10's and 1's

Did you know that 10 is a magic number?  It is, ask your child! We have been working with ten-frames a lot this year.  Recently we introduced building teen numbers using popsicles grouped in 10s and individual popsicle sticks.  Below are some photos of the kids making teen numbers with popsicle sticks:

iPad Cart

We have a new addition to our school technology! We now share an iPad cart - there are enough in the cart for an entire class to use.
A few weeks ago our technology integrator, Mrs. Morgan, came in to do an introductory lesson with our students.  They learned how to turn the iPad on, navigate through the pages and to how to start an app.  There were some kids who have had lots of experience with iPads and others who had never used one before.  Mrs. Morgan has loaded a bunch of great apps onto the iPads that reinforce both reading and math.  Here are some photos of the kids trying out the iPads for the first time:

Poetry Center

One of our literacy centers is the poetry center.  Each student has their own poetry book. I teach a new poem on a chart once or twice a week.  Over the course of the week each students gets to work more closely with that poem in the poetry center.  I print each poem onto a smaller format so they can be glued into their poetry books.  I also print out a small picture that goes along with the poem.  After they have colored their picture and glued both their poem and picture into their book the kids need to find sight words.  I either write the sight words on a white board or print out a list of words.  The last step is for the kids to find the words from the list and highlight or circle them.

Place Value

We have been learning about place value throughout the school year.  One of the activities that we do that teaches place value is our daily tally.  Every day we put a popsicle stick in the 100's chart. We observe that the number of days we have been in school goes up by 1 each day.  The rule we follow is that there cannot be 10 in the 1's place - the 1's place is for single digits only.  When we get to 10 sticks we bundle the sticks up and move them into the 10's place.  The same rule goes for the tens place - you can not have ten 10's in the tens place - you must bundle 10 up and move them to the 100's place.  We use the bundles and singles to practice counting 10's and 1's together.

Math - Graphing

One of our recent math lessons involved graphing.  The kids are learning to organize a set of data, record that data and explain the results. Sounds pretty sophisticated, doesn't it?! :-)

First we colored squares to represent our favorite colors. I then gave them the task of organizing our colors so that we can figure out how many of each we had.  They chose to sort them into piles.  I then asked if there was a better way so that we could see all the colors and they put them into lines.

From the lines I introduced charting them in a graph so that we can easily see how many of each color we had.  Next we counted how many of each color we had and recorded the number.

Lastly, we learned how to "analyze" our data. I asked a series of questions and they started to generate some observations.  I recorded their observations on the bottom of the graph.  I guided them through the two observations at the top - where we compared one set of colors to another.

Try graphing at home - it's super easy - make a cup of "gorp" from several ingredients (popcorn, m&m"s, cheerios, pretzels, etc.).  Have your child sort the ingredients into piles and then into lines similar to a graph.  Next talk about what the graph is "telling" you! You can do this with toys, blocks, coins etc., food is just really fun and yummy :-)

Yoga

We have been learning a number of yoga poses since coming back from break.  We used to do "movement breaks" to help us get some energy out.  I was finding that they were not settling down but the opposite was happening - they were getting more riled up than before.  So I changed my strategy! What I am finding now is that after doing a few poses and deep breathing the kids are more focused and ready to learn.
Here are a few pictures of the kids doing various poses: