Creating Graphs Online

At the end of every math class I teach, I give out little quizzes to check for understanding. They're only two questions long and cover only the information taught that day. I started this at the end of last year, and I love doing it because it gives me such a clear idea as to how well I taught and how well they absorbed the information!

Right now in second grade, we're covering graphs, and my little quiz for tomorrow is on reading line graphs. Now, I am for sure NOT going to hand-draw a line graph for their little quizzes. That's just cray cray.

Instead, I remembered this sweet website I found last year - NCES's Create a Graph! If you just input your data, it makes a lovely little graph just for you.

You can print it straight from the website or save it in a variety of formats - PDF, JPEG, PNG... whatever you want!

Your students could use this also instead of hand-drawing graphs. I had my own students use it last year when we studied natural resources. It was a bit on the complicated side for my class (there are a lot of steps to make a graph), but if you modeled it and had them use it on a regular basis, I think it could really come in handy!

Starboard!!!

A while back, I mentioned that my principal had ordered some interactive whiteboards for our school and one was for me!

I now present my new best friend!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamazing. Before today I didn't even have an overhead in my class. This is a big deal in my life.

Basically we played on it all day in between doing stuff we REALLY HAD to do. Only Scholastic News games though!!! All CCSS aligned. :)

I haven't actually used the software yet that came with it (it's a Starboard) and it seems sort of confusing. I'll figure it out though!

Moving on, in first grade we are learning how to add and today we worked on number stories!

We were only technically supposed to be learning how to write a number sentence based on a word problem, but they really wanted to draw out the problems. Definitely doable!

Do you like our little chalkboards? In Scholastic News this week, we learned that "long ago" kids wrote on slates with chalk. It made me laugh because I have a whole stack of these bad boys in the closet and the kids love them!! Not to mention the erasers I made. :)

And last, today I gave the first graders an emergent reader that I downloaded from Mrs. Wills. They went crazy over it! Our reading program is designed to be very challenging, which is fine for my high students but painful for anyone who doesn't read way above grade level. My kids felt so good and confident to be able to read the emergent readers! On the back page, they had to write something that they like to do, and I felt really happy when saw this:

I like to gow to the porc! Otherwise spelled as "go to the park", haha. Anyway, I feel absolutely PUMPED that my first graders are applying letter sounds to write phrases!!!!!! I think Writer's Workshop is paying off big time!!

Math With M&Ms!

I am coming to you in the midst of my weekend full of church.

Yesterday we had school Mass, as usual. Today I went to my twin nephews' first Communion. And tomorrow is one of my second graders' first Communion. The other four have theirs later this month.

Here's a picture from the first Communion after-party today!

Onto what this post is about!

Yesterday was M&M Math Day. While looking online for good ideas to use, I found a bunch of great M&M Math activity pages! There are a lot of different ways you can use M&Ms for math (graphing, probability, mean/median/mode, and so on), and the activities are written out super well. They aren't the cutest sheets ever, but they fit a TON of different things on each work page.

For first grade, I used Math Activity Page 1, which focused on sorting, counting, greater than/less than, and adding. With a little help from me to get them started, they were able to do the sheet very independently. And they had a lot of fun!

For second grade, I used Fraction Fun with M&Ms, which was a good review of fractions of a set. It also covered greater than/less than.

For both grades, we also did Math Activity Page 2, which actually focused on division with remainders. It didn't use those words, but that's what they were doing. It made me think that next year when I introduce division to the second graders, this would be a good way to do it. They were really into it! They all LOVED this page, especially because at the end they got to eat a few and write how many were left over. :)

I don't think the students expected to do quite so much math with their M&Ms... but they did really well with all of the activities.

One last little story...

My reading curriculum focuses on... I think 10 kids. All the stories are about those 10 kids. In first grade, there isn't an overarching plot that connects the stories together. There are just a bunch of stories about random stuff the kids do. The last unit I'm teaching is about the kids going to Super Happy Fun Land. In second grade, the stories take place within the context of a school year and it follows the trials and tribulations (and drama) of the kids in school.

Recently in our soap opera reading book, the kids' teacher got the flu and they had a substitute. The substitute had the students write get well poems for their teacher, and in my students' workbook, there was a little section for them to write their own get well poem for the pretend teacher.

One of the girls came up to me afterwards and said, "Read my poem I wrote... but don't read it out loud..." and I was like, "Okay?" So here is what it said:

Aw, I'm the best teacher in the world!

Hope you're having the best Saturday in the world today!!

More on the Top?

Hello and happy Saturday!!

So right now in second grade, we are working on double-digit subtraction with regrouping. Honestly, this entire year in second grade math, the kids have known how to do everything already or caught on CRAZY fast. This is the first topic I've taught them where they haven't flown through it. It feels good to finally challenge their brains!!

