Flash Sale!!

Having a quick little sale to celebrate 100,000 Facebook likes for TPT! 

(Thanks, Shuna, for the graphic!)

Check out some of my coolest products!

Click below to visit my store!

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??

Accelerated Reader Prizes in My Room

We took our VERY FIRST AR (Accelerated Reader) tests last week in my classroom! Last year we didn't start until second semester and this year we were able to start in the fifth week of school--go me!!! :)

Since we are started now, I figured I should probably get my reward system for AR figured out! I spent the weekend scanning websites and soliciting ideas from some of you out there and I think I have a plan!

This will get us started--once they go beyond 10 points, I will be ready with an additional incentive chart. I don't anticipate that happening for a few weeks though! :)

I made the "Sparkling Reader" and "Glowing Reader" tags mentioned on the chart and I am happy to share them with you now!

So you get to see a live glowing shot because I accidentally activated these!!!

5 glow sticks in a pack at Walmart for $1!

  I bought the glitter pencils from Walmart for $1--12 in each pack.

And for one last incentive, I am using an idea left by an Instagrammie:

These fabulous and inexpensive beads will be worn by a student each time he/she earns 1 AR point. They will get to wear it all day and then return it at the end of the day. Sweet and simple. (I think this may end up being their favorite incentive!)

If you would like to snag a FREE copy of the aforementioned tags, visit one of my shops by clicking below:

What kind of incentives do you offer for AR?

Please share below!

Hope you had a great Monday!!! :)

Going on a Shape Hunt...

If you recall last Sunday's post, I shared my math plans with you AND a little Shape Hunt freebie! In those plans, I explained that we would be going on a Shape Hunt around our campus using iPads to capture the shapes. This was probably our FUNNEST day of math to date--the kids were not only excited to go outside on a hunt, but they were THRILLED to be able to carry their very own iPad with them! Well...

The hunt is on!

After the hunt, the kids looked at all of the pictures they took and used them to fill out the Shape Hunt recording sheet.

They took some great pictures!!

After they finished the recording sheet, they got to play one of the shapes apps we have on the iPads. However, I CANNOT remember/find the app we used!! Lo siento. It is on the school iPads so I will find out once I have access to them again. I want to say it was called Train Shapes but when I googled it, the apps that came up didn't match the one we played.

And here is the chart we made using some of our iPad pictures!!! The kids came up with all of the descriptions--I was simply just the scribe. :)

This was a great kick-start to our 2D Figures unit. We will be finishing up this week, so I will have to share some more activities with you! :)