Items filtered by date: May 2012

It’s time to Blast Off With Me and Learn a Fact Family

Since the Fact Family Schoolhouses were such a huge hit, I wanted to dream up some more things that would get students excited to WANT to learn and practice their fact families.

Let’s face it, things can get pretty tedious when you’re a kid, and teachers only have so much time to think outside the box.

That’s my forte’ and I had an absolute blast designing a Space Travel Fact Family Learning Log!

I really think this idea will get your students “hooked” and they’ll actually be asking to work on their math facts, because they’ll want to collect the “stickers”!  Collecting something is quite addicting to a child.  That’s why it’s such a hot market in the toy world.

Stickers are an easy and fun way to motivate them and build their self-esteem at the same time; besides, playing the games and doing the activities are also entertaining!

I’m not sure why a small scrap of paper is such a big deal to a little kid, but I’m all over it, because of its success as a motivational and incentive teaching tool.

I’ve designed several types for students to choose from; you print them off and they cut and glue them to their booklets, or you can use my clipart designs and drag them into a label and truly make them “sticky”.

The more opportunities you can think of to immerse kids in fact families, the easier it is for them to remember them, ‘til the light bulb finally comes on. 

“Practice makes perfect!” really rings true, when it comes to fact families, however, this can get rather boring.

“Worksheets” can quickly become “skill-drill and kill” sheets and is precisely why I don’t call tabletop lessons “worksheets”, but “skill sheets”.

Who wants to do work?  For example: Which statement gets you rarin’ to go? “Please do the worksheet on your desk.” Or…“Today we’re having fun practicing a skill by playing a game.” See what I mean?

Here’s How To Make A Learning Log:

Run off my masters.  Students will be taking a journey “…on a planetary path, learning fact family math.” 

Each time they learn a fact family, they get a planet sticker. Once they’ve learned ALL of the fact families in the galaxy, they receive the bonus Earth sticker for the “mission” accomplished” achievement.

They choose a rocket, name, cut and glue it to their booklet and are able to earn rocket stickers for a variety of in-class fact family work.

They also choose an alien friend, name, cut and glue them to that learning log page and are able to earn alien and spaceship stickers for still more fact family activities.

There’s also a page for miscellaneous reward and award stickers.  Here I suggest having a daily or weekly sticker posted, which keeps students motivated and gets them excited to work on some aspect of fact families, because they will want to earn that featured sticker

Finally, the last page is a congratulations page, where they have accomplished their math missions and their learning log is now complete!

I’ve included a fact family rocket spinner game, rocket booklet, traceable fact family number and equation cards, recording sheets, and other fun-filled fact family stuff for your students to do, to make collecting stickers and learning along their journey, most pleasurable.

Click on the link to view/download the Rocket Fact Family Packet   I hope you and your space travelers enjoy this packet as much as I did creating it!

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"Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one." -Malcolm Forbes

It's A Wonderful Day In The Fact Family Neighborhood!

So what's the big deal about fact families?

Once a student knows the relationships of the fact family members, it's easy for them to see what number is missing at a quick glance.

Solving addition and subtraction problems is then much easier and starts to become automatic.

Fact family houses are a great way to teach visual learners about the relationships among the three numbers in that family.

Knowing fact families, especially those, which create number sentences that add up to 10, are a key part of math.

Making fact family houses and putting them in a neighborhood can help students learn the "tens facts" by heart. I thought it would be fun for students to create a neighborhood of schoolhouses!

Here's How: To create a neighborhood, run off the schoolhouses on 10 different colors of construction paper.  I like to teach a rainbow pattern later on in the year, so now is a great time to start with those 1^st six bright colors.

Next, have students fill in the rest of the Tens Facts, one in each house, to create the entire neighborhood. Once the neighborhood is finished, children use a square of Scotch tape to hinge them together.

Run off the covers for each fact family on white copy paper.  Students cut those out, solve the problems and then glue them to the back of the first house in the fact family.

When they are completed, students will have a variety of different colored fact family house booklets that they can stand up and make into neighborhoods of schoolhouses.

Another thing you can do with this packet that will help reinforce fact families, is to show students how to write the families using a T bar.

I tell children that they are becoming T-eriffic at making fact families so they get to make T-Bars.

Students simply trace the T in red and write the missing number on the other side of the bar. This number when added to the other will make the number on top of the T bar. You can turn this sheet into a “mad-minute” and time students.

The Fact Family Spinner Game is also another way to get the facts reinforced. Children spin the spinner, whatever number they land on, they find that number tile and place it in the top attic window of their schoolhouse.

They decide what other numbers they are going to choose to make a fact family for that number and fill in the remaining tiles and then X-off that fact family on their recording sheet.

The first student, who completes all of the fact families, wins the game. Click on the link to view/download Fact Family Schoolhouse packet

Finally, the last way I review fact families with students is with mini-dry erase boards that I make out of glossy ink jet paper.

You can buy an entire box of paper at Sam’s Club, Costco or any of the office supply stores for around $10, with anywhere from 100-200 sheets.

