Christmas Math Projects: Geometric Ornaments

Thanksgiving break is over... we have three weeks of school until Christmas break... and I'm clearly not ready for the season, because I just noticed that I have a "Trick or Treat" candy dish on my desk. Oops. And I haven't set up my Memphis Tiger basketball Christmas tree on top of my file cabinet yet! At least I did one thing right: I started planning my Christmas math club activities! Here is one of the three projects that are in progress in kindergarten and first grade... I'll post the others when I have time this week!

Octahedron Ornaments!
This is a project that I do with my first grade math enrichment club. We talk about eight-sided shapes, things that have the prefix "octo," etc., and then we decorate eight-sided ornaments. I let them color their ornaments however they want--we get a lot of sports-themed ornaments! They cut the shape out, fold carefully on all the fold lines, and then I glue them together with my hot glue gun. I glue a loop of yarn to each one for hanging (glue the ends of the yarn on the inside of the ornament to make it look neater).

This is my sample ornament... no wonder all the kids make sports ornaments! It looks great on my Tigers tree though :)

Student ornament in progress.

Here is the template I use to make the ornaments:
Octahedron Ornament

Here are some of the adorable ornaments that my students made:

He made a basketball ornament... a child after my own heart :)

The photo doesn't show how precious this ornament is... each side has a picture of an angel, a nativity scene, or Jesus lying in a manger. SO sweet.

Tennessee Vols ornament... she didn't get the memo that only Memphis ornaments were acceptable. No, I'm just kidding, she did a great job!

Happy tree-trimming, everyone!

Candy Corn Quotes

My first grade book club has been reading The Candy Corn Contest, by Patricia Reilly Giff. It's a cute story about a fourth grade class that has a contest to see who can guess how many pieces of candy corn are in a jar. The main character in the story, Richard Best, is struggling with planning a sleepover for all the boys in his class, as well as trying to cover up the fact that he ate three pieces of candy corn out of the guessing jar.

I love this book, and I especially love reading it around Halloween because it means we get to eat a lot of candy corn! I always start the book club with some "behind the scenes" information about how candy corn is made. We watch a video (a clip from the show Unwrapped) and sample different flavors of candy corn. The kids love learning all of the different ingredients! We also have our own candy corn guessing jar. Every time the students take an AR test, they are allowed to come in my room and make a guess. Last week was a flurry of drama and controversy in first grade, as we learned that someone had been eating candy out of our jar! It was just like Richard in the book, only I promise I didn't plan it! Fifty pieces were missing, but don't worry--I had enough candy stashed away that the missing pieces were easily replaced.

Today we had a shorter book club meeting than usual, so I did a mini-lesson on quotation marks. I made a flipchart where the students could drag the quotation marks into the correct places in a sentence... but instead of quotation marks, we used candy corn! Here are a few screen shots from my flipchart:

The candy corn icon in the corner can be dragged to the correct place, and they automatically regenerate.

After everyone had had a turn at the Promethean board, I had each student write a Halloween-themed sentence using quotation marks correctly. They wrote the sentences on scrap paper, and once I had approved them, they were allowed to write their sentences in white crayon on black strips of paper. As a finishing touch, we glued candy corn where the quotation marks should go! They turned out pretty cute!

How Word of the Week works...

A couple weeks ago, I posted a video on here as a test-run for my new Word of the Week program... and now I am excited to announce that Word of the Week is up and running! One of my favorite things to do is to introduce new, challenging words that the students can incorporate into their writing. We have had a few different vocabulary programs in first grade learning services in past years, but this year I decided to try something new. Here's how it works!

Each Monday, I have a new word posted on my door, on a chart that looks like this:

I got the chart at Knowledge Tree, and I ordered the third/fourth grade level. So far I haven't liked any of the pictures that go with the words, so I've been drawing my own. I also made a QR code for my Word of the Week blog (click here for a QR code maker) so that parents can quickly access the blog on their smart phones.

Which brings me to... the Word of the Week blog! I am so proud of my blog. Every Monday, I post a new video on the blog. The first grade classes watch the videos on Monday mornings, and then the students can go back on the blog anytime, at school or at home, and watch the videos as many times as they want (the theme song, which was written specially for me, is pretty catchy!) The students are also encouraged to comment on the blog posts. Sometimes I have special instructions for their comments, such as naming a synonym for the word of the week, and other times they just have to use the word in a sentence in their comment. I have to approve all comments before they are published, so that keeps strangers from posting inappropriate things. Within the first two hours of school today, 15 kids had already commented on this week's word! Amazing! I've even had moms and other teachers leave comments! Click here to view the Word of the Week blog.

