3D Solids, a Tower Challenge, & End of Year Awards GIVEAWAY!

Whether you're happy about it or not...Happy Monday, everyone! 

Since I didn't get a chance to blog at the end of last week, I'll share a short little snippet of what we were up to (plus stay tuned for a GIVEAWAY at the end!).

We began our 3D Geometry unit in math by recalling what we already know about 3D solids and by looking at various solid manipulatives to help us fill in this anchor chart:

At the end of the week, we had a bit of time left after a short lesson so we had a "just for fun" (but not really!!) challenge: which table group can build the tallest free-standing structure. 

The kids thought this was great because they got to "play" with snap cubes and build an awesome tower. But throughout the process, we talked about what features make a sturdy tower, based on what we had learned about 3D solids thus far (not to mention it ties in perfectly with our Materials, Objects, & Structures unit in science!).

FLASHBACK! Earlier in the week we sat in a circle at the carpet with about eight 3D solids. The goal was to build the tallest possible tower so we had to figure out which 3D solids would work well for stacking and which ones would not. i.e. a cube works well because it has flat faces, but a sphere would not because it is round. And a cone can stack but it has to be on the top. etc. Anyways, we ended up deciding that the biggest (and flattest) solids worked best on the bottom of the tower because a wider base made our tower more sturdy. The kids obviously transferred what they had learned to this challenge because I kept hearing things like, "we need a more solid base!" Too stinkin' cute.

After the towers were built, we of course performed "the earthquake test" (aka "the table shaking test") to see if each tower was free-standing and sturdy, and then we measured to see which tower was ultimately the tallest. 

All towers passed the earthquake test and we had a tie between two groups for the tallest tower.

But we didn't focus so much on who won the challenge; We examined each tower and discussed why it worked well and if any improvements could be made. ...Anyways, gotta love it when spontaneous activities work out! #teacherimprov #success ;)

And of course I can't let you go without a FREEBIE!👇 

(plus many more where that came from 😉)

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NOW I'm excited to share that I spent all last week working on a new pack that is *finally* complete...and better yet, you can enter today for a chance to WIN THIS PACK! 

It includes 44 certificates and 43 medals that are a perfect addition to an end-of-year gift for your kiddies. But I also created them with the intention of using throughout the school year since many of the awards are meant to encourage students, give recognition to hard workers, and build a positive and supportive classroom community.

I have also included some "teacher suggestions" along with detailed instructions:

 

At the end of the year you can choose the awards yourself or even have your students vote on who should receive which award. Either way, your kids will grin from ear to ear when they receive these fun and colourful (and EASY!) certificates and medals. 

To get a detailed look at exactly what's included, click HERE.

So without further adieu, here's how you can enter to win this entire pack!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The winner will be announced next Friday, April 10th. Thanks for entering and GOOD LUCK!

Compound Words & 2D Geometry

Happy Friday, y'all! Not sure about you but I've been working on report cards all week...but I'm happy to finally sing:

So needless to say, this week's recap is going to be short and sweet! Let's start with compound words:

Most of our literacy centres were focused on practicing identifying and writing compound words, and throughout the week we added to this little anchor chart:

They loved writing words in our pancake. 

I actually used this same idea last year as well...but as they say: if it ain't broke, don't fix it! 

FLASHBACK:

Last year's anchor chart was so much cuter!

We also repeated an another activity for our pocket chart centre that is currently my number 1 most-downloaded freebie on TpT:

If you don't already own it, click HERE to snag a copy!

In math, we continued with 2D geometry by learning about symmetry:

We used these anchor charts to practice making various shapes and figures symmetrical before trying it out on our own. I find symmetry is often quite a difficult concept for some little ones to demonstrate independently but I have to say, my firsties ROCKED it this year!

They were all about our symmetrical snowman:

...And if you're looking for some extra practice worksheets to go along with a basic geometry unit, check out this new product I just added to my little shop:

So far we've used most of the 2D worksheets as centre activities and the kids really enjoyed them...especially the "Shape Search." I've even used 2 as assessment pieces. 

