1-2-3 Come Do Some Money Activities With Me

President George Washington's picture is inside an oval shape on the one dollar bill, but wait; these dollar bills are wacky, as other 2D shapes have snuck in and taken over. They need some "shaping up!"

This emergent reader practices a variety of standards at the same time reviewing the circle, oval, square, rectangle, triangle and hexagon shapes, with two size options.

Students trace and write the shape word; trace and draw the shape; circle the capital letters in the sentences; add end punctuation, then cut and glue the shapes to the matching pages of their booklet.

Use the booklet in February with your money and Presidents' Day activities, or in March during Seuss week, as a "Wacky Wednesday" activity.

For writing practice, I've included a Venn diagram comparing Washington's dollar bill with Lincoln's five dollar bill, as well as a "design your own" dollar bill writing prompt craftivity.

Completed projects make an interesting bulletin board.  

Since Dr. Seuss's birthday is coming up, I also designed a "Flipping Over Coins 'Cent-sational' Seuss" hat craftivity.   

Children color and cut on the dotted lines to make a "flap", that when flipped, will reveal the picture of the coins (penny, nickel, dime, quarter and half dollar) that they have colored, trimmed and glued underneath.

The packet includes a large, full-page hat, as well as a smaller, two on a page template.

To show an AB-AB color pattern, I have my students color every other strip the color of their choice. Many chose red because of Seuss's Cat in the Hat story.  

Finally, My Buck Booklet, is a quick, easy and fun way to practice a variety of standards, including coin identification, and how many ways you can make a dollar.

Students trace and write words, then color, cut and glue the matching coin to the appropriate box in their booklet.

I've also included practice for skip counting by 5s & 10s, plus there's an optional last page to mix math & literacy, as I've included 2 fun writing prompts.

This is an interesting activity for table top, homework, or a sub folder, and plugs in nicely for Presidents' Day too. 

Today's featured FREEBIE is a "coin sort" craftivity. It practices the concept of small-medium & large, which will help students with coin identification.  

Completed projects make a nice bulletin board too. 

Well that's it for today. We've got family coming in from Colorado this morning, so I better finish my cleaning!  

Wishing you a wonderful weekend. 

"Wealth is the ability to fully experience life." - Henry David Thoreau

1-2-3 Come Celebrate Wacky Wednesday With Me!

As you continue March is Reading Month, Why not plan on having a Wacky Wednesday next week. It' one of my favorite days.  See if you can get your entire school involved to make it even more fun.  It’s one of my students’ favorite Seuss books.

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Here’s how to go about being wacky.

 Dress Wacky:

Send a letter home to parents explaining the day, and asking them to help their child dress as wacky as possible.  Give them a few suggestions.

Our entire school is involved in March is Reading Month so we have a panel of teachers that get together to think up ideas for the whole school to take part in all month long.   Wacky Wednesday is one of them.  Your wacky day doesn’t have to fall on the 2^nd.  It can be any Wednesday in March.

Students come to school dressed wacky.  One pant leg is up, one is down, T-shirts are backwards or inside out, plaids are put together with stripes.  Hair is spray painted several colors or perhaps teased.  Girls may have one braid and one pigtail, or perhaps their ponytail sticks out of the side of their head.

Underwear or boxer shorts are worn on the outside of your pants, buttons are buttoned wrong, and neckties are knotted or tied around your forehead.  A person can wear two different colored socks, or a sneaker and a boot.  Orange can be worn with pink and purple and stripes look marvelous with polka dots; the wackier the better. Each teacher sends their wackiest students down to the atrium to get their picture taken for the school newsletter.

Wack out your room:

Besides dressing wacky, rearrange a few things in your room.  I take all of my chairs away and put them in a line in the hallway.  My students have to sit on the floor UNDER the tables of course. All of my posters are upside down, and just like in the story I've used poster putty to have a shoe walking up the wall.  My clock is upside down, their calendar says October, our alphabet starts with ZYX and ends with ABC.  Use your imagination and have fun! I challenge my students to find all the things that are wacky in our room. 

 Plan some wacky activities:

On their desks are new desk name cards.  Their names are spelled backwards and I’m no longer Mrs. Henderson, but Mrs. Nosredneh.  It takes a bit of time, but soon they find their new wacky name card.

They also don their new nametag so that I can remember what to call them through out our wacky day.

Instead of greeting them “Good morning!”  and saying “Hello!” to them.  I say “Good evening!” and “Good-bye!”

Instead of walking forward they must walk backward.  They really LOVE this one and it’s a great gross motor movement that’s not as easy as it looks.

I also give them an FYI that when I say “No.” I mean “Yes” only for the 1^st hour of class.  Their Table Top lessons are numbered from 10 to 1, and we do all of our counting that day in reverse.

We also say our alphabet in reverse.  I read our morning message backwards.

Story Time:

For story time we read Dr. Seuss’s Wacky Wednesday of course, but I also have several other books that I read that my students really enjoy: Gerald McBoing Boing, Seuss; Topsy-Turvy Day, James; and Silly Sally, by Wood. I laminate the various characters in Silly Sally, pass them out to my students and we sequence them.

As I’m reading Wacky Wednesday, I hold up the book so that my students can find the things.  I enjoy this book because of the “can you find?” aspect of it.  It’s a great skill for students to practice and this one really sharpens their observation skills.  It’s also a counting book.  “… if you can find the last 20 wacky things you can go back to bed.”

I make an overhead of the last 2 pages and we circle the wacky things as my students find them. We keep a tally sheet so we know we have found all 20.  I toss a plush Cat in the Hat at the end of the day and the child holding the cat gets to share what their favorite thing was that they did on Wacky Day.

As they file out of the door on the way to their bus, I wish them a “Good morning!” and wave “Hello!”