The verbage in my book to teach this fantastical topic was so dry. So I remembered the subtraction poem I read on The Inspired Apple and taught it to them!

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After I taught them how to do double-digit subtraction, I wrote a problem for each kid on the whiteboard and then they took a dry erase marker and solved it. After I checked their work, they made up their OWN problem and we did a mini Scoot game where they'd move around to solve their friend's problem! It was fun and they loved making up their own problems.

That's all of them.... all 5 second graders.

I'm looking forward to going back on Monday and working more on this super fun concept! They are loving the challenge so far!

Student Recognition

Happy Thursday, mis amigas! (I'm just assuming most people reading this are ladies...)

So I went in today to school because I didn't bring all of my manuals home and I wanted to plan a little. There were also some housekeeping types of things that I wanted to do also. So I texted my cousin, Lisa, and we headed to school for a little bit!

While I planned, Lisa did lots of stuff for me, like put away some books, set up the April calendar days in the pocket chart, got my April math quilt pieces ready, and punched out some letters for my XtraMath student recognition board!

I have been meaning to make this board for like.... 2 months. I make a BIG DEAL when one of the kids masters an entire operation on the day that it happens but it sort of gets forgotten after they get their certificate. I want them to be proud of themselves! So here we are. I have four little ladies who have finished addition so far. Maybe the excitement of seeing their names on stars will inspire the other kiddos to do the same... I will let you know.

Has anyone found any new hobbies during spring break? I have discovered the amazingness of Draw Something!!!!!!! I am so, so bad at drawing but this game is so fun.

I've also been reading. Right now I am working on two books - Elijah of Buxton and Earth.

Both good in very different ways. :)

12 on the 12th!

I am so excited about this linky party over at Doodle Bugs Teaching! I have been taking pictures like a crazy person today so you can have a glimpse into my super exciting life.

And here are the stories behind the pictures! I'll start from the top left!

1. This is my school bag, purse, and lunch bag ready to go! Do you take a hundred bags to school? I guess it's a problem but it works for me...
2. This is my class doing Adventure to Fitness because it was pouring rain during lunch recess. We haven't done this in a while, since we've had outdoor recess every single day! They loved it and we learned about castles and battlements.
3. One of my girls was crying because she said she didn't feel well, so instead of doing Adventure to Fitness, she read Cat in the Hat to me and she did AWESOME! And she pretended to be me when she said, "I'll wait until everyone is looking at me." Haha!
4. Two of my FIRST graders working on subtraction in XtraMath!!! Some of my second graders aren't even there yet!
5. I give little snacks to the kids who improve in their mastery score in XtraMath. This is because I found that lots of my kids were typing in random numbers to get done more quickly. This has really helped! Today I gave them rice cakes and they died of happiness.
6. We worked on the St. Patrick's Day craftivity from The Teacher Wife! I actually took this picture to show that since we used up all of our glue resources, we have now resorted to pouring glue into bowls and using q-tips like paint brushes. It actually works out really well, surprisingly.
7. If I did a nutrition/healthy choices related lesson, I will get a gift card to Walmart so I did mine today. We learned about MyPlate and made little bracelets to remind ourselves how many servings we needed. I got this idea from Alisha at The Bubbly Bonde.
8. Then we went outside. I drew a big MyPlate on the ground and the kids had little pictures of food. In teams, they had to run and put their food picture in the right part of the plate and then tag the next person. Sooo... a relay race. It went amazingly although the wind blew our food away and we had to finish it inside... oh wells. They all rocked it though! Go kids!
9. I worked on my 5th box of Thin Mints after school. YUM! Sadly I was not practicing the MyPlate philosophy.... sorry MyPlate.
10. One of my girls gave me this wrapping paper tube today. It is decorated and says "Your birthday March 25" on it. That is a true statement. However... I don't know what to do with this. So I brought it home.
11. I finally switched out my hallway displays. These are our Lenten promises. Most of them say, "I promise to be nice." At least they know what we need to work on!!
12. And I put up our craftivities.

Wow, that was a lot of words. I will go into detail on some of these activities at a later date!!

How Long IS a Minute?

In first grade, we're starting our math unit on time. I love teaching time because they can apply their new knowledge all day long at school!

Today our lesson was about understanding the minute.

The first thing I had them do was close their eyes and raise their hand when they thought a minute had passed. When I first explained this to them, I said, "So today we are going to learn how long a minute is." And one girl said, "A minute is 60 seconds." Wellllllll okay then, thanks for ruining the activity! Haha! We still did the closing eyes thing. One girl raised her hand after 10 seconds! A couple people raised their hands after about 30, and everyone else counted to 60! Cheaters!