I won't introduce 3D geometry until second term but I can't wait to try those out!

If you want a closer look at this pack, click HERE.

And that about wraps it up! Have a great weekend :)

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Get teaching tips, ideas, and FREEBIES every now and then.

Built with Kit

Snowman Week & 2D Geometry FREEBIES!

Hi everyone! I hope you had a fabulous week, but seriously--T.G.I.F.!!! 

My week can pretty much be summed up as follows:

(Don't.bug.me. while I'm *still* frantically trying to get through DRA assessments!!! ...which I began the first day back, BTW. I swear I said "ask 3 before me!" about a thousand times this week.)

(The second I mention we will be doing an activity in partners they suddenly transform into secret service agents *thinking* that they are subtly communicating messages to their besties across the carpet ...needless to say: I chose partners all week.)

(Seriously. Was there a full moon?!)

(And need I say more?)

Okay! Well now that I've gotten that off my chest haha! Let's get to some of the fun we had this week! Our literacy centre activities were all snowman-themed and our pocket chart centre was a particular hit this week:

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that I posted about this FREEBIE activity. The students simply use the pictures of the snowmen to help unscramble each of the 7 sentences:

I love this simple centre activity because it helps my kiddos work on sentence structure along with some sight words thrown in there (specifically the sight word "this"). 

You can download the whole activity, along with the above extension worksheets, for FREE in my TpT store...click HERE to check it out.

To keep up with the snowman theme, I also wrote this sad little story to use as our shared reading for the week:

It was the best story I could come up with that crammed as many Dolch Primer sight words into it as I could. All the words written in colour are primer sight words...there are 22 in total, so not too shabby in my books! The kids were thrilled that they were able to read the whole story independently by the end of the week, and I was thrilled that we were practicing our Primer sight words and fluency! Each morning after reading the story, we played "I Spy" and searched for 3 different sight words. 

Psssstt...if you're looking for some more snowman-themed literacy activities, I have another simple freebie available in my store that you might like to snag as well ;)

We also began a new unit in math; 2D & 3D Geometry. Yesterday the kids played an "I Spy" game...in partners...*sigh*....where they used descriptive math words (such as curved, straight, corners, points, etc.) to give clues to their partner about a figure/shape they were spying around the room. The partner had to guess the figure based on the description. They also filled out a simple chart for each turn (showing what the shape was and recording the descriptions that were given). They actually had total a blast doing this!

Today we began identifying more cornet information about common 2D figures by putting our ideas onto an anchor chart:

(we ran out of time and will have to finish triangles on Monday!)

Next we played a fun little SMARTboard memory game just to see where their spatial awareness was at. To play the "game," I first made little blank booklets for each firstie (made simply by cutting paper into quarters).

(their completed booklets are hanging on our math wall so they can look through each others' work)

Next I showed them an image on the SMARTboard for only about 5 seconds. When I hid the image back up (with the "Show/Hide Screen Shade" tool highlighted on the top toolbar of the image below), they had to transfer what they saw onto their booklet page:

We started off really simple (see diagonal line above) and gradually the images got a little more complex. After each image, we stopped and talked about some of the strategies we used to help us replicate each slide. It was really interesting to hear their interpretations:

Most students said they drew an "X" for this one. I also had some say they drew "4 triangles."

For this one, most students shared that they drew a "plus sign" (which I was expecting since we just finished up addition), but some also said they drew a "window" or "four squares." 

This one was interesting because I had a few say they drew an "envelope," some drew the letter "V," and one said they drew "3 triangles."

We only did this activity with 4 images today. Near the end of our geometry unit, we will do it again with some of the more complex images to see how our perceptions and abilities have developed over the course of this little math unit. You can download this SMARTboard file for FREE! It includes all of the above images along with several others and a blank template for you to create any images you'd like:

Click HERE to download the complete SMARTboard file.

Let's be friends!

Get teaching tips, ideas, and FREEBIES every now and then.

Built with Kit

Have a wonderful weekend :)