Items filtered by date: December 2011

61 pages.
Your students will really enjoy playing these games, as they slap a variety of groundhog cards, with a flyswatter, to show that they know specific standards. 

Learning Math With A Snowman Friend

Sam the Solution Snowman is a fun way for your students/child to enjoy learning to count, sequence, match numbers with number words, as well as do simple addition and subtraction.

Run off the templates on construction paper.

Students cut out their snowman and hat.

Students color their snowman’s face and glue on their hat.

To expedite things, you might want to have the arm pieces pre-cut and hole-punched.

Hole punch 6 holes in the middle of the snowman and 6 holes in the bottom of the snowman.

You’ll have to fold one side to get the hole punch to the middle.

Fasten the arms to each other using brass brads and then attach them to the snowman with 2 more brads.

Position the arms so they look like they are holding a snowflake.

Cut a 1 x 12 inch strip of black and white construction paper.

Lay the white strip on top of the black strip and paperclip them together in the middle.

Pull the white strip down a bit so that you can tape the black strip to the back of the snowman’s head.

Students roll two dice; count the dots to see how many buttons they will reveal on the snowman by pulling the white strip down so that the buttons appear black.

They then find that numbered snowflake and position it in the snowman’s hands.

Students flip the red hat sash to reveal the number word that matches the number on the snowflake.

If you want to make this an addition or subtraction activity, have students roll the dice.

The largest number will reveal the top buttons; the smaller number on the dice will reveal the bottom buttons on the snowman.

In order to do addition/subtraction, you will need a black rectangle “side cover”.

You reveal the bottom buttons by this extra black side strip.

Fold it in half horizontally to reveal buttonholes 1-4.  Keep it open to reveal number > 4.

Have students write their equations on a sheet of scratch paper.

You can eliminate the number-word sash for younger children as well as the side-cover for addition/subtraction, keeping the snowman simple.

If you want to make a class set to use every year, laminate your snowman parts and then assemble them.

If you’re only doing a few for a center or making one with your child, you may want to use Velcro on the snowflakes and put the opposite Velcro piece on the snowman’s tummy.

The snowflake squares make the perfect pages for a cute Itty Bitty Booklet, so I made a cover for them. This is a great way to practice sequencing!

I've also included 6 snowflake "What Comes Next?" skill sheets with this activity and a blank one for you to fill in for numbers/letters that you want to work on, + a certificate of praise.

Your students are sure to have "snow" much fun learning with Sam the Solution Snowman.

Click on the link to view/print Sam.

Thank you for visiting today. Feel free to PIN anything you think others may find helpful.

"Cheers to a new year and another chance to get it right!" -Ophra Winfrey

10 pages. An adorable booklet that's perfect for your 100-Day activities. Students draw 10 dots on 10 different pictures to make 100 dots! What a fun way to count to 100.

10 pages. An adorable counting booklet that students will enjoy making. What a fun way to count to 100!

10 pages. A fun way for students to review 2D shapes. This packet has been updated, and is now a special FREEBIE in my TpT shop.
Click on the link to zip on over and grab your copy today.  Silly Shaped 2D Penguin Crafts

Silly Shaped Penguins

These shapely penguins make an easy center that’s a fun way to review shapes. My inspiration for the shoe-shaped penguin came from Merryn’s Crafty-crafted sight. 

Her son painted his foot and made this adorable penguin.  Click on the link to check out her other cute ideas and see Ethan doing this project.

I felt that tracing a student’s foot with their shoe on, was an easier-no mess project to take on with a bunch of little kids, and still makes a nice keepsake.

Have your students stand on a sheet of black construction paper and trace around their shoe with a piece of chalk.   A room helper cuts these out and then traces them on white copy paper so that they can cut a smaller white foot for the center of the penguin.

Students glue this together, along with their beak and feet, which can simply be triangles of orange construction paper.  Use the manipulatives to get the wiggles out and do The Penguin Pokey.  Click on the link to view/print The Penguin Pokey.

Help students review their body parts by having them put their penguin on their thigh, hip, waist, wrist, shin etc.

Their penguin can also help them review spatial directions and you can whole group assess as you tell your students to put their penguin behind them, over their palm, on their right side etc.

The silly shaped penguins, as well as the shoe penguins, make an adorable January bulletin board.  Captions can be:

"Things are shaping up in _________________'s room." "Things are taking shape in kindergarten." "Waddle on down to room 206 to see what's shaping up!" "The shape of things to come with ______________________'s  first graders." "Penguin Power Prints!"

Teachers can make a set to show the students and then do a graphing activity of which is their favorite.  So each child has a set, do this as a daily center activity for the week. End with the shoe penguin and sing a round of The Penguin Pokey using the manipulative.

I also made an easy-reader booklet: Look It’s A Penguin! to go along with these goofy little guys.  Students read the sentence, trace and write the shape word, color the silly-shaped penguin, and finally trace and draw the shape.

The last page says: This penguin is in the shape of my shoe, a keepsake especially for you.  There’s also a graphing extension + shape flashcards that students can make into an Itty Bitty booklet.

Click on the link to take a look at Silly Shaped Penguins.

Are you looking for more penguin-themed ideas?

Shapes are also reviewed under the wings of this adorable penguin booklet and squencing numbers with this fish-gobbling cutie is also lots of fun.  Both can be found in my Winter Art and Activity Book.

Thank you for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN anything you think others may find helpful.

"The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery." -Mark VAn Doren

Let's Play A Math Game!

Dominoes are an inexpensive and fun math manipulative to help your students practice simple addition and subtraction facts.  Dominic the Domino Snowman makes it even more interesting.  He needs buttons for his belly! 

Here's how to help him:

• If you want all of your students to play as a whole group, run off a class set of snowmen. Have students play in groups of 2-4 so they can share dominoes.  They sell them at The Dollar Store.

•  If you don’t have dominoes, use my template and print off a class set, or some for your students so they can have a Dominic and dominoes to practice at home.

•  You can color the snowmen, or have students color them and then laminate the playing boards so you can use them every year.

•  Children will use dry erase markers to record their answers and then wipe them off with a wet wipe.

• Write the directions: Roll, Find, Place, Write, Solve on the board.
• Demonstrate how to play the game.

• Students obtain the dominoes by rolling 2 dice twice and finding the appropriate dominoes.
• i.e, If they roll a 1 and a 5, they find the domino with one dot and five dots and place that to the side.

•  The student then rolls the second time and rolls a 2 and a 3.
• They find that domino.

• Since the first domino has larger numbers, they put that domino on top so that they can subtract. They put the smaller numbered domino on the bottom.

• Students add the “buttons” of the domino to get the first number to add and and then later subtract and then add the “buttons” of the second domino to get the second number to add and later subtract. 

•  Students write these equations vertically on their snowman and solve the problem.

• On a sheet of  paper, students write the equations horizontally and solve the problem.

• Set a timer to ring after about 10 minutes.
• The student with the most correct answers wins the game.

• Click on the link to view/print Dominic the Domino Math Game Snowman

Do you have a math game that you play with your students? I'd enjoy hearing from you! diane@teachwithme.com and if you use one of my freebies I'd really enjoy a comment.  Thanks in advance.

Be sure and pop back tomorrow for more creative teaching tips.