Then we did a little "minute to win it" type of thing. I typed up a little sheet where they estimated how many times they could do a jumping jack, clap their hands, hop on one foot, and count to 10. Then we tested our estimations. We were WAY off! However, we found out that one energetic child can hop 80 times in 30 seconds. I just let him off the hook after 30 seconds and taught them two-digit addition so my first grader wouldn't pass out. :)

Here's the sheet I typed up! If you can use it, let me know!

On the back, we estimated and then wrote as many numbers as we could in a minute. Most of the first graders thought they could write all the numbers from 1-100, however, they were sad when they only got to 20 or 30!

This was way more fun than what my book wanted us to do today. :)

V-Day Partay!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

We had a lovely day today in first and second grades. Let me give you an idea of how it went down and the bloggers who helped us get there!

We made Valentine's mini-books which I got from Michelle at Fabulous in First. I used these for our morning work and then they worked on them when they were finished with things throughout the day. They loved these!

I loved this boy's answers, especially that he loves "apple gose" because he can "suck on the gose."

Then in Writing, we finished up our paragraph Valentines. I loved the ASL Valentines I saw on Pinterest, so they chose a scrapbook paper piece and I traced their hand onto it! Super cute and easy.

Unrelated to Valentine's Day... I busted out the "library books" that come with my reading program for the second graders. We started with a Mercy Watson book - have any of you read those? My kids LOVED IT. Two of them finished it in one day but a few are still working on it, so I read with them today. Three of my second graders are SUPER readers, way way above grade level. These two friends are right on level so I read with them today and they did great!

This is what I gave the kids for Valentine's Day. Thanks, The Teacher Wife! The kids also were obsessed with these and they were so cheap and easy! Best idea ever.

For Math, we did Cara Carroll's candy heart probability. I'm not really sure that they grasped the concept but it was fun regardless. :)

Then we had our party! My room mom planned this activity, which she found here. Super cute! It went along well with our love monsters!!

We played HEART Bingo, which I made here!

And the kids graphed candy hearts, obvi. I got the sheets for that activity at Teacher Bits and Bobs!

At the end, we got our pouches and ate candy! We totally ran out of time to eat our all-red fruit snack!! So we saved it for tomorrow. We'll be eating watermelon, raspberries, and strawberries for a few days I think. :) Fine with me!!!

I also wanted to share what my BTF next door did! She found this cute bookmark idea on Pinterest. All it took was some paint samples and a little heart punch that I found on clearance at Michael's for $2!

 She also made little lovebugs! It was in a little craft kit, also from Michael's!

It was a great day. No behavior problems, although one boy went into the girl's bathroom. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

The Facts

Today in first grade math, we learned about fact families. My book's lesson was incredibly terrible and I know that fact families are something I've seen a million times in blogs!

I meant to look up a good activity a few days ago but I totally forgot until 1:15. First grade math is at 1:30.....

So I did a mad Google Reader search, scanned through a few people's posts, and threw this little fam together!

This was based off of Gladys's guest post at Frogs, Bees, and Under the Seas (now known as Playing with Pixie Dust!). I'd like to cutesify this up a lot but, like I said, I was a little strapped for time...

I told the first graders that I wanted to introduce them to a family - the Fact family. There is a dad, a mom, and a baby. Then I assigned numbers and explained who is who. I asked if they wanted strangers in their house - they said NO! So I said, "Neither does the Fact family! Don't let any stranger numbers come in to their math problems."

Then we wrote out our problems, making a note that Dad comes last in adding and first in subtracting.

They really got it! And they even referred to the numbers on their practice sheet as Dad, Mom, and Baby. Haha!

And on a related note, here's our math quilt for February!

It's looking a little tiny this month. Some friends didn't feel like they needed to do their quilt square after they cut out every triangle. I really need to stop scheduling math quilts for Mondays.... oh wells. I still LOVE it and I love Reagan!!!!

Aaaaaaaaaaaand another set of q's from the lovely Jessica at apples and papers!