Cut strips the length of the paper a tad shy of 4 inches wide.  Buy a box of long colored envelopes. Seal the envelopes and snip off the ends so that they are 4 inches long.

When you write on the glossy side of the paper with a dry erase marker it easily wipes off just as if you were using a dry erase board!  I bought a pack of white washcloths and cut them into small squares.

Because these are so inexpensive to make, you could make them for your students every year, so they could keep them. Have them store them in their desk, cubby, or folder for easy access.  Use them for math, name writing, letters, shape identification etc.

If you like to have home-school connections for your students, a great way to practice their math facts is by logging them into Xtra Math.

It’s a free online program, run by a non-profit organization, that is dedicated to math achievement for all.

This is less than 10 minutes a day of math that your students can work on at home to increase their recognition of math facts. The program is free, simple and includes progress reports. I found it while surfing the net. It’s recommended by Edmodo, and worth checking out to see if it fits your needs.

I hope these ideas have added to your math bag of tricks, to help make teaching in your neighborhood, a bit more wonderful!

“Too often we give children answers to remember, rather than problems to solve.” –Roger Lewin

18 pages. A "craftivity" and game to help reinforce fact families.

Time Flies When You're Having A Good Time!

What Time Is It? Is a fun way to review time to the hour.

Make copies of the analog and digital clock mat.

Glue them to construction paper and laminate.

Students can either draw hands on the analog clock, or you can poke a hole in the center dot with a protractor, insert a brass brad and wrap a large and small paperclip around it, to use as hands so that students can manipulate the time.

I snipped off the extra loop of the large paperclip, so that it wasn’t so long.

You can buy dry erase markers with little sponges on the end so that students can erase their answers, or simply cut up washcloths into little squares.

Make copies of the spinner, cut out the circles, glue them to a square of construction paper, laminate, poke a hole in the center and attach a brad and paperclip.

Students spin the spinner.  I purposely used a spinner to look like a clock so that they would get used to looking at the analog dial.  Whatever number they are closest to, is the time that they will fill in on their recording sheet and work with on their clock mat. For example, their spinner lands on 3.

Students will manipulate the paperclips to show 3:00 on the analog clock on the mat, write 3:00 on the digital clock on the mat and write the word three before O’clock on the line, tracing O’clock to complete the laminated mat.

They will then record that information on their mini clock-recording sheet.

The student who completes all of the times on that sheet first, is the winner of the game.

I’ve made certificates for the winners of “Beat the clock” as well as certificates for those who participated.

You can also use the laminated clock mats to individually or whole group assess your students’ ability to tell time.

I’ve included a certificate of praise when they have accomplished that standard.

Click on the link to view/download the What Time Is It? Packet

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Do you have a telling time tip you could share with us?  I'd enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com or post a comment here! Thanks in advance for your time.

"While we are busy trying to teach our chldren all about life, our children are easily teaching us what life is all about." -Unknown

Let's Keep Things Rolling! More Math Games With A Dice Theme

I made Dice Game Stuff to go with the addition, subtraction, greater & less than dice games featured in the last 2 articles.

Click on the link to view/download the packet.

Whenever I taught a concept to my Y5’s I liked to stick with a theme.

It kept things simple, organized and less complicated for them.

I also had everything I needed handy and things just seem to flow from one transition into the next.

I could also overlap the various subjects too.

Here are some things you can do with these items:

The Make your own dice is a nice home-school connection where students can practice their cutting skills, something for a sub folder, or that extra activity students can do when they’ve finished everything else.

Run it off on cardstock. Give students a jingle bell to glue inside for added fun.

The large red dice make perfect flashcards when young students are learning to identify groups with a number.

Print them off, laminate, cut them out and keep them with your calendar or story time “stuff”.

You can also punch a hole in one corner and put them on a split ring.

Run off the smaller copies for students to make a split ring flipbook as well.  You flash your large number and they flip through their little ones to see who can find it the fastest.

Run off the Smaller Red-Dot Dice, laminate and cut out and make Memory Match Concentration games. Students can match them dice to dice or dice to number.

Laminate the number and symbol cards as well.  These too, can be used as Memory Match games or have students make equations with them.

Students can roll real dice, make an equation with the laminated paper dice, and then write down the equation on a sheet of scratch paper.

Set the timer to ring after 5 minutes.  Students can play individually or with a partner.

The person with the most equations completed when the timer rings, is the winner.

The traceable number flashcards offer a nice way to review skip counting by 2’s, 3’s and 5’s.

I’m always looking for easy and interesting ways to plug that concept in, for a quick review my kiddo’s would think was fun, so they’d want to continue practicing.

I made covers for the traceable flashcards so they can be turned into Itty Bitty booklets.

Run off extra sets on different colors to make Memory Match Concentration games.  You can also play I Have; Who Has? with them as well.

I hope you enjoy getting things rolling with your little ones and they have fun with these activities.

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"Life is a great big canvas and you should throw all the paint you can on it."  -Danny Kaye