Differentiated Instruction Math Game: Superhero Flash Freebie

Last night before bed, my daughter asked me to play a game her teacher sent home.  At first I thought it is way to late to start a game tonight, but then I changed my mind.  She pulled out a baggie with a set of index cards.  Each card had a math fact on it that my daughter was going to have a test on.  Also in the stack were cards labeled BANG! The game was to put all the cards face up in a pile on the table.  On our turn, we had to say the answer to the fact on the top card.  If we answered correctly, we kept the card. If we answered incorrectly, we put the card on the bottom of the pile.  If the card up on our turn was a BANG card we had to put all of our collected cards back in the pile and start over collecting cards.  I thought this was a great idea of a game!! It has so many possibilities.  I created a Superhero version of this game.  Instead of BANG cards, there are WHAM and POW cards.  The instructions work the same though.  I also thought this game could be used to practice any skill the child needed to work on.  Every child's game would be set up for his/her skill needs.  Included in this freebie is the set of WHAM and POW cards as well as one sheet of blank cards that can be copied for use as needed.  Thank you Mrs. Carey for the great inspiration! (As usual!)  Click on the first picture to grab your freebie!

Classroom Management: Tally Charts for the desk

I don't know about you all but my kids have lost a little bit of their memories.  They have forgotten the rules of the classroom.  I have to admit that I too have lost my memory as well.  I have forgotten to reinforce the rules as I know I should.  Positive reinforcement had gone right out the door after Christmas.  It was all business, but I absolutely know that if the kids are not following the rules less time is getting spent on teaching and more time is spent on disciplining.  At the beginning of the year, I placed a laminated small square paper on each desk.  I call the paper their tally chart.  When students are following the rules, I tell them to give themselves a tally.  When students earn 5 tallies, they are rewarded by moving up on my behavior chart.  If a student doesn't follow the rules, they lose a tally.  If that means they no longer have 5 tallies, they move their clip back down the chart.  I used to believe in not taking away from students like this, but it has worked so far.  Below is a picture of my chart . 

What's great about the tally charts is that they are colored coded and they have different symbols on them.  I use them to call students to the door to line up or for small groups.  I call all the reds, the lassos, etc. 

Classroom Freebies: Geometry Lines, Rays, Angles, and Points

I am in the midst of my geometry unit at school and I've been digging through my resources.  I found this one in a file I had from a conference I went to.  It is a great visual for students to make in order to get a visual on the vocabulary for lines, rays, angles, and points.  You will need five strips of paper about the length of a notecard in different colors if  you desire.  The width is entirely up to you but I'd say about an inch is good and a brad fastener. Here are pictures of the project:

Front of the strips

Back of the strips

Demonstrate a ray

a line

angles

Line segment

 Let me know what if you use this idea.  Leave me some comment love! :)

Area and Perimeter Math Stations

I think I may have actually got my math stations up and running.  I bought the Math Stations for Middle Grades book by Laura Candler and her ideas for rotations were so simple yet so helpful! Thank you Laura Candler!  I decided to have three stations: Teacher, file folders, and math tubs.  Each station lasts 15 minutes with an extra five minute added on for housekeeping and switching stations.  Each student has a folder to store their station checklist and any papers acquired from the stations.  (This sheet can be found in Laura's book.)  My students and I compiled a chart of Math Station Expectations.  For a first time around, they did such a wonderful job!  I really believe they like the stations too.  I'm wondering though if I may have put too many options at the math tub station.  Tomorrow when I have the students rotate through, I am really going to stress the importance of trying all the activities at the tub station.  I may need to eliminate one of my tubs.  Right now I have three there: Pentominoes with area and perimeter, pattern blocks with symmetry, and tangrams with composing and decomposing shapes. Here is a link to my pentomino freebie if you missed it yesterday.  
Do you use stations? If so, leave a comment and tell me about your experience with them.  I love comments!