1. If you could meet anyone in the world, living or dead who would it be? This one is hard! Mmmm.... I'll say Joakim Noah! Love him.
2. If you weren’t teaching what would you be doing? Honestly, I would be working at the bank I've been working at since high school! But if I had another career, I've always wanted to be a delivery nurse for some reason. I think it sounds better in my head than it might be in real life.
3. What was your favorite thing about school when you were a student? I looooved my teachers and I loved big projects. Maybe I should start doing some of those...
4. What do you wish you were better at? In my classroom, organizing and classroom management. I hope I get better with time on both of those! In my life, I wish I was better at athletic things, like running!
5. What is your favorite store to shop at? I'd approximate that 95% of my clothes come from Old Navy.
6. What is two things you need for your dream classroom? A Smart board!!!!! Or whatever brand, I am not particular. I'd also like a document camera. And a big rug. :)
7. Where do you want to travel to? Somewhere like Fiji or something.
8. Favorite TV show? Right now my two favorites are 30 Rock and Seinfeld.
9. What is your least favorite chores? Laundry and washing dishes. When I was little I said I wanted to have 7 kids so I'd never have to wash dishes. Haha!
10. Would you rather be an actor, singer, or athlete? Well I'm not a good actor AT ALL, and I am incredibly not athletic. But I love singing! By myself in the car, of course. So I'll say singer!!
11. Who or what inspires you? All of the amazing teachers in the blogging world! I want to be all of you someday.
12. What’s your favorite children’s book? Anything by Mo Willems. Also I just read Hooway for Wodney Wat (thanks for the recommendation, Tammy!!!) and my kids were DYING LAUGHING. So that's one of my new faves. Plus I do a good Wodney voice. :)

What Do You Love?

The last three of my post titles have all been questions! Wow!!

Kimberly at Funky First Grade Fun is hosting a linky party about what we love.


Here's my list!

Here are few other pictures of things I loved today.

For Groundhog Day, I combined Cara's idea with Hadar's template for these little groundhogs! They designed a burrow and wrote about what was inside. I got a random terrible stomachache right when we started this, so I would like to say that it was a good semi-independent activity! 

In first grade, we are studying subtraction strategies. Today in my Math book, it suggested that I make a real life number line and hang it between two chairs. I was like, "Aight." So here it is.

Here's a close-up. I just folded over the top and taped it and it worked great! Please ignore the paper scraps in the background... clearly we had not Found It or Fixed It yet.

We used it to solve simple subtraction problems. One kid would say a problem, like 10-2. Then they would hang a clothespin from the 10 and together we would hop back 2 with the clothespin. This was pretty fun and as you can see, everyone was paying attention! Alllll 7 of them.

I think I mentioned that our Scholastic book fair is this week. I had 5 books on my teacher wishlist and I got 3 so far! And a $10 gift certificate that I can use tomorrow!

I'll pick up on the rest of the tag questions later. It's Dress to Impress Day tomorrow - my class is NOT excited. Neither am I.... I really loved being able to wear jeans this week........... :(

Our Buddy Grandfather Tang

First! Thank you to the kind friends who left me nice comments yesterday about my presidential dilemma! It was really weighing heavily on my heart and I felt a lot better knowing that you all would have said what I did! And that I'm not alone in this world. :)

Moving on, Grandfather Tang made an appearance today in our room!

None of my students have ever seen the book or tangrams before, so they were in for an experience today!

Thanks to Jen's sage advice, we only made the first three animals today. They were just starting to lose it at the end there so that was pretty perfect!

I knew that I wanted to give the kids a copy of the animal they were supposed to be making, but I had a hard time finding templates of the animals. Then I found this website from UNC! They have all of the templates ready for you to print or project! Awesome smawesome.

Here are some pictures of us doing our thing:

Can't wait to read the next few pages tomorrow! :) We also made paper lanterns but I forgot to take a picture! I will post those later. But not tomorrow, because tomorrow is ONE HUNDREDTH DAY!!!!!! I am so incredibly excited! I can't wait to write about it tomorrow!

Snow Snow Snow!!

Every time I go to write a new post, I click "New Blog" instead of "New Post"... just wanted to tell you that.

So we FINALLY got snow in Chicago. I took a picture of our calendar area to remember the day. The weather person was SO EXCITED to choose "Snowy" as the weather for yesterday. Also look how close we are to 100th day!

So last night, as the snow drifted from the sky, and the people on the radio assured me that there would be a snow day, I couldn't decide if I wanted one or not. I know that sounds weird. It's just that I had everything ready to go for today and I didn't want to push it back! Also I don't want to push back the 100th day party for logistical reasons!!

But the plows were ready and we had school! Here are some of my kiddos playing outside while I froze to death during morning recess. I swear those 15 minutes go slower than the entire rest of the day.

Instead of math stations today (much to the chagrin of my students), we did this fun comparing numbers activity that I pinned from Mrs. Patton's Patch!

Each student gets a white circle for each letter in their name. For example, I'd have 4 circles because my name is Jill. After writing one letter in each circle, they stack the circles up to make a snowman and make a few decorations. Then, they take a speech bubble and write a comparing sentence. They compared any name to any other name and had to write something like, "Jill has 1 more than Jim." They were really into this!

And this snowman cracks me up. All of the other snowmen had huge smiles and arms, and this one looks a little disturbed.

I was really happy with how easily they wrote their sentences! I only had to help one student with the "how many more" concept. Yay!