Math Monday: Pete the Cat and His 4 Groovy Buttons

I'm back again this week with another math Monday. I know I'm impressed I'm making it two weeks in a row with a feature. Hopefully I can keep it up. My kids love Pete the Cat. It could be because their teacher loves Pete the Cat. I've made it my mission to introduce Pete to all the kids in my life. (I have 2 nieces but several adopted nieces and nephews.) We read a couple of Pete books to start the year off and when the number 4 came up in our math series, I knew it was the perfect time to introduce the kids to Pete and his 4 groovy buttons. We read the story and acted out the story a couple of times the day before. I cut out some buttons and the kids helped me show how they popped off.

We used words like whole and part. The kids that were the buttons that popped off went over to one side of me so the kids could see the two parts.
The next day we read the book again and acted it out. Then I passed the kids out a button sheet to record the different ways to make 4. I had kids come up act out the story as we recorded our problems on a sheet.

I used the document sleeve I received from mybinding.com to record the different ways to make 4. I used red and orange to color the buttons and show the different parts. Then recorded the parts with numbers.  I had this displayed on my board using my document camera and the students followed along. You can click here to get your own copy of the sheet. 

I love using literature to teach math. What are some of your favorite books to use when teaching math? Leave me a comment with your favorite books. 

This and That

I think I have been in a blogging funk lately because I feel like I need something really specific to blog about. Instead of just blogging about what it is going on in my class and my life. So I'm trying to just sit down and do some blogging with no worries about making it be all about one thing.
First up, I was so excited when I got home today and had a package waiting for me. This is what was in the package.

I pre-ordered the books this past summer. Like as soon as I saw that they were coming out. I can't wait to introduce them to my class. They are going to love them. I'm thinking about wrapping up the Pete and the Magic Sunglasses book and having it delivered to the classroom sometime next week. I want it to be a big deal.
This week has been kind of crazy already and it's only Tuesday. We had some standardized testing today and will again tomorrow. Kindergarteners and bubble test don't really go well together. Then Thursday we are suppose to go on a field trip. It's one of my favorite trips we take. Our school has a special relationship with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and we take 3 field trips a year. Well since the government is shut down it means no field trip. We have to get ready like we normally would since we won't know what will happen. The whole National Park being closed is really not a good thing for our community. It is one of the most visited parks in the country and a large part of our economy relies on tourism. No park means no visitors. October is one of our busiest months of the year. So hopefully this will all get settled soon.
I'm always looking for new ways to spice up math. I am not the biggest fan of our math series so I need more activities all the time. This week we're working on numbers 6-10. I made a fall like 10 frame (You can get the freebie here. ) and today we used Halloween erasers I found at Target to practice showing different numbers.

So that's a little bit of what is going on in my class. My hubby is at some class tonight so I think I'm going to work on my pet pack I've been trying to get done. Or maybe I'll just veg out. I still have more testing, conferences, and report cards this week. Happy Tuesday!

Back to School

So I had every intention of blogging last week and participating in Teacher Week. But it just didn't happen. I had registration Monday and Tuesday night. We have registered so many kindergartners. It is crazy. I have 22 on my list right now. Wednesday was our first official day of work and things just got more and more hectic from there. Friday was the first day of school for all kids except kinder. We screened in the morning and then did planning in the afternoon. I was at school until after 7:30 on Friday night. Chris beat me home which never happens on a Friday. Usually he's the one working late. He's been threatening to go live with my parents for the first six weeks of school because I'm so crazy. I just don't sleep this time of year. I'll go to sleep fine but then I wake up at ridiculous times. Wednesday morning it was 4:30 and Thursday it was 5 ish. I used the time to work on some things. We had these videos we had to watch for training on bullying, cyber bullying, suicide and blood borne pathogens. It was loads of fun. But at least I got it over with and could do it from the house. Another big change is we are required to do our lesson plans on an online website. So worked on that one morning as well.
So I think my room is ready for kids to come and I think I have planned what we're going to do. But I'm still not sure I'm ready. We have a staggered enrollment for 3 days thankfully. But this is the first year we've moved to a full day kindergarten. In the past on the first week, all the students left at 12:30. But it's going to be good and I have some fun stuff planned for the week. I thought I would share a few things we're doing.

We're going to read Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes and then go on a tour of the school. Thanks to my friend Mary over at Mrs. Lirrette's Learning Detectives. She posted one earlier this summer. (Check it out here.) When we get back to the room we're going to have Pete and a snack waiting for us. If the weather is good, we're going to have a picnic outside for snack. Later in the week when all the kids are there, we're going to reread the story and practice retelling the story with pictures.
We are also going to start on Nursery rhymes for the week. Monday-Weds we'll read Humpty Dumpty and make a puppet. Thursday we're reading Little Miss Muffet and making a spider and then Friday Twinkle Twinkle little Star and making a glittery star. I made a PowerPoint of nursery rhymes and I'm sharing it with you.

Click here to download the freebie from TPT

We're also going to be doing a self portrait and a picture of me. I found this freebie from Fran at Kindergarten Crayons. (check it out here) This will be their first piece of work to hang in the hallway and I will keep it as part of a portfolio assessment. 

In math we're going to be exploring manipulatives and working on counting. I hope to have a chance to listen to each kid count and to check about their one to one correspondence. We'll see. 

