Weekly Update

Happy Saturday! I wanted to share two freebies with you that I used these past couple of weeks during math.

This activity was used as a review for partitioning rectangles into squares. I gave each kiddo a different, even numbered, amount of seeds to plant in their rectangle "garden". They had to decide how to arrange the seeds and divide their garden into same sized squares. Then, they wrote a repeated addition number sentence to match. If you'd like this you can download it here.

We used this the week before Easter as a review of plane shapes. Students were asked to create a bunny using a combination of shapes and count how many of each shape they used in their drawing. If you don't want to have your students create a shape bunny, I also made a shape animal handout similar to the one above. You can find both of those here.

Hope you can use these in your classroom! Have a great weekend! 

Guided Math

I use to have a love/hate relationship with teaching math. Some days I loved it; some days I hated it. It wasn't until I began to incorporate Guided Math into my daily math block that I started to actually look forward to teaching math everyday. I've changed how Guided Math looks in my classroom every year, but this year, it all of sudden has just clicked for me. I've said it before on my blog... I love teaching small groups! It just gives me an opportunity to really get to know my students. Here is a little peek into how I teach Guided Math.

I begin my math block with a 10-15 minute mini-lesson. I typically chose one skill/standard to cover during the week. I either create an anchor chart, work on problem solving using the I Do, We Do, You Do instruction format, or play a quick whole class game.

Here I simply wrote balanced equations on sentence strips. Some were true and some were false. Students had to work in pairs to determine if their equation was correct or not. If it was incorrect, they had to work to make it a true equation. 

After my mini-lesson, students go to math centers. One of the rotations is called instruction time. This is where students work with me in their Guided Math group. This usually lasts about 30-45 minutes. Students are grouped based on pre-assessments that are taken prior to the unit. We begin Guided Math by reviewing the skill we learned during the mini-lesson. After I see that my group is comfortable with the skill, they play a game with their Guided Math group. The lesson above has students arranging the steps to solve a word problem, in order, and using the steps to solve the problem.

Sometimes I have my kiddos record their answers on a recording sheet in a clear plastic pocket protector or we just write on the table with dry erase markers. 

These activities are part of my March Guided Math product. Each skill has a small group lesson and small group game. I've also included recording sheets for the small group game and assessments for each skill that can be used as a pre- and post-test. The small group games can be easily differentiated based on your students' needs.

I hope you're enjoying your Sunday friends!

Menu Math {A Real World Math Activity}

Boy, have we been busy working on word problems involving money?! I wanted to give my kiddos a more real world approach to adding and subtracting money amounts. That's how Menu Math was created! 

If you know me, you know I love doing mini transformations in my classroom. My students now know that whenever our tables are covered and I have props out, they are in for an exciting lesson! Menu Math was no different. My students walked in to our classroom after Specials to find each table had been transformed into a different restaurant. I used butcher paper to cover their tables and various props I either already had or that I found at The Dollar Tree to set the stage.

How cute are these steak coasters that I snagged at The Dollar Tree?! I also put fake flowers in a vase on the table to make it "fancy".

 

For the lesson, I broke my class up into four groups. I had them take turns choosing a waiter/waitress for each restaurant they visited. The "customers", the remaining kids in the group, each ordered one item off the restaurant menu. The waiter/waitress wrote down how much each item cost and went to the "kitchen" to total up the bill. This also helped us review adding up to four numbers.

While the waiter/waitress was in the kitchen, the customers had to total up their bill too. Then, they checked their total against the server's total. If their totals didn't match up, they had to figure out why.

This lesson was so much fun! The conversations I heard as I walked around were priceless! One of my kiddos said, "Man, I wish I would've ordered the lobster tail instead". Ha! Talk about real world applications! 

If you want to try out this activity in your classroom, you can find my unit here. I also included task cards for each restaurant menu to help my kiddos work on those money word problem skills.

Addition and Subtraction Strategy Playbook

If you've followed me for some time, you might already know that I'm a sucker for a good theme! I created my Addition and Subtraction Strategies {A Math Playbook} product with a football theme in mind to get my kiddos excited and keep them engaged while learning about addition and subtraction strategies! It also didn't hurt that I blasted the NFL theme song at the beginning of every lesson! HA! 

Here's how it all went down in my classroom...

I introduced one strategy a day {hundreds chart, number line, make a model, break apart}. I used the posters included in this product as my teaching tool by displaying them on the projector. Students recorded notes for each strategy in their Addition and Subtraction Strategy Playbook.

After I taught the strategy for the day, my students completed an interactive journal page to show their understanding. 

After doing a quick check of their journal pages, I was able to see who needed extra reinforcement. While my other kids worked in their daily math centers, I worked with my struggling students to complete an additional practice handout.

At the end of the week, we played a game to review the strategies.

I spread green butcher paper on their tables for them to use as a workspace to solve their problems. After the game, I felt confident that my kiddos were ready to rock their test! I think they did too!

This product is on sale for 50% off until 1:00 PM tomorrow {Wednesday, December 30th). You can find it here.

Halloween Fun {with Freebies}

Lately I've been trying to incorporate as many Halloween themed activities as I can into our daily lessons. I feel that kids are better able to make connections to the material when units of study are thematic. One way I incorporate themes into my classroom is through holidays. Since we've been learning about addition strategies, I used Frankenstein to make a "Frankenline" for our number line strategy and googly eyes to count with for our make a model strategy. Being able to incorporate a theme into my content is a win/win in my book!

