Happy New Year! {Math Freebies!}

I know, I know.... it has been almost two months since I last posted! This is my first post in the new year, can you believe it?? I hope there are a few of you still out there keeping tabs on my poor little blog. If you are, well lucky you! I'm here with a few fun math freebies that I hope you can use!

Things in my life have been super busy and this growing little girl inside of me is taking up a lot of my time, energy, and thoughts. I can't believe she will be here in less than 10 weeks! {Or later if she's as stubborn as her momma.} I only have 8.5 more teaching weeks until I take my maternity leave! I keep telling people I'm not sure what I'm more worried about... having a baby or leaving my classroom for such a long time! :) I can't guarantee I will be posting much once the baby comes, but once things settle down a bit, I hope I will be able to take some time to do some postings and maybe throw out a few new products.

Here are just a few simple math activities I've been using in our math centres...

First up, Hockey BUMP! We had some local junior hockey players come visit our school during Numeracy Month to do some math activities with our students, so I whipped up this little BUMP game for them to play together. I thought it would be fun for anyone doing an Olympic theme this month... or if anyone has some hockey fans in their classroom. I know I have a bunch! {Me included! Go Jets Go!} If you have never played a BUMP game, it will soon become a class favourite! Each player gets 10 unifix cubes. Player 1 rolls the dice, adds the numbers together, and places their cube on the correct number. If another player's cube is already on the number, they may BUMP it off and place their cube instead. If Player 1 already has a cube on the number, they may place a second cube on top and "lock" it in place, meaning no one can BUMP it off! Then the next player goes. The first player to place all of their cubes is the winner!

{Click the picture or here to download Hockey BUMP.}

Next up is a little domino adding centre. You can use regular dominoes, but I found these cute Ladybug Dominoes in the book order one month! I can never pass up cute math manipulatives like this! For the centre, students choose a domino and draw the spots on their recording sheet. Then they write the addition sentence below the picture. Easy peasy!

{Click the picture or here to download Ladybug Domino Addition.}

This is another fun domino activity, but for partners. It's called Spot the Dots. Each player gets their own gameboard and some unifix cubes. They take turns flipping over a domino, adding the dots together, and placing a cube on their gameboard. The first player to get three paw prints in a row is the winner!

{Click either picture or here to download Spot the Dots.}

Last up is a game students can play alone or with a partner. The student rolls two dice and finds the matching ten frame. There is a colour version that students can cover up with unifix cubes or a black & white version that students can colour! My students love to colour, so this is a fun game for them to play.

{Click either picture or here to download Winter Warm Up.}

I hope you have a had a good January! Ours has been super cold... three snow days and countless days of indoor recess. I honestly think the kids have gone outside for maybe two or three days this month.... They are getting restless and so am I! Hopefully it is an outdoor day tomorrow! Stay warm friends.

Happy New Year! Winter Word Work, January Currently, and a Sale!

Hey everyone! Welcome to 2013! I hope everyone had a safe and fun New Years with friends and family. We just had a quiet, little gathering at our house with a few of our close friends. There were 8 people... and 7 animals. We had our two cats and two dogs, our friends brought their two dogs, and our other friend brought her pug. It was quite the party! :) The four big dogs played in the yard all night, while the pug hung out with us. We ate our way into the new year, as I made *way* too much food.

I have been taking some time off blogging and planning and creating during this vacation. Instead I have been doing some work and cleaning around the house, giving the puppies lots of playtime, visiting with my friends and family, and just spending some good ol' couch time at home! It has been a fun and relaxing week and a half... But now that school is creeping closer and closer, I have started getting some ideas together. I will be doing a bunch of fun bear and penguin activities in January. You can see what I did last year {here} and {here}. I also created some winter-themed activities to place in my word work centres this month. Click the picture below to check them out at TpT.

 

There are five word work centres:

1. Winter Stamping Fun -- The Christmas one was such a hit in my class, so I created a winter one too! Students stamp winter words in a little book. There is a word bank to help them.

2. Winter Race Sight Word Game - A fun board game where students practice reading sight words. It includes 60 Dolch word cards and 15 blank cards to write your own.

3. Winter Word Family Sort - Sorting picture cards into three long "a" word families (ay, ail, ake). There is a cut and paste recording sheet for this centre.

4. Snowball Soup - This is my favourite centre! I mix letter tiles with white pompoms or cotton balls. Students use a spoon to scoop out letters to build CVCC words. There is a recording sheet to record the words and pictures.

5. Mitten Compound Words - Students match up mitten cards to create compound words. There is a recording sheet to write down all the words.

So much fun! Most of the clipart is from KPM Doodles, so it matches my Winter Math Centres!

 

And of course a new year and a new month brings CURRENTLY! If you have not heard of a currently before (and really, who hasn't??) then go check out Farley's blog Oh' Boy 4th Grade to check it out!

My one little word for this year is PLANS! My goals for this year are to make some plans and timelines for our house renovations and to be better at long-term planning for school. I want to redo my day planner for school before I go back on Monday!

As you can tell, I am very excited about our new appliances! We live in a small, dumpy little house that we are planning on renovating entirely from top to bottom. The kitchen is definitely in need of renovations--fridge from the 80's, broken dishwasher, cupboards made out of plywood, fake gold chandelier.... ugh! Well even though we aren't starting the renos yet, we found some awesome sales on appliances. So we went ahead and bought a new stainless steel fridge, smoothtop range, dishwasher, and over-the-range microwave. Just having these appliances in the kitchen will make a world of difference! (And maybe get our butts in gear to get these renovations rolling!)

Well in celebration of new appliances and sales, I am having a sale at my TpT store. It starts now and goes until Friday! 20% off everything! Click the picture below to check it out! Enjoy the rest of your vacation, or your first week back if you have already started!

 

(Clipart from KPM Doodles)

Math Stations 4 - Mittens, Snowmen, and Penguins, Oh My!

Oh holidays, how I love you so! I love sleeping in, playing with Bella all day, going shopping, baking with my new KITCHENAID STAND MIXER (love it!), and just plain relaxing! I still have another 5 days of vacation, but I feel like they are going too fast!! I have been trying to be good and not do much school work over the holidays. The only thing I have been working on is my January math centers. They are finished and all ready to go! I just uploaded my Winter Math Centers to TpT for $6.00. Check them out by clicking the picture below!

Station #1: Hot Chocolate Puzzles

Students match up the numbers to the correct number words (from 1-20). There are two recording sheet options: write the numbers or write the number words.

Station #2: Mitten Counting by 5's

This is a great pocket chart station. Students organize the cards in order from 5-100. There are three different colored sets of cards. There are two recording sheet options: blank and partially filled in.

Station #3: Spin and Graph a Snowman

Students spin the spinner and record the results on a bar graph. Students answer which item was spun the most/least and then can decorate their own snowman on the back!

Station #4: Snowball Measurement

Students measure winter characters using "snowballs". You can use white pompoms, beads, buttons, marshmallows, etc.

Station #5: How Many Fish?

Students pull a domino to see how many fish (dots) the penguin will catch! They write an addition sentence to go with it.

Station #6: Mitten Patterns

Students choose a pattern card and color in the mittens to show that repeating pattern.

Station #7: One Less/One More

Students choose a number card (from 5-40). They write the number in the middle. Then they write the number that is one less and the number that is one more.

Station #8: Penguin Doubles

Students match up the addition double cards with the correct sums. There is a recording sheet to go with it.

Station #9: Snowball Ordering

Students choose three snowball cards (numbers from 0-29) and place them in order from least to greatest. They write the three numbers on their recording sheet and choose three new snowballs!