March MATHness

This year our school is placing an emphasis on how important and fun math truly is. By doing this, we put together a math night entitled "March MATHness". ( to go along with March Madness) We had a night where students came to out with their parents and played basketball themed math games together. Boy, was the night a BIG success!! The students were having such a great time beating their parents in math games. haha

**Second Grade put together 5 games for the students to play. Since I created all but one of the games I will post them once I transfer them to PDFs** 

Game 1: Place Value Playoffs had the students matching digital numbers to pictures of base ten blocks. 

Game 2: 6th Man had students reading the coach's playbook and placing different pictures in ordinal positions. 

Game 3: Rebound Rounding had students rounding basketballs to the nearest whole number. 

Game 4: Double Dribble had students playing against each other. They had to roll the dice twice, adding the numbers together and then add 10 more to the answer. Then students covered the answer on their answer sheet. Who ever covered the most numbers after 10 rounds, won! I found this game on Fantastic First Grade Froggies. She has a whole basketball unit for FREE! 

Game 5: Shot Clock had students matching digital clocks to analog clocks. (5 minute intervals) 

Famous Americans- George Washington

While learning about Famous Americans, we briefly discussed George Washington. As a class, we complied a list of details that we already knew about Washington and after reading several additional books, we added new information to our chart. From that, the students wrote a short summery highlighting GW's life.
The students made Washington out of construction paper and attached their summaries to the bottom. Didn't these turned out adorable!!

*a fun craft idea, for George Washington's hair, we used packaging peanuts. A great idea for recycling and plus they looked like curled hair*

Symmetry...who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

It's always fun to find activities that students get excited about. I find myself surfing the internet for hours during the week trying to find fun and new activities for the students to try.

Last year, during our symmetry unit, the students made Symmetric Monsters using Geometric shapes. This year, I wanted to try something new. So after a few hours of searching, I found this activity on Lesson Plan SOS.  (if you haven't seen her site yet, PLEASE DO! It has wonderful ideas)

When I introduced the activity, my students were sooooo excited! They couldn't wait to go home and show their siblings how to draw a symmetrical Spongebob.

Look how awesome they turned out!! 

Inferencing Unit

Outside the clouds look dark and heavy. There is a slight smell of rain in the air. I begin to hear thunder in the distance.
I infer that there is a storm coming!

Inferencing is probably one of my favorite reading lessons to teach. There are so many fun ways to teach inferring in the classroom.

We began first by making an inferencing poster, together as a class.

We then looked at art by Horce Pippin:

Students looked at each of the pictures. They wrote down what they saw, what they already knew, and they made an inference on what they thought was happening in the painting. I love this activity because it blends art with reading.


On the second day, we read "No David". As I read, the students looked at the pictures and made inferences on what they saw David doing. After reading, the students were given 3 pictures to make inferences on:                  

After examining the pictures the students filled in their inferences on the No David worksheet I found on First Grade Wow. Click on the link if you want to grab the worksheet too!!

Happy Valentine's Day

Thank you to everyone for the Valentine's Day cards and goodies!! You made my Valentine's extra special!

I usually let students go crazy and decorate their Valentine's bags however they like. So by the end of the day there usually is construction paper all over the room, glitter all over the floor, and stickers stuck to desks, This year, I wanted to try something different but still make it creative. So I did some searching on pinterest and found these adorable little cuties!!
I love how my students personalized them, adding little things to make them look just like themselves.

This student added a bow tie to his boy. 

This student added freckles to her girl. 

As Valentine's gifts this year, I found so many wonderful ideas on pinterest. It was hard to pick just one: so I went ahead and gave my students two gifts instead. Both ideas came from pinterest (not sure of their original source) 

Non Fiction Book Parade

It was that time again, the Non Fiction Book Parade! This is one of the biggest events that our school has every year!! The students, parents, and teachers all look forward to it!!!! Before the project is assigned, during shared reading we discuss the difference between fiction and nonfiction books. What do fiction books have that non-fiction books don't? Then the students selected their own non fiction book from the library.

I found this poster on pinterest and as a class, we created one very similar:

They took it home and read it over several weeks. They had to write down 4 interesting facts they learned while reading the book and then build a moveable float that revolved around the book topic.

Here are just a few pictures of the amazing floats:

A classroom filled with amazing book parade floats

I wish I could've taken more pictures!! The bell rang before I knew it, and I had to head down to the classroom. Everyone did a FANTASTIC job on their projects!! 

Christmas Holiday Activities

Hands down, December is my favorite time of year! 

We got to do so many cute activities for the holidays. Here are some of the adorable projects we completed before winter break: 

Reindeer Glyph

If I was an elf.....