Another Snow Day for West Michigan!

This winter is not going away any time soon!  Record lows are predicted for overnight tonight, with the forecast calling for -5º or lower.  As of today we are in the record books for the second snowiest winter ever! And, COLD! We haven't heard about making up any days yet, but that may be coming.  We are running out of ideas for indoor recesses! I'm sure there will be plenty more of those after the snow melts and the playground turns to a mud bath.

I love SNOW DAYS!  However....I'm ready for spring!

Teachers Pay Teachers

 

 

All of my products will be on sale! Check out Spring Showers and St. Patrick's Day Fractions! I also have a new FREEBIE, Fact Families Resource!

Buddy Games!

One of the most popular rotations during our math workshop time is always "Buddy Games"! The one in the picture above is Frogs and Lily pads. The first player rolls 1 die to determine the number of lily pads needed.  He or she rolls again to determine how many frogs on each lily pad. Then that player writes the repeated addition sentence and the multiplication sentence for the frogs and lily pads. This is reinforcing the basic concept of multiplication and helping our students learn basic facts.

Multiplication is the Name of the Game!

I'm looking forward to using this resource with my class to assess their understanding of multiplication.  It is available at my store on Teachers Pay Teachers. We have been learning the vocabulary associated with multiplication.  We have used Marilyn Burns' lessons on Circles and Stars and Amanda Bean's Amazing Dream.  We have been using manipulatives to create arrays and have been writing fact families.  We have talked about equal groups repeatedly.  We have connected multiplying with adding and are showing the relationship between repeated addition and multiplication sentences.  I think they will be ready to show their understanding of multiplication by the end of next week.  Then comes the hard part of learning the facts!!! More on that later and our ice cream sundae incentive!

Math Workshop

We have been doing BUILD workshop during our math time this year! We recently introduced multiplication. In our "U = Using Manipulatives" center, kids have been using sentence frames to explain arrays.  In the picture, our student is looking at an array of gingerbread men.  He uses manipulatives to re-create the array.  He explains that there are 2 rows of gingerbread men and each row has 6 gingerbread men in it, for a total of 12 gingerbread men.  We use Evernote to record their work.  This has been very successful!

Field Trip!

Every teacher knows the mixed emotions that surround a field trip! The planning, waiting for the bus, collecting money, permission slips, chaperones, bus ride, noise, lunches, letting specials' teachers know, bus drivers, timing, name tags, did I mention buses? Sounds like a headache waiting to happen!!! BUT, on the flip side, the experiences are UNFORGETTABLE! At the end of the year, it's the field trips that are the best memories.

Last week we took our 54 students to the Outdoor Discovery Center to learn about Native American life in Michigan! Every student, teacher and chaperone put on Ojibway style snowshoes and braved the elements for over 2 hours of outdoor learning! It was very memorable! Nestled in the white pines and birch trees is a replica of a Native American summer village (buried in over 2 feet of snow). Our students were exposed to many artifacts and learned about the way of life for the earliest Michigan people.  They all attempted to start a fire using sticks and a few of us got some sparks when using flint and steel!

No one got sick or hurt! Everyone had a lunch. Chaperones were very helpful (especially with the snowshoes). The bus was on time and we made it there and back safely. And, most notably, we had a very nice day....something quite uncommon this winter! It was a great day!

Winter Olympics!

I love the Olympics! Many of my third graders are not familiar with the Olympics, AT ALL! I hope by the end of the next 2 weeks, that will change! In my link to the right, you will see my newest product posted on TpT is Winter Olympics Story Problems! We can't miss any opportunity to teach those tricky word problems! This activity gives us a chance to incorporate information about the Olympics into our math lessons! Have fun watching the snowmen slide down the hill as you answer the word problems correctly!