State Testing Banners

This week is state testing for the 3rd 4th and 5th grade students. Each year, grades K -2 makes banners to hang up in the hallway. I love to make banners because it gives me a chance to use my cricut! Here are some of the banners hanging in our school.

This banner was created using the School Counselor Blog!

April Poems

Thank you to everyone for all your sweet comments on my poetry journals! Unfortunately, I do not have a set for April. At my school, we begin giving sight word spelling tests to get the kids ready for first grade. We use Mrs. Alphabet's sight word poetry. The poems are a little silly, but the kids LOVE them because they can actually read them! (I ♥ this time of year when they start becoming so independent!) I'm working on a couple freebies, so check back later today or tomorrow! :)

Curious George Addition

I really love teaching addition because it's easy to differentiate so you reach all learners. I love that once my quick learners catch on, I can give them harder numbers or an addition game to practice and pull small groups without having to worry about too many melt downs.

A couple years ago I created this worksheet, math mat and SMARTboard file to help my students practice addition. After we have practiced whole group, I give them a worksheet, math manipulatives and a math mat.

In the past I have used counting bears, bugs or dinosaurs for manipulatives. However, now that I have 37 students (!!), I have been giving each student a snap cube tower that has 12 cubes. I try to give each student a different color so they don't mix up their cubes. Once they're done with their activity, they put the tower back together again and into a basket.

While using the mat we begin practicing addition stories (Curious George ate 3 bananas in a tree and 1 banana on the ground. How many did he eat?)

After we have mastered the concept, I introduce our "addition game." I give them a blank worksheet and a die to make their own addition sentences. I never mention it, but it seems to become a contest to see who can get Curious George to eat more bananas! :)

We use this SMARTboard file with flashcards while we're waiting for the last few kids to finish or we're packing up. I also have this SMARTboard file that they love to use also! :)

March Poems and Calendar Journal

Thank you to everyone who posts the wonderful comments each month! When I started this blog I planned on sharing all the fabulous stuff I do in my class, but I've been so busy I never feel like I have the time. I'm totally jealous of all of you that find the time to blog daily or even weekly. My goal is to try harder to share more! Here are March's poems and calendar math journal. I'll try to post a preview pic tomorrow... if I have time! =)

Poetry Journal
Calendar Math

Leave a comment if you decide to use them! It might motivate me to post more freebies! =)

February Poetry Journal

Poetry Journals for February are finished! Click the picture below to download the file. For each poem we do a different activity. (counting words, highlighting sight words or vowels, etc.. ). We also illustrate the poem, which is their favorite part!
I have not started on the March poems yet, if you have a poem that you would like me to include, leave it in a comment below and I'll add it to the collection. :)

February Calendar Math

• Penny Toss- This month we begin to discuss money by introducing the penny. At the beginning of the month, I pass out pennies and we discuss different things we notice about the penny. Each day the child of the day tosses the penny and records if it lands on head or tails. We also chant the penny poem or song (HeidiSongs Musical Math)

• Domino Builder- we continue to make simple addition stories with our dominoes (I have 2 red cars and 2 blue cars. I have 4 cars all together.). I love to hear the cute stories they come up with!

• Daily Depositor- each day we add one penny to our daily depositor. When we get ten pennies we exchange it for a dime. This gives us the opportunity to discuss place value. We also continue to practice tally marks. In our journals, we add one tally mark each day. This is really hard for some of them because they want to do all the tally marks in one day.
  

January Poetry Journals

I'm back! My computer crashed a couple weeks ago and my hubby had to rebuild it completely. In the process I lost a bunch of files, apparently I wasn't backing it up properly. Thankfully, I saved my January poetry journals on my school laptop. I'm in the process of redoing February and March poems so they should be posted soon!

Click here to download the January Poetry Journal
January Poetry Journal SMARTboard