Introducing Addition

In our Number Sense math strand we just finished up a brief introduction to the concept of addition. This unit focused primarily on printing numerals and number words, and one-to-one counting, but I like to incorporate some early addition towards the end just as a precursor to a more solid unit later on. The skills we learned here will help us when we actually dive in and begin our "official" addition and subtraction math unit in December. 

To start, I have the kiddies work through my Shake and Spill pack. Without explicitly saying that this is addition, this helped us to understand that there are many ways to build a number. Plus Shake and Spill is always a hit! (To play, you put the select number of double-sided counters in a cup. Shake and spill the counters on the table to see one way of building the number. Record your findings and repeat!)

We did Shake and Spill for the number 5 all together, then the kiddies worked away on building numbers 6 through 10 in partners.

Click HERE for my differentiated Shake and Spill worksheet pack (I also have one worksheet for Shake and Spill 10 available for FREE for you to try out...click HERE for the freebie!)

After each page, we got together on the carpet to discuss all the ways the kids found they could build the selected number. For the first few, I arranged all of the ways so that they were in order from 0 to __ (i.e. the ways to build 5 would start with "0 and 5," then "1 and 4," then "2 and 3," and so on). Soon my little smarties picked up on the pattern and we were able to come up with all the ways to build each number without using our Shake and Spill worksheets or counters:

We then talked about how we could turn phrases like "4 and 1 makes 5" into an addition fact. I drew the "+" and "=" symbols on the board and we discussed what they represent. We learned that + also means "and" and = shows that what is on one side of this symbol is the same or EQUAL to what is on the other side of the symbol (last year my firsties would often confuse "=" and "-" once I had introduced subtraction, so I use the trick that the first line in the "equal" symbol is a reminder that tells you to look at the left side of the equation and the other line tells you to look at the right side to check that both sides are the same).

We then used what we learned about the Shake and Spill patterns, and our new knowledge of addition facts and symbols, to write all of the addition facts for 5 through 10 on an anchor chart. At the beginning we used the SMARTboard pages we created (see above) to help us remember each fact, but we quickly were able to use the pattern we saw to write the rest of the facts on our own.

*FYI: You can see that I have the "inverse facts" concepts begun on this anchor chart. I was originally going to introduce this now but just decided to leave it at that and save inverse facts for when we begin our addition and subtraction unit later on. So stay tuned!*

The kids were pumped at how many addition facts they knew just from completing our Shake and Spill activity and from following the patterns we found. This anchor chart will now live on our math board and come in handy for our unit in December. 

What are some of the tips and tricks you find helpful when introducing addition? (or subtraction!)

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Happy Halloween 2014!

First of all, HI!!! If you haven't noticed, have been MIA for over half a year (sorry, ya'll!!), but I am officially BACK and ready to jump right back into my bloggy routine.

So I won't waste any more time and get right into some Halloween fun! Now for the record, I hate strongly dislike Halloween and do not think it should be a holiday...yes, I am one of those. But my kiddies love it so, naturally, I pretend like I do to! 

We read the same poem that we read last year, but this time we did some "I Spy" for sight words (the, out, and on):

We also did a little "pumpkin investigation" (see worksheet below) by observing, touching, and smelling a funny-looking pumpkin. We split into groups and practiced counting by 5s to figure out how many seeds were in our little pumpkin. The answer sure surprised us!

Grab your FREE copy of our investigation worksheet by clicking the photo below:

Throughout the week the kiddies also created some awesome Halloween crafts (thank you, Pinterest!). They turned out beyond adorable:

Last but not least, we had some fun in math and rotated through 4 math practice centres that I whipped up for this festive holiday. My firsties knocked.my.socks.off. with how well they worked through these centres. They were totally engaged. 

Learning - 1

Sugar Rush - 0

P.S. how stink in' cute are they in their costumes?! Between the fire fighter and the police officer it was like a little Village People reunion. HA!

And here are the four centre activities they're working away on:

You can grab them all and a BONUS writing activity HERE.

And that about wraps up our crazy week. Happy Halloween from Grade One!

St. Patty's Centers & Activities: Week 1

Top 'o the mornin' to ya all! We began our Irish celebrations early this year with lots of fun at St. Patty's literacy centers.

At our Write the Room center, the kiddies reviewed colour words by searching around the room for shamrock cards (see under this little firsties' arm):

(This activity is available HERE)

They used the letter boxes on the worksheet to correctly write the colour of each shamrock they found. If they needed a little reminder of how to spell some colour words correctly, they could look at our classroom word wall or their double-sided Literacy Reference Posters that we keep in our Literacy Center work folders.

At Word Work 1, we began learning about antonyms with this fun Pot 'o Gold antonym matching activity:

At Word Work 2, the kiddies put together CVC word puzzles

and recorded their letter sounds on the worksheet:

At the Reading Center, the kids got to practice reading the shared reading poem that we read and sang (to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot") throughout the week:

It was so great seeing them taking turns reading different lines and playing "I Spy" by hunting for words.

The kids totally surprised me by how nuts they went for this "mad lib style" activity that allowed them to change the words of our shared reading poem and create their own silly poem. It was too funny hearing them giggle as they read their concoctions to each other (sorry for the picture quality, I really need to stop taking pictures with my phone!):

("I'm a farty leprechaun, soft and hairy...")

Finally, at Pocket Chart center, the kids used a word bank poster (no pictured) to select and spell sight words by finding the correct letters and arranging them correctly like a puzzle. Once they built a word, they recorded it on their blank worksheet:

(Sight word puzzle activity found HERE)

At the end of the week, we thought about all the things that make us feel as lucky as a leprechaun! We drew a picture of one thing that makes us feel lucky and made these adorable chains:

It was a great way to show our knowledge of the colours of the rainbow (cue: ROY-G-BIV!) and talk about the different traditions and stories behind the holiday...such as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow as depicted by this craft!

And with that, my March Break begins! 

Goodbye!!!

2014 Winter Olympics and Compound Words

Is it spring yet?! We have been stuck in what the news is calling a "polar vortex" (not kidding) for WAY too long. I am jealous of all my southern-state friends who are enjoying morning tea outside on their porches right now! 

But, although we're facing arctic conditions up here in the north, it really does set the stage for a celebration of the WINTER Olympics with my firsties!

Since we had two "snow days" last week (I put that in sarcastic quotes since one of the downsides of living in a northern town is that huge dumpings of snow, ice storms, and other insane winter weather is apparently no biggie so school is always open, busses just get cancelled) I ended up having 12 of 22 kids (grrr! haha), where some classrooms had as little as 2 kids. The upside to all this is that our awesome principal let us watch the gold medal hockey game as a school in the gym. GO CANADA GO!

To show our team spirit, my kiddies whipped up a couple festive crafts:

This is a great go-to activity for pretty much any occassion. All you do is cut out the shape you want, colour around the edges of the shape (in this case a circle) with pastels, and hold the shape against your paper as you smudge the pastels outward onto the background paper with your finger. Smear the pastel all the way around the cut shape and then when you remove it, you get a silhouetted "glowing" effect on your background paper. Let me tell you, my kids were all over this craft! 

Afterwards, we marched down to the gym to watch Canada beat US in our nation's game with our home-made Olympic torches:

And in no way related to the Olympics, earlier we learned about compound words and started this anchor chart:

We added to it throughout the week and it now hangs with our other poems and whole-class charts in our reading centre:

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Stay warm, friends!