There will also be lots of practicing and learning procedures. I plan to launch into some Whole Brain Teaching. I've also decided not to use a clip chart this year. I'm a little nervous about it but I think it will be good. Kids are going to have logical consequences for their actions. They will also have a place they can go and have a breather. I bought 2 bath mats to make the spaces in the room. So that's what's going on in my room. 

I'm participating in the Back to School sale over at TPT. So be sure to head over there and check out what is on sale. 

What we're reading Wednesday

So far I'm sticking to my scheduling ideas. Although I did mean to post about reading yesterday and just ran out of time. I can't imagine how that happened. It could of been that we were planning kindergarten graduation which is 2 week away.
Anyway, this week my kids and I are reading Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.

(By the way, when I just got the picture from Amazon, I saw that there is a new Pete the Cat Christmas book coming out in September. I will need to pre order that one.
I fell in love with Pete the Cat this summer on Fran's blog Kindergarten Crayons and had to buy the book. My kids fell in love with him and it has escaleted since then. When I told my kids, I had a surprise for them and that it was a new Pete the Cat. They were so excited. They wanted me to read it right then. We had a blast reading it the first day. We had to read it twice. (That was yesterday) Today we reread the story and then worked on retelling the story. I had them help me retell the story by memory. Then I showed them a retelling bracelet I had made. I've seen this idea on Kindergarten Crayons and from Dr. Jean. I took a pipe cleaner and put a yellow, red, green, a different shade of green, blue, white and black bead on it. Then I used the beads to remind me of the different events in the story. Here's what they stood for:
yellow - Pete put on his favorite shirt with four groovy buttons. I moved that bead over so there were four in the middle.
Red - a button that pops off
Green - another button that pops off
Light green - another button that pops off
Blue - the last button that popped off
As we talked about each of these beads, we talked about how many buttons there were left and sang the song.
White - belly button
Black - the lesson we can learn. Things will come and things will go. But do we cry? Goodness no!
I let a couple of kids come up and retell the story using the bracelet and then they got to make their own bracelet. Then they retold the story to a partner. I think we probably need a little more practice with that. I meant to take a picture of it but it just didn't happen. Maybe I'll add some pictures tomorrow.
But tomorrow is my last evaluation for the year. I try not to put on a show when I have people in the room. So I'm planning on just doing my usual reading lesson. We're going to retell the story using our bracelets and then compare it to Pete the Cat:I love my white shoes. I hope to use the label Venn diagram that I talked about in my math post. I bought the Pete the Cat pack from Blues Skies First Grade and she has a venn diagram and a couple of pages I'm going to use. (I wasn't able to use the venn diagram from her pack) Here are a couple of pictures of our work.

It should be a pretty good lesson. It's something I would do normally. I just hope I have a voice. I've been dealing with a sinus infection and my voice has been really scratchy today. I'm at home now trying to rest my voice. So what do you do to retell stories in your class? Is your class Pete the Cat crazy? I loved the discussion that was in the comments on my math post. Keep the comments coming.
Here are the response sheets I used in my lesson. I differentiated them. My kids that are good writers got the blank lines and then the ones that need a little more assistance got the ones with prompts. They did a great job on it. 
Pete the Cat Writing Response

What a week!

This week was a review week for our reading series so I took the opportunity to use Pete the cat. We were reviewing the letters s and p. So I thought that was a great chance to use Pete the cat. My students love Pete. We have read both books several times but just for fun. This week we made a character chart, wrote about Pete, sequenced the events, made our own Pete's, unscrambled sentences about Pete. It was tons of fun and the kids practiced some great skills. It was a combination of activities from Deanna Jump's unit and Fran Kramer's unit. They both have great ideas. I was really impressed with how well my kiddos did making their own Petes. I used my document camera to demonstrate what to do as we followed Deanna Jump's instructions for making one without a pattern. While I didn't do it exactly as she recommended, I thought they turned out well. Today we wrote sentience to describe our Pete's. We used the word like instead of love though because like was one of our popcorn words. I also used Pete to talk to my kids about attitudes and not worrying about things. I'm going to be out on Monday and Tuesday for a some personal time and camping. This is the first time I've been out and my kiddos are a little sensitive about change. So we talked about how Pete handles change. I think it helped some. We'll see. Thanks to Crystal at Kreative Kinder for her sub tub. I got it when she was having a giveaway a while back. It was such a big help in getting ready for the sub.

 Here are our finished Pete's. I was pretty impressed with how far we've come with following directions and cutting.

This is the Pete the Cat, Chris made for our character chart.

Yesterday in the middle of finishing our Petes, the power kept flickering off and on. We had heavy winds and it was knocking the power out. I finally gave up on the document camera and projector and we hurried to finish Pete. But meanwhile, the power went off for about 2 hours during lunch and specials. It was crazy. The kids didn't want to go in the bathroom because it was so dark. Not that I could blame them. Then today we had to have an impromptu assembly in the gym so the superintendent could speak to the faculty. The kids were crazy. It was a wild week in kindergarten and I'm sure next week will be the same since I'll be out two days.
What did you do this week? I'm linking up with Clutter Free Classroom's weekly linky party. Click here to see what others are doing in their class.