Finally, the weekly videos... I thought they would be a pain to make, but (knock on wood) I've made three so far and they've been pretty easy! I love iMovie :) Our first grade students have "buddies" in fifth grade, so I've been using the fifth grade students' help in filming the videos. Each week, different faculty members present the word and definition, and a few fifth graders give examples of how to use the word in a sentence. The whole things requires about 15-20 minutes of hunting down volunteers and filming, and about 30 minutes of editing. I'm pretty OCD about iMovie, so I have to keep reminding myself that the videos don't have to be perfect. I did go a little overboard for next week's video--I mean, the word is going to be introduced on Halloween, so I had to use some special effects to make the video look a little spooky!

Ms. Hunter's Ice Cream Emporium!

For the past few weeks, my enrichment math club has been working on a big ice cream-related project. I'm so glad it's finished, because now I can post their fabulous work! My math club meets once per six-day rotation, so it took us three weeks to finish this project. I have eighteen students in math club, so I split the group in half--that makes it feel like this project took even longer since I did each component twice!

The first week, I told the students that I used to work at Ben & Jerry's (true story!) and that I had decided to open up my own first grade ice cream shop. I hired them all to work in my shop. We used the interactive white board to take orders from "customers" and total up the cost of each order. I downloaded a flipchart from Promethean Planet to do this part. I'm not sure if I can upload a flipchart on here, but if you go to www.prometheanplanet.com (you need an account) and search for "Flavor Fiesta" in the math resources you should find it. I tweaked it a little to make the formatting fit my computer, and I added infinity coins at the bottom of each page (the students can drag the coins into the margin to help them total up the order, and the coins keep regenerating!) Here are some screen shots of the flipchart:

This was our final activity... keep reading!

The second time we met, I let the students get creative and invent their own sundae. I displayed our ice cream shop menu, and when they were finished creating they had to total up the cost of their sundaes. Here is the sheet we used to design our sundaes:
Ice cream
And here is one sundae that a student drew. I have such great artists in my math club! I wish I could post all of their sundaes!

Finally, on the last day of the project, the students made 3D models of their sundaes. Honestly, I was terrified that this was going to turn into total chaos. My tiny classroom has space for eight students, so my groups usually meet next door in the spacious computer lab. Since this project involved hole punchers and hot glue, I decided to let my first group sit at my table in an effort to contain the mess. Plus, I didn't want to leave the hot glue gun unattended. To my utter delight, I managed to execute this activity without a hitch! Two days later, when it was the second group's turn, I took them into the lab (I had to add a student to this group, so there weren't enough chairs in my room). Again, to my surprise, the lesson went well! No chaos! No hot glue burns! No tiny paper holes scattered across the computer lab carpet! Here are some pictures of the final products:

I cut styrofoam bowls in half and pre-glued them to the paper. 

This is the 3D version of the hand-drawn sundae I posted above. They're almost identical!

We used tissue paper for ice cream, yarn for syrup, paper "holes" for sprinkles, and polyester pillow filling for whipped cream.

I manned the hot-glue gun, and I glued the tissue and polyester if the students asked for assistance. Most of them did the whole thing with good old white glue!

She had drawn three lemons on top of her sundae, so she made lemons out of yellow paper. Cute!

 

And here is a picture of the adorable display outside my room:

Word of the week!

I am just running a test to see how easy it is to upload a video on Blogger. Looks like it's pretty easy! Woohoo! This is my first video for my Word of the Week project, which I am introducing to the students on Monday. If this is successful, I'll be spending my afternoon making a Word of the Week blog!

I'm the Martha Stewart of Early Childhood!

I guess I have been stressed lately, because this week I have developed a twitch in my right hand. Good thing fall break is around the corner! I decided to take a little time this morning to de-stress, so when I came across some scraps of brown bulletin board paper, I used my planning time to whip up a quick recycled-paper fall wreath.

First I cut a hole in a paper plate and wrapped brown paper around the plate, adhering it with tape.

Then I added brown paper flowers and leaves, using hot glue.

 To make the leaves, I cut three different sizes of paper circles, crumpled them up, and hot-glued them together in layers. The center of each flower is just a small crumpled ball of paper. For the leaves, I cut leaf shapes, pinched each one at the bottom, and hot-glued the pinched sides together. I glued seven flowers around the wreath, and then I glued the leaves in between the flowers.

The whole thing took about 15 or 20 minutes to make. How cute would this be in red and green for Christmas? Or black and orange for Halloween?

