My Solution to Noisy Dice and a Spring Cleaning Sale

Hi everyone!  How many of you like to play dice games on the floor of your non-carpeted classroom?  We do this quite often in math class.  So often, in fact, that the fourth grade teacher, whose room is right below  mine, had to send up a note asking us to please play on the desks because or dice games disturb her math class.  But then we (I) had to deal with the whole problem of the dice rolling off the desks, under chairs and assorted other furniture.  Now, I've seen all the clever Pinterest ideas, like put your dice in clear plastic containers, but I don't have money or time -- but mostly money -- to spend on clear plastic containers for my classroom dice, nor do I have space to store all those dice in clear plastic containers.  And sometimes we need just one die, so that involves using more time to extract one die from the 20 clear plastic containers  I would need.

Then inspiration hit!  Earlier this year, we had carpet squares donated to our classroom.  We use them for all the normal stuff, like sitting on in the library or defining our space when we're sitting in a circle on the floor.  As I was demonstrating our latest dice game to the kids, I thought, hey, I can use a carpet square to muffle the noise AND make it a rule that if your dice go off the carpet square, you lose your turn!  Et voila!  Like magic, in one moment of shear brilliance, I solved two problems at one time -- noisy dice and runaway dice -- without spending a penny!  Now that is win-win in my book.  We are now happily playing dice games on the floor again in a much quieter and less chasing-after-the-
dice classroom.

I'm pretty sure many of you have already thought of this solution to the dice problem, but in case you haven't, get yourself some carpet squares and breathe a sigh of relief.

Here are some videos I took of my class playing this St. Patrick's Day subtraction game.  The children had to add the two dice and then subtract the total from 17.  Some of my lower math group is still having trouble counting backwards, so this was a perfect game to practice that skill.  In the first video, as I observed this young man counting backwards the first time, he skipped 13.  I told him he was skipping 13, and directed him to the number line above our closets to help him count backwards.  He said, "Oh, I'm skipping 13!  No wonder I keep getting the wrong answer!"  I checked back later to make sure he was counting backwards correctly, and he was!

Click the picture to view the video.

In this next short video, the girl, performs some mental math to come up with her answer.  I was happy to see that she did not have to count all the dice to get her total to subtract.  She just subitized.  Yay!

Click the picture to view the video.

And in this last clip, one of my lower math students is very unsure of herself.  You can hear the question in her voice as she tells me the answer.  You can see she still counts all the dots to come up with her total to subtract from 17.  This is something we've been working on all year with her, and she can do it if I give her one number dice and one dotted dice, but if there are dots on both dice, she is more comfortable counting them all.  But she had made and continues to make a lot of progress since the beginning of the year.

Click the picture to view the video.

As I viewed these videos, what struck me was how one simple paper one pair of dice met the needs of so many different learners in my classroom.  The game automatically differentiated itself with no effort on my part. 

And on a final note, I am taking part in the big spring cleaning sale going on on TpT.  All my products are 10% off until April 1st.  Now would be a great time to get some great spring resources, like my Easter bundle,

click the picture to view all my religious resources

Do you use the Journey's reading series?  I've been developing a series of supplemental workbooks that go along with each story.  I've tried to make the activities the same or similar enough that the children will know exactly what to do on the page without having to read the directions because they've done it before.  The feedback I'm getting on these is great, and many people have said that because I don't make the activities story specific, they are able to use the resource if they don't use the Journey's series.  The workbooks are geared towards first grade, but they would make a good review for second grade or enrichment for kindergarten.  The next lesson, Tomas Rivera, will be ready to post hopefully this evening, but tomorrow night at the latest.

FREEBIE ALERT

click the picture to view all my first grade skill workbook resources

click {here} to download the above contraction worksheet sample from my first workbook, Seasons.

If you are looking for spring and Earth Day resource, click the picture below to visit my store to see what I have.

And finally, I have some great end-of-the-year/summery resources to get you through those last few weeks of school, especially since so many of us have an extended school year this year due to snow days! Click the picture below to visit my end-of-the-year/summer selection.

So that's  it for today!  Have a great weekend everyone!

It's Center Time!

Jessica over at Second Grade Nest is hosting a Thanksgiving Linky Party, which I linked up to.   Thanks for the opportunity, Jessica!

She asked what we will be doing with our kids these last few days before Thanksgving break, when everyone is really looking forward to a few days off, and concentration wanders.

I plan on doing centers daily!  I find that centers really help my kids to be settled and focused on work.  During center time today, there was that satisfying, low murmur of kids who were totally engaged in their work.   Here are some pictures.  I've included links to all the great TpT products that I'm using at the centers.  Some are free, some are not, but all have made my life sooo much easier!  Just click on the pictures!

Here are my center clips.  I hot-glued the kids' names to clothespin.  We store them on this little chart I bought at Target for a buck a few years ago.

They clip their names to this center pocket chart.  The blue dots tell the kids how many can be at that center at one time.

At the SMARTBoard center, the kids are playing "Turkey Toss."  They LOVE this game.  I have this linked to the PDF version of the game.  If you are interested in the SMARTBoard version, just let me know!  I'd be happy to talk to you about it.  In this picture, the kids are playing the three dice version like in "Bump."  In Math class, we will also play "Turkey Toss" but use the two dice version.  In that version, they have to add or subtract and use strategy to decide which operation gives them the best move.  For instance, if they roll 4, 2, they can get a 6 and put a chip on the board, or they can subtract and bump the opposing team off the board!

Here are two of my centers, one in the math center and one in my library center.  "Turkey Feathers" focuses on common core objective 1.NBT.2. Understand that the two digits of a two-digit number represent amounts of tens and ones.  The "Plenty of Vowels" center, which I've been using for years, was the inspiration for the short vowel center in my TpT store.

There are tons of books available in my library center at all times, from big books to magazines, to student-made books.  I have them all color coded and sorted into baskest using my free differentiated   book basket labels.

At the pocket chart craft center, the girls are hard at work on their cornecopias.  I don't have a product for this, but maybe this summer I'll create one.  My kids love doing the different paper crafts at this center!

At the writing center, the kids are using a free Thanksgiving mini-book by Doodles and Kreations.

 

In addition to these centers, I have two computer centers, a painting center, and a shelf toys center.  As you can see, I am quite prepared for the last two days before Thanksgiving break with lots of great and engaging learning centers, many of them from TpT!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

A Good Day to Sart

I decided yesterday would be a good day to start my blog adventure since we were having a fun day at school. We celebrated Johnny Appleseed Day with so many fun activities!

First we cut up apples using plastic knives.  Everyone helped!

Next, we put all the apples into the crockpot and let them cook for 27 hours on warm!  We finally got to taste it today after lunch.  Most of the children loved it; a few didn't like it at all!

We also played an addition math game with the apple seeds. 

It was a lot of fun for the kids, and a nice break from the usual routine for all of us.

In the afternoon, we had parent helpers come in and we did four different stations that revolved around apples!  The favorite was the apple product tasting station.  If you're looking for a good place to start your Johnny Appleseed day, you can check out my unit here.