You can find the "Frankenline" here and the Monster Addition handout here.

Last month I shared this picture on Instagram...

If you would like to snag this tag you can find it here.

This month, I wanted to give little man's teachers another small gift to show just how much we appreciate all that they do. 

A student gave me this cute Frankenstein treat one day and I knew I just had to make my own for little man's teachers.

I mean...how stinkin' cute are these?! I used green grapes for the body and marshmallows and chocolate chips for the eyes. So simple!

I also filled a small, plastic bucket from Target with a cute notepad, Halloween pencils, and chocolate {What teacher couldn't use chocolate right?!}. The pencils, notepad, and bucket were all from the Target Dollar Spot. To make the bucket even more festive, I added black tissue paper, shredded Halloween paper from Michaels, and this tag. 

Make sure you follow me on Instagram, at Teach Dream Inspire, so you don't ever miss an idea! Happy Halloween!!!

It's the Final Countdown {with a freebie}!

Well my friends we have *almost* made it to the end of another fantastic school year! I know that many of you have already begun to countdown those last days of school and plan your end of the year activities. With final assessments to do, grades to input, and crowds to control (ha!), there is no tired like end of the year teacher tired. I hope this little post will give you that extra "oomph" you need for those last days/weeks! 

 I've done this activity when teaching arrays for a couple of years now, but I always seem to revamp it each time. Keeping with a summer theme, I use the idea of picnic blankets to help my kiddos visualize what an array is. Once we had that picture in our minds, I drew my "picnic blanket" on an anchor chart and wrote a repeated addition number sentence to match my drawing.

After I modeled my "picnic blanket", I had my kids create their own "Picnic Array". I die cut several red and white squares and let my kids choose the array they wanted to create. Keeping your kids engaged is super important throughout the entire year and creating engaging lessons, for sure, shouldn't be forgotten at the end of the year just because we find ourselves just trying to make it through till summer. Letting my students have a choice on how to show their understanding of a concept and giving them the opportunity to manipulate objects (including small bits of paper, ha!) keeps them engaged! Like I said, I've revamped this lesson a couple of times and you can find my original idea here. (In the original lesson, my kids used checkered napkins to create their array.)

You can find this free printable to use with your "Picnic Array" lesson here. (Fonts by: Hello Fonts and Cara Carroll, Graphics by: Bubbly Borders and More and Creative Clips) 

Reviewing is another important piece of any end of the year countdown. I'm always left wondering if my kids have retained all the information that I have tried to pack into their little minds over the past nine months. That's where my Ready as can be for Grade Three math review comes in handy! 

This packet has a quick assessment for each second grade Common Core math standard. I usually have my students complete a couple of pages a day leading up to the last week of school. We then go over the pages in their review packet to check for understanding. You could also use this as a summer review packet and send it home with your students, or this can be used to preview firsties for second grade or review second grade standards at the beginning of third grade. However you use it, I hope you find it helpful for your students! This product can be found in my little shop here. 

Let's face it... I love a good theme day anytime of the year, but theme days at the end of the year are a MUST for me! Sadly, I had to take an unexpected early maternity leave and I cannot be there with my kiddos to celebrate the end of the year, but I did blog about my theme days last year. You can find that post here. You can click on the following titles to find these packets in my shop.

Beach Day

Campout Day

Friendship Day

All of my end of the year activities will be on sale until the end of the day. Hang in there friends and savor every final moment with your sweet class! If all else fails, keep calm 'cause it's almost summer!

Student Engagement

Happy, happy Friday y'all! This has been.a.week! Five, yes five, days of indoor recess! Need I say more?! Hallelujah, I've made it to the weekend and lived to blog about the journey! Ha!

I think we can all agree that student engagement is one of the MOST important components of a lesson. As much as I try, believe me I still fall short. As I continue to work towards creating lessons that are engaging for my students, I have realized that making a lesson engaging doesn't necessarily mean performing circus acts in your classroom on a daily basis. I kid, but really sometimes it's just about simple things like the way a lesson is delivered, providing opportunities for students to move around, allowing students time to interact with their peers, or adding one small element of surprise. For my students, the element of surprise/mystery gets them every time. 

For the past two weeks we've been working on developing a repertoire of strategies we can use when solving three-digit addition and subtraction problems. I felt that giving my students a variety of strategies that they can choose from and giving them multiple opportunities to practice these strategies would be beneficial for them. Now, where did the engagement piece come in? Well... I gave my kiddos their very own "Secret Agent" folder. In this folder they collected their "top secret" strategies for addition and subtraction. I had them convinced that they were the only second grade class learning these strategies and that the strategies were our special secrets. 

Here are snapshots of the strategies we used. You may call the strategies something different in your classroom.

I know there are so many different strategies that can be taught to help students with adding and subtracting three-digit numbers, but I chose to focus on the strategies that my students had the most success with when adding and subtracting two-digit numbers. As I modeled under the Doc-U-Cam, my students wrote these examples on their own paper in pencil. After I finished the lesson, I let them go back to trace over their pencil with marker. The different colors represent the different steps they take when solving the problem. I also allowed plenty of time for them to practice each strategy. They wrote on tables, worked in their journal, worked with partners, and worked independently. I try to mix it up to keep them engaged.

Again, we spent about two weeks on learning and practicing these strategies. That's about one strategy a day, plus time in between to practice. You can find the "Secret Agent" cover page and strategy sheet for free here.

How do you keep your kiddos engaged? I'd love to hear about any new tricks and ideas!