I am trying to find a way to make this wreath without using hot glue, because I think it would be a great activity for students to do. They could use papers from the recycle bin, old newspapers, or magazine pages. The leaves could be stapled at the bottom instead of hot-glued, and the layers of flowers could be stapled together... maybe they could attach it all to the wreath using double-sided tape. I just don't think white glue would be strong enough, and it takes forever to dry. Tacky glue? Glue dots? I know it could be done. What a great fall activity or Mother's Day gift!

Happy wreath-making!

One of these things is not like the others...

I just had to share this story, because it is a great example of what kids can do when you let them be creative.

The other day, I took my new sea creature math manipulatives to my kindergarten math groups, and I told the kids in each group to sort their pile of animals however they wanted. There are six different colors included in the mix and about fourteen animal shapes (although I would question whether some of them are really sea creatures. Tree frogs? Penguins?) Of the 30 kindergarteners who participated, most of the kids sorted their animals by color, and a few kids figured out that they could group all of the same animals together.

During one of my groups, however, one girl was busy sorting long after the others had finished. She had been asking questions while she worked, such as what some of the animals ate, but I wasn't paying close attention. When it came time for the students to share their method of sorting, she identified her piles of animals as "meat eaters" and "scaly animals." And I had to admit that she was correct! All of the animals in the "meat eater" pile did eat meat--even the seahorse, which eats teeny tiny fish--and all of the "scaly animals" did have a rough outer covering, or at least I could see how she thought they would feel scaly (this group included the turtle, stingray, and starfish).

I just love when kids surprise me with those unexpected moments of creativity and with amazingly perceptive responses. It's so great when they can think outside the box like that!

Writing about Animals

Blogging during the school year is harder than I expected! I have done a great job of documenting students' work and saving pictures in iPhoto, but I can't ever remember to post them on here.

I love creating enrichment projects for first grade, just little things that they can work on in their free time, and this year's group is just doing an awesome job with these projects! One activity I've given them is to imagine a day in the life of an animal. I have a box of animal names written on slips of paper, and they have to reach in and select an animal. I wasn't sure how well they would do at this, since they have to think from the perspective of an animal and then write about it--two things that are hard for first grade--but they are really blowing me away with their responses! Here are some of their stories:

"Slizzer"... how cute is that?!

Crazy for Clipart!

Today I wanted to share a fabulous resource I found for free classroom clipart! I have been working like crazy to create fresh new math assessments and math enrichment activities for my first graders, and I love this website because I can find easy-to-read clocks! No more trying to draw the hands myself! I haven't explored all of the 65,281 pieces of clipart on the site--I'm really just still super excited about the clocks--but I can tell this is going to be an invaluable resource!

Here is the link to the website, which is provided by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology: http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/

And here is a link to the math clipart: http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/sitemap/math.php Clocks! Angles! Currency! Probability! It's like Christmas came early!

Bingo, part two

I'm pretty proud of myself today... first, I came up with a new idea for a bingo game and put the whole thing together in about ten minutes. Then I learned how to upload PDF files onto Blogger! In honor of this monumental occasion, here are the bingo cards I made today on the website I shared yesterday (http://www.print-bingo.com)
Letter Sound Bingo

There it is... Letter Sound Bingo, courtesy of Print-Bingo.com! I made a set of word cards with the target sound underlined, and as I randomly drew the cards out of a box I would say something like, "This is the beginning sound in the word 'sad,'" or "This is the middle sound in the word 'pet.'" I threw "sh," "th," "ch," "wh," and "qu" in there just to make it a little more challenging. I would share the word cards I made as well, but I just drew them on construction paper at the last minute so they're really not that fancy. The kids really seemed to love the game, and it was a great way to start the year and begin assessing their phonics skills!

Bingo is my middle name-o

Tomorrow morning I am starting my small group rotations in senior kindergarten. I do something different in each of the three classes, but it basically boils down to pulling leveled groups into the hall for various reading and math activities. For my very first rotation, I'm planning to do something simple that will give me a quick baseline look at the students' reading abilities.

Fun fact about me: I love to play bingo. I will create a bingo game for any skill, and I think I'm pretty good at making the game a little more challenging than just finding a number and trying to get five chips in a row. Later in the year I'll pull out my old standbys--Time Bingo and Money Bingo--but for now I'm sticking with simple sight words.

I thought this would be a good time to share one of my favorite online resources: http://www.print-bingo.com/
This site lets you create custom bingo cards for any skill! Click on the link on the homepage that says "I've read enough. Let me generate bingo cards!" Then click "Custom bingo cards with your own word or phrase list." (There are templates you can search through, but I've never looked at them.) You can design every aspect of your game: whether there's a free space in the middle, the text inside the free space... you can even change the top of the card so it says something other than "bingo." (My money bingo game says "money" at the top!) The bingo cards are uploaded to your computer as a five-page PDF, with two cards per page. If you need more than ten cards, just close the PDF, click the "create cards" button again, and it will generate ten totally different cards using the same word list. So easy!

