Adorable Preschool or Kindergarten Math Game

I was perusing around Pinterest this morning and found this adorable game.  I put in the title Preschool or Kindergarten, but it really can be used for older students as well.

Fun fine motor math game

It in from the site called "Pre-K Pages" and I so wish I was in the classroom right now to try it.








What little ones would not LOVE this??  By squeezing the tennis ball, the student is strengthening those all important hand muscles needed for fine motor activities and writing.

Clothesline Math Game Posted

Okay, one product done and posted!

Clothesline Number Games 0-20

This set includes two spinners, one with four colors and one with six colors.  There are six sets of number cards 0 to 20, and the symbols +, -, =, <, and >.  A pencil and a paperclip finishes the spinner, and all you need is a clothesline, some spring-style clothespins from the dollar store, and a printer!  I suggest printing them on cardstock and/or laminating for longer use. 

Thanks to Graphics From The Pond for the spinners!

Graphics From the Pond

Clotheslines in the classroom

I have often used a clothesline in my classroom as a special workstation.  I am careful NOT to use it too much; I want to keep it special for the students.  When they would come into my class and see it hanging, the students would get so excited!  One thing I have noticed, especially with the older students, is they remember what we have done, and how often we have done it and if I put something out too often they do not choose it unless it is a "MUST DO" workstation.  My Kindergarten class last year was not happy repeating the same file folder games more than twice.  The clothesline is a fun way of changing up an activity while using the same base materials.  What the students do not realize is that they are also working on strengthening their hand muscles, to make them better writers.

Here are some pics from my clothesline:

These Kindergarteners are matching sweaters to pants.  The pants have a number on the leg; the sweaters have dots.  They count the dots and match it to the pants with that number!  Sometimes they hang them next to each other, sometimes they attach them together; it's up to the student.  I have this set up to the number 20; higher than that and I could not fit the spots on the sweater.  If I had a smaller circle punch I would have made from 20-30.  This idea and patterns came from Mailbox, I believe.

Other ways I have used the number line (which apparently I do not have any pictures of) is matching mittens; ordering numerals; making patterns.  Before I left my job I went through all the pictures we had online and tried to find as many examples of my work as I could.  Unfortunately I did not have access to all of the pictures, so I am missing quite a bit.

Maybe my next product will be a clothesline set!

Have a great day!  Kathy

Fly Freebie is ready!

Well, took longer than I expected, but here it is!

I opened a TpT store where you will be able to purchase this cute little guy in a few different formats.  He will be available in color with numerals, letters (upper and lower) as well as word families.

But you my followers and visitors have the opportunity to grab him here in a blank format; you can customize him as necessary.  I have to say he was fun to design; the fly graphic is mine and mine alone - I did not use any graphics from anyone else.

So here ya go!  Enjoy, and please let me know how you plan on using him!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Swat-those-flies-Freebie

Bye bye Kindergarteners!

May 30th I posted about my Kindergarteners workstations.  My Kindergarteners graduate this week; so our last few classes have been spent in review workstations.

 

This is what our "work chart" looks like: 

By this point in the year, most of my supplies are gone, so if I have sentence strips left I would have remade the title to read "What are we reviewing today?"

We start by warming up our brain. This chart says "Race to 100."  We have been working on writing numerals to 100. Each month we get 1 minute to go as far as we can, racing against ourselves to do better than the month before.  This was the last race of the year.  This fabulous (and free!) activity came from: Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business via TpT. 

Race to 100 Booklet  I'm sorry I do not have a picture of the kids completing it. :(



Other brain warm ups include doing the "Macarena Math" song, Exercise Counitng by 1s, or one of the other songs my kids love.  One of their new favorites is "Think Math" from Mrs. Jump at Mrs. Jump's Class.  If you scroll down almost half way you'll see her original idea.  Sorry my pictures did not come out too good!  My markers were not as dark as I thought.  The students are provided with the "answer" and then THEY have to come up with the questions!  How fun is that? They LOVED this as much as Mrs. Jump's class did. 

We worked together to write the number story on the bottom. The picture on the right I had to guide them a little bit more than I was hoping. If you can read it you can tell at the point I intervened. :)




Next we move onto our MUST DO group.  The students MUST visit the workstations listed during the time period.  The colors refer to the trays the work is in, and if there is a maximum number of students allowed in a workstation the number is there.  I usually have 3 activities; one that challenges, one that is "fun" and one that is creative.  Sometimes there is a picture of a teacher and that means they come visit me.

There is a section of MAY DOs, choices they have if they finish the MUST DOs or if there is no room at one of those stations.  It try very hard not to have too many stations with number restrictions; I only have the students for a small amount of time and I want to make sure they get to everything I want them to. 

Of course there is ALWAYS the one student who gets through everything quickly, so to avoid the "now what?" there is a line on the chart for that too.  This way they do not need to interrupt me for any reason. 

Here is another chart:

This one does not have the mini-lesson line, since there was nothing for us to do but review what each station was about.

During the a lesson day, there will also be a "Recap Meeting" line.  We get back together at the end of the class to review the concept, answer any questions the students may have, discuss homework, and talk about what is coming up next.

Next time I will post some pictures of the students in their small groups.

Kindergarten Workstations

I am very excited. I had 4 pages views a couple days ago!! If you are stopping by please leave me a comment and say hi!!!

Here is a snippet of my kindergarten math workstations for Tuesday.  I only see them once this week since we were off on Monday.

This is the chart they work off of.  Our mini lesson (cute pic of a teacher reading to the kids) was a review on how to use the chart.  We have a couple new students that joined us from the after school program next door that closed last week.  So I wanted to make sure they could follow along with us.

The students had 3 "MUST DO" activities: it is up to them to make sure they visit all 3 color coded tables in the time allotted.  Most days they do really well with this, others need a bit of reminding (like the girls when there is a cool art-type activity, some can stay the whole time at the one without realizing it.)

Yellow was a review of base 10. 

The students had to find the base 10 card that matched the number on the recording sheet.  They had to figure out what the number was, record it, then find the match to check if they were correct.

Activity from: Anna at Crazy for First Grade






Green was a cute ladybug game. 

This was a quick activity.  There is a 3 on the green chart card, showing the students that only 3 may be there at one time.

Activity from somewhere in the blog world.  The author did not put her name on the pages. :( If I see it again I will link back!

Blue was a review of positional words. 

This is an old activity from Mailbox Magazine.  The students had to cut and collate the books, then used red stamper to put thumbprint ladybugs where the words on each page told them to.









They also get two "May Dos," activities that are only to be done if they complete all their "Must Dos" or if all the must dos are full.  One is play oriented, building with blocks.  The other is for my hanging pocket chart.  I have a spot on the wall that I can attach ziplocs with velcro.   I switch up what is in the bag, and it only gets put out when the kindergarteners come.  Otherwise my 2s will destroy it. :)  No more than two students may work here at the same time.  Hence the "2" on the red packet chart.

Here are two students working together to put pictures in order from 1 to 100.




If you get through ALL of the above, what can I do then Ms. Kathy?  The chart tells them.  Most often it is to get a book from the Reading Center.  I keep a large selection of Lego magazines & catalogs so the boys love to get through their work to get the chance to look at them.

Then we gather together again at the end to talk about our time together.  This system works really well for my students.  I can use it for all workstations OR I can use it for teaching.  There is a picture of ME when they have to come to me for their small group lesson.  I have them split into groups so I call the group names or use a timer/bell to facilitate the change.