Turkey Time! and a freebie

I haven't blogged in way too long! I hate it. I miss chatting with my bloggy friends. Life has just been too busy lately and I haven't had the energy to blog much. But I'm hoping to catch up over my Thanksgiving break. I'm so jealous of all you that have the whole week off. But I'm thankful for my 2 and a half days off I have. I was talking to one bloggy friend who only gets Thursday off. I am in need of this break badly. Anyway, this is just a quick post to share a freebie for those of you that are in school this week too. It's a color by sight word page that reviews some sight words from journeys. We just finished lesson 11.

You can click here to get the freebie on google docs. 

I also have a freebie in my tpt store that is a fun counting activity with a Thanksgiving theme. Check it out here. 
Even though it would be nice to have the whole week off I'm going to enjoy the days I've got with my kids. I sent home the Disguise a Turkey project a few weeks ago and it's suppose to come back tomorrow. I've gotten a few in and can't wait to see them all. So far they are looking good. Wednesday for our half day we're going to have a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Feast with our Fourth grade buddies. We'll watch the dvd and then compare it to a book. Then feast on popcorn, jelly beans and pretzels. It should be a good day. Hopefully over the break, I'll have the chance to share what we've been doing with our buddies. We've had a blast with them lately and learned a lot. So how long do you get for a break? If you are going to be in school this week, what do you have planned?

Centers + a freebie

I change out my centers about every 2-3 weeks. I have 10 stations and kids go to one a day. I would love to have them rotate through more than that but it just doesn't work for me. So here's what's up for this round:

 The hole punch activtiy is from Crystal at Kreative in Kinder's Print and Punch unit. Check it out here. 
The upper and lower case letter match is from the Printable Princess's A Dab of Learning unit. Check it out here. 

 Roll and Cover and the ten frame practice is from DeeDee Wills Save My Ink: November Math and Literacy activities. I've found that adding markers to an activity makes my kids think they are getting to do something really special.
The Thanksgiving Clip it is a freebie on my TPT store. Check it out. 
Special Delivery game to practice numbers 1-6 is from DeeDee Wills's Fire, Rescue and Community Helpers Math Workstations. 
Corn and pumpkin comparison activity is from Kaci Hoffer's I am Thankful Unit.

Turkey cvc word activity  is from Kaci Hoffer's I am Thankful Unit.
Sentence writing activity is from Dee Dee Wills Super Sentences: Predictable Sentences for Thanksgiving 

Roll and Graph sight words is from my Wild About Words unit for Journeys. 
At word family memory game is from Marsha McGuire's Short A word family Word work galore bundle.

This is my first attempt at differentiating my workstations so we'll see how it goes. We're getting better about working on our own and enabling me to work with some groups. I would love for you to leave me a comment if you see something useful or have any questions.

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. 

Visual Plans: PUmpkins and Halloween fun

This week we'll be finishing up learning about pumpkins and doing a little celebrating of Halloween. We'll also be learning about the letter c, the popcorn word a and numbers 1-20. I'm linking up with DeeDee to show my plans for the week.

Be sure to click on this link to download my plans from google docs. That's the only way to see the clickable links. 

My centers are the same this week as they were last week. I usually keep my centers for 2 weeks or a little longer. These might be a little longer. 

Be sure to head over to Mrs. Wills' Blog and see what everyone else is doing.

Workstation Wednesday:Sensory Table

I'm trying to be more consistent with my blogging. So I've planned out some posts and some broad topics I want to blog about. Like Math Monday. And now Workstation Wednesday. These are things I'm working on improving in my classroom. Blogging about things helps me to think through things I'm doing. So this week I'm going to share about my sensory table. This is a new endeavor for me. I was inspired by my friend Marsha at Differentiated Kindergarten to use my sensory table. I've had this table since I started teaching kindergarten but it was full of sand which kind of grossed me out. It is a really nice table and had a really nice lid. So I just kept the lid on it the past few years. This summer I emptied the sand out and replaced it with colored rice. (You can read all about how to make your own colored rice and find a freebie by clicking here)
Here are a few things that I've been doing with my sensory table so far this year.

Here are the links for activities I mention above:
Julie Lee's Fall-Tastic Fun Math and Literacy Centers
Marsha McGuire's Back to School Math Workstations Galore
DeeDee Wills's All Sorts of Sorts

Those are some great resources that I've been using in my other workstations as well. So that's where I'm at right now with the sensory table. I'll leave the corn in through November. Then in December I'll be trying to find something new to put in it. I would love to hear what suggestions you have. Do you have a sensory table? What do you put in it?

Math Monday: 10 Piranhas

Welcome to a new feature on my blog. Math Mondays. (We'll see how long it lasts) I have been trying to do some fun stuff with math this year using literature. I love books and love all opportunities to bring in books with every subject area. One of the major components of the common core math is for students to decompose and compose numbers. So as we've been working on numbers I've tried to provide students with opportunities to do just that. I found the book 10 Sly Piranhas at the library and knew I had to check it out.

I read the book and used goldfish to act the story out using my part/part whole mat. After I read the story, I sent the kids back to their tables with a part/part whole mat and 10 goldfish. They then helped me to act the story out and I recorded the equations on the board. Then my lesson went a little haywire. I gave each student a half sheet of paper and wanted them to show me a way to make 10 by drawing fish with 2 different colored crayons. It was a little crazy but did give me an idea of who knew what we were doing. Here a few pictures of their work:

The first two pictures were pretty good. The first picture the student really came up with his own combination for 10 and the second one used the example I had on the board. Then the last one was one of my ELL students. He doesn't always get what we are doing when I am so open ended. I think if I had done a little advanced planning I could have come up with a worksheet for them to use that would have enabled them all to be more successful. So I've got a sheet to share with you so you can do this lesson in your class and be more successful.
Click here to get the freebie. 
If you download the freebie, I would love to hear how the lesson goes in your room. What books do you use when teaching math? Leave me a comment with your favorite ones.

Peek at My Week

It has been a busy but good weekend. Yesterday I spent some time with my mom, sister and niece. It was a great fall day and we decorated some Halloween cookies. Today was spent with some high school girls from church. We've started a girls group for our youth girls. Today was our second monthly meeting and it was a lot of fun. We made scarves out of t-shirts which was a pretty neat craft. Now I'm sitting on the couch listening to the Broncos/Colts game. I'm a sucker for Peyton Manning. I got a little teary eyed when they were playing his press conference after the Colts let him go. I'm a Tennessee girl so Peyton is my man. Anyway, this coming week is going to be busy busy as usual. We're going to be learning all about the letter t, sight word we, characters in stories and numbers 11-20. We're also going to be doing some pumpkin activities. I use to always do pumpkins the week we do the letter p but our letter order is different and I don't want to be rushed the week of Halloween. I'm pretty excited about doing some pumpkin activities from Deanna Jump's Pumpkin Palooza Pack.
I'm linking up with DeeDee Wills for a Peek at My Week.

Remember to see the links you need to download the pdf from google docs here. Visual Plans for October 21st. 

We're starting new centers this week. My centers in theory last 2 weeks. Students go to one center a day and there are 10 centers. But we had some testing and fire prevention activities so this past round lasted about 3 weeks. It seems to be going better to have my math centers during literacy center time. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a math workshop going in the next few weeks. We're moving on to numbers 11-20 and I still have a few students who don't have 1-10. Be sure to head over to DeeDee's blog and check out what other people are doing in their class this week.