yet powerful tools can help lay those building blocks of number sense our students need. Below are some resources you can add to your ten-frame ideas bucket:

• You can purchase a set of ten-frame cards OR you can pick up a freebie here. Once you have the cards, you are ready to use them with your kids! Use them as flash cards to build their instant recognition of each number.

• If you are looking for some games to play with your ten-frame cards, I whipped a little math game pack up this week. These games are great for whole group, small group or work station activities! You can check it out by clicking on the picture!

• Also, here are some great online ten-frame games:

 

• Finally, this is a fantastic book with lots of great ideas:

Have a GREAT weekend and see you soon! :)

Labels for Math Manipulatives

Yesterday was an INCREDIBLY productive day! Thanks to my sweet husband, I got to spend several hours alone in my classroom while he spent some quality time with our 3-year-old.

 My book bags have been washed and hung back up! Our white board towels have also been washed and returned to their proper place.

I used the cute letter stickers I bought from Hobby Lobby to label my clipboard bucket. Love how it came out and (even more) LOVE how easy/fast it was!

I use dollar store buckets and command hooks to store our 100s charts and foam dice on the wall next to my math bins. I wanted this location but didn't have a surface to put the buckets on, so this is my solution! :) Labeled the containers today.

The rest of my classroom time was spent reorganizing THOUSANDS of number cards (seriously!) that we used last year. Let me break it down for you....

73 numbers included in one set of cards x 3 cards per number x 14 sets of cards = 3,066 cards!! 

And it only took me 8 hours.

But since I am such an OCD organizational freak, I really enjoyed it. :)

Anywho, after I got home I organized some less cumbersome sets of number cards and then whipped up this:

There are 36 labels included in the pack. (You can find a detailed list of the labels in the product description on TPT or TN.) If you enjoyed yesterday's Sweet & Simple Saturday label freebie, then you will enjoy the rest of the labels!

I can't wait to print the labels and start sticking them on my containers!! But that will have to wait until tomorrow because I am typing this post at 3:00 a.m.......... ;)

You can check out the labels by clicking below:

Have a beautiful Sunday! :)

Odd and Even Numbers!

Well, this is my final Christmas break project. It's back to reality after the weekend. What an awesome two weeks it has been!!!
I sat down to finish up my lesson plans and make one little odd and even activity--48 hours later, I have this Odd and Even Activity Pack! (That's usually how it goes for me!) I am especially excited about this one because we will be using this next week in my classroom!

This 104-page pack includes:

• anchor charts (including a rhyme to remember what odd and even numbers are)


• hundreds chart puzzles


• games


• practice pages


• editable files so you can customize some of the activities


• and a fun little monster craftivity!

You can view the product in either store by clicking below!

Comment below and I'll choose two of you to win a free copy of the pack! Don't forget to leave your email! I'll pick a winner Sunday afternoon. :)

Rocks and Rock Buddies

A few weeks ago we finished up a rock unit in science. Of course, teaching rocks to 1st graders was WAAAYYYY different than teaching rocks to 4th graders, like I am used to! Rocks is one of my favorite areas of science, so it was fun, nonetheless.

For one activity, we asked students to bring in rocks so we could sort, describe, classify, and observe them. (The kids thought that was the coolest homework assignment ever!) After we had some fun with the rocks, we used the rocks to make a classroom Rock Museum. Next year, I think we will do a little more with the Rock Museum because we kept it pretty simple this year. After the exploration activities with the rocks, the students were instructed to write a sentence about their rock(s) so others will have some information, just like at a real museum.

While we were studying rocks in science, we were also learning how to write stories that have a beginning, middle, and end in writing. My 1st grade team and I decided to extend/solidify learning by coming up with a special project to make things a tad more exciting. We decided to bring in rock buddies!! The students were told about the Rock King who chose our class (out of alllll of the classes in the United States, mind you!) to host some rock buddies for a few days. The buddies came and hung out with us for about two days and it was a B-L-A-S-T!!

Here they are! They were so excited to meet them!

Of course, we just had to give them makeovers.

The kids cared for the buddies, documenting some of the fun times along the way. At the end, we were able to turn the adventure into a BME story! I was so impressed/entertained to watch the kids care for the buddies! They REALLY embraced the challenge of the activity and cared for the rocks like they were little babies. They even spoke for the rocks, let the rocks write (hilarious) and listened to the rocks read!

Just look at those buddies write!

And look at these happy faces!!! (haha, couldn't resist):

I also made a journal for the kids to use for the activity and for what we were studying in science. A few nights ago I went back and spruced it up so I could make it available to you!

You can check it out in either store by clicking on a link:

And since this is a new product, you can get 15% off, just like my other new product promotion. Hurry, because the sale ends tonight at 11:59 p.m.!!

Thanks for hopping over! Hope you had a merry Christmas!! :)

Final, Stable Syllables--fun, fun, FUN!

Yes, I know how exciting of a topic final, stable syllables is!! :)  I actually enjoyed teaching this to my students because it really helped them to be able to decode a lot more words! They are getting so much smarter each day! In the upper grades, you do get to see the kids learn what you teach but in 1st grade, MAN, it is almost instant! The mind really is like a little sponge. I am so proud of the progress all of them have made since the beginning of the year!! :) Anyway, back to final, stable syllables--I had to come up with additional activities for my students to do to help solidify their understanding because our phonics program was NOT enough. A few activities turned into this 83-page pack! Check out a few of the pages:

You can see more by downloading the product preview from either store. Click below:

This product, along with the last three that I have posted, will be on sale from the rest of tonight through the 26th!! Take advantage and save 15%!! :)

Here are the others:

Another New Products Giveaway!!!

A few months ago I had a little giveaway for all of the new products I had posted at the time. Well, I posted a pretty big math pack today and several other products in the last 3-4 weeks, so I decided that I MUST do another one of those giveaways!!!

Simply follow the rafflecopter instructions listed below and you might win a free copy of one of my newest products--you pick which one! :)

Check out what I have recently posted:

Head over to one of my stores to read more about these activities!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for stopping by!!! Good luck!!! :)

MORE Writing Freebies!

Happy Saturday evening!!

I hope you had a chance to comment and win a FREE copy of my Magic e Activity Pack! If not, click here to head on over to the post.

Speaking of free, I have some freebie writing activities to share with you. You may recall this Finger Spacing Sort I posted a few months ago. Well, I created one just like it when we introduced capital letters at the beginning of sentences. It was a nice and quick assessment of their understanding. Grab your copy below!

Also, I made a Personal Word Wall to go into our Writer's Notebooks. The students will add names and other words that they frequently use. It serves as a quick reference for them. (My students were very excited about this, by the way! So excited that we now have to go back and reinforce the importance of spelling the words correctly when you add them to the page!) :) You can grab a copy of this as well! It is meant to be copied front-to-back and then hole-punched, so I adjusted the margins accordingly.

Oh, and don't forget about the TN sale and the TPT sale!! You can save all sorts of money! And my shops are both 20% off! :)