Area and Perimeter using Pentominoes

I began using math stations today.  One of my kids favorite stations was the area and perimeter station.  I filled a black tub with one inch square tiles and pentominoes.  Pentominoes have five squares hooked together on a flat plane in 12 different variations.  Students can do so many activities with them in relation to shapes, rotations, reflections, translations, area, and perimeter.  I created a set of pentominoes which you can download for free. Click here for your free download. Ideas for using the pentominoes includes:

1. finding the area and perimeter of each pentomino
2. using the pentominoes to cover a given shape (like a puzzle)
3. combine the pentominoes together to create a shape with a given area
4. combine the pentominoes together to create a shape with a given perimeter
5. using the pentominoes to cover a given shape and then find the area and perimeter

Do you use pentominoes in your classroom? If so, do you have an idea you can share? I would love for you to leave a comment and let us know.

Freebie Friday: Christmas Multiplication Freebie

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Everywhere you go!!! Good thing you can't hear me singing. LOL

Anyways, the whole month of December I've been working to instill the concept of multiplication with my kiddos.  I am an absolute firm believer in knowing the concept behind the math before memorizing anything.  So we've done all kinds of work with groups of things and relating it to repeated addition and multiplication notation.  For some of my work, I used Pearson's Investigations Unit 5.  I made this freebie to complement that unit but it can absolutely be used alone.  Also, check out my Teacher's Notebook store while you're there picking up your freebie.  Everything in the store is 30% off and I'm also hosting a GIVEAWAY! Enter for a chance to win the Christmas Descriptive Writing unit.  This freebie can also be found in my TpT store as well.
Click here for your freebie!  These are some of the pages you get with this freebie!!

My students really enjoyed this unit and I think they did a great job with it!  They used some stencils I had in my room for the pictures.

My friend and teaching partner Nicole had a great idea for modeling arrays.  She had the students make trays of cookies.  Here are pictures of her students' work.  Love this idea and will use it next year!!

I love comments!  Please let me know if you use these ideas or if you have an idea that you can add to this post.  I love Blog Followers!  Please follow me if you like what you see!

Christmas Descriptive Writing

I was so excited to start my Christmas descriptive writing project today at school.  To my dismay though I found out when I got there that the color printer is broken and we do not know when we will be getting it fixed.  I had to think of something quick to replace my idea.   I decided to switch my unit up a little.  I gave each student a blackline copy of either an ugly Christmas sweater, an ornament, or a stocking.  I told them to color the picture and/or add designs to it anyway they wish.  We did something similar to this for Halloween only I didn't give them a pattern.  They had to draw a monster from scratch.  Tomorrow my students will have to write a description of their picture.  I am going to mix up the descriptions and have the students try to guess from the description what picture their friend colored.  I will have a stack of blacklines for them to choose from.  Once they find the blackline that they believe matches the description, I will have them recreate the picture from the description only.  Originally, I was just going to have my students use the colored copy only and then write a description.  KPMdoodles has some of the most wonderful clipart.  I used her Ugly Christmas Sweater Set and her Holiday Trimmings Set to make a descriptive writing unit.

Here is an example of a sweater and a stocking for the kids to describe.  I can't wait for tomorrow to see how the students write their descriptions.

If you would like to know more about this unit please visit my Teacher's Pay Teachers store or click on the picture.  Here is a freebie from that unit that can be used in multiple ways aside from descriptive writing.

Christmas Freebie Craft

Manic Monday or Friday Freebie!!

Ok this may seem like a tedious craft but the kids love it and they look so pretty.  So here we go,

We are making Christmas wreaths.  It is made very similar to the Halloween Lanterns that I posted about in October.  The only difference is the way we fold the paper after it has been cut.

Use the large sized construction paper and fold it in half length wise.

Draw a light pencil line along the open edge of the paper about 1 inch from the edge.

Using decorative or straight scissors cut strips in the folded edge down to the  line.  Cut exactly to the line.

Fold the edge of the paper up along the pencil line.

Open the paper up so there is a mountain peak in the middle and fold the opposite edges up.  Both edges need to be pointing up.

Push the mountain peaks down and bring the folded edges together to form rings.  Staple the edges together. 

I staple on both ends and once in the middle. This is what it looks like when it is stapled.

Now bring both stapled ends together to form a circle and staple them together.  

If it doesn't seem round enough, make sure the cuts are made down to  the fold.  

Students can decorate a bow and add holly berries.  

I love comments!  Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.  I'm sure this is an old craft but I love it and use it every year!!  

Check out my TpT  and Teacher's Notebook stores!