I have so many ideas for Bingo games that are just waiting to be made! You could do states and capitals bingo, where you call out the state and the students have to find the capital on their cards (or vice-versa); vocabulary bingo (call out the definition, they look for the word); maybe even periodic table bingo (not that we have a need for that in early childhood!)

I'll share my time and money bingo cards once I figure out how to post PDF files on my blog!

Plastic rhinestones are a girl's best friend

We've been in school for two weeks, and our new little people are starting to look like first graders! They're getting the procedures down and settling into their classroom routines. My job during the first few weeks of school is to assess, assess, assess. I may complain about the piles of paperwork I have to score, but secretly I love data, and I love collecting all of this information about the students. This year I decided to be extra-techy, and I used Google Forms to create online score sheets for a couple of the baseline assessments that I administer. It's a genius idea--all of my data is instantly put into a spreadsheet, and it saves me at least a ream of paper. Of course, the internet chose this week to stop working, so I haven't been able to access my Google Forms and finish my assessments. To help relieve my frustration, I indulged in a little bit of hot glue gun therapy...

First I made some blinged-out clothespins...

...and then I used them to decorate my friend Amanda's bulletin board! (It was her idea; I just did the hot-gluing.)

Then I made my own bling-y bulletin board, perfect for showcasing student work throughout the year!

I just couldn't resist adding some sparkle to my boring Sharpie pens :) They look fantastic worn behind the ear, ha!

One man's trash is another man's--or teacher's--treasure

My tiny room is filled to the brim with so many math manipulatives and phonics games that I can't even keep track of what I have. I hate throwing things away or passing up freebies because I am convinced that anything can become a cool math game. At the end of the school year, a generous parent gave me a bunch of her old teaching supplies, including a set of see-through pattern blocks to use with an overhead projector. I don't have an overhead projector, but I stashed the blocks in a container somewhere on my jam-packed shelves.

So I just came across those blocks again, and I had a flash of genius! In five minutes I created my own set of magnetic pattern blocks, which I'm really excited about! I hate when I'm explaining a pattern block activity and the unfortunate children sitting at the ends of my awkwardly arranged trapezoid tables can't see the demonstration going on in the center of the group. Now I can demonstrate everything on my whiteboard, and everyone will be able to see!

I know that's not terribly ground-breaking, but I get excited over the little things :)

My awesome new magnets!

Bulletin Board Makeover

I went to the movies last night, and as the previews were rolling I suddenly had a brilliant idea for my bulletin board. Why do those flashes of insight happen at the weirdest times? Luckily I remembered my idea this morning, and after a few hours of selecting the perfect font, cutting, laminating, and stapling, this masterpiece was born:

Our theme for the year is "putting our creed into our deed." I love this theme, mostly because I've spent the past few weeks figuring out my own creed for the year. (I should get extra points; I was doing this before I even knew what our theme was!) My personal creed comes from Colossians 3:23, which says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not human masters." I shared this verse with the students last year, and I'm looking forward to writing a new chapel talk tying this verse into the theme.

My bulletin board is a giant word web. I used yarn to link the words "creed" and "deed" with words that would help make the theme easier for the kids to understand. Here are a couple of close-ups so you can see what the small words say:

I tried to make the word "creed" meaningful by linking it to concepts that our students understand, such as best effort, the Golden Rule, our school's honor code, and glorifying God.

For the word "deed," I created a web of activities, like reading, math, and recess, that the students do every day.

It took quite a while to staple all that yarn to the board... I'm considering spending the day tomorrow luring people into my room so I can show off my hard work!

New Year, New Blog!

In-service is upon us, which means we are just days away from the start of a new school year. That means new crayons (I really do love them), new faces, and a new blog! I am not new to blogging; however, I am brand new to blogging about my classroom. My goal this year is to do a better job of documenting my lesson plans--the good, the bad, and the ugly--and to share my ideas with other educators. I've become pretty good at borrowing lessons from others, so I figure it's about time I start giving back.

I saw this picture in my friend's classroom (proudly displayed on the wall, where it clearly belongs). It is just such a perfect example of why I love my job so much.

 Pickles wearing skirts! You can't make this stuff up!

On that note, I have a ton of new ideas that I want to try this year, and I can't wait to share them here on my blog. Some small goals that I'm setting for myself include incorporating QR codes into a project or two; finding a new way to organize the work that students produce during Round Robin small groups; and implementing a new "Word of the Week" program with the first graders. I'm hoping that typing them here will help keep me accountable.

Happy new school year, fellow educators!