Five for Friday!

 It's been a LONG time since I've linked up!  I've missed Doodle Bugs Linky Party! 

So if you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that I recently moved to Annapolis, Maryland.  I lived in Raleigh, North Carolina for 2 1/2 years and I've lived my whole life in Florida.  

Maryland is weird y'all!

This is me one day.

80 degrees and attempting to get a tan...

And this is me two days later.

45 degrees and cold.

Let's just say, I am investing in some spray tans.

One of the benefits of living in such a cool place is that everyone wants to come visit!

One of my dear friends from Florida made the voyage up and we spent several days exploring Annapolis and D.C.

 and of course I cried when she left.

I recently completed a 10K in Baltimore.

There were 4,500 runners there!  

Now I'm training for another 10K.  I had no friends when I moved to Maryland and was bored because I had no job.  So I joined a local running club.  It's helped me meet some new people and get out of the house.  Who knew that I would LOVE running?

Since we are going to be living in Maryland for a while, we decided to build a house.  It should be done the first week of August.  I'm SO ready!

Even though I didn't get a job right away when I moved to Maryland, I WAS able to get a full time sub position.  I don't have my OWN classroom, but I have a job!  (Count your blessings, right?)

With that said, I am still in the classroom and am still getting ideas for things that my current class needs.  One thing they really needed was practice with writing conventions.  But I figured, why make it for one month?  Why not have your students practice these skills every month?

 One of the activities I included was correcting a sentence.  The students pull a card, read it, and rewrite it using capitalization and punctuation.

 They have to really pay attention because not all of the sentences need JUST a period.

The next activity includes sorting phrases and sentences.  Because, lets be real, sometimes when they write, I ask "does that make sense?  is that a complete sentence?"

 After they sort the cards, they have a little recording page where they cut out sentences and phrases and glue them under complete or not complete.

The next activity is one where the students have to read the sentence and determine whether it is asking, telling or excited.  This one is a little trickier because I didn't include the punctuation at the end.  I let them take a marker and write the correct punctuation and then sort it.

 Then they have a recording page where they write the punctuation at the end of the sentence...

 and they glue and sort them.

This cute little pack is in my store!  Four activities total.  I plan on creating one for May...but you know how that goes!  If I don't get it done right away, be one lookout because I usually do FLASH FREEBIES!

Have a great weekend friends!  

Hope it's sunny and warm where you are!

Fruitful Fractions Freebie!

I found these darling little fruit erasers at the Target Dollar Spot and KNEW that I had to use them for something!  I also found this Astrobrights paper that was the perfect color combination of the fruit!

I bought these stackable boxes for my students to practice fractions.  Specifically halves and fourths.  I numbered the boxes with little number stickers.  For each box, I divided the fruit into halves or fourths.

Then I made this little recording page.  Now keep in mind, this activity was made to review fractions in my small math groups.  The students pick the numbered box, and pull the fruit.  This student was working on box number three.  He pulled the fruit, saw that there was only one pineapple out of four pieces of fruit.  Then he divided the coordinating shape into the matching fraction.

This activity is for my high flyers that need to go beyond halves and fourths.  They get a small scoop of fruit, place it in the middle, and count and record the total number of fruit.

Then, they divide the fruit...

and record how many of each and turn it into a fraction.

When they're done, they erase and get a new scoop!

You can get this activity for FREE HERE!

Enjoy friends!

Fun with 3D shapes!

I'm in a county where the entire curriculum is completely planned out but they give us what's called "flex days" where we can review, assess or teach some new skills.

This teacher decided she would have some fun with 3D shapes!

It all started with the Harry Kindergarten song on YouTube.

If I did it correctly, you can click the link below to see it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cg-Uc556-Q

It goes over 3D shapes, and what they look like and where you can find them in the world.

I like to do pocket chart sorts.  After showing the video and letting students observe actual 3D shapes we completed this sort so students could see the difference between 2D and 2D shapes.

Then we also completed this sort so students could see what shapes in the world are 3D...

Before students go to their centers, I have "exit tickets."  

These printables are great for a review of what we've learned the day before and to show me what they know.

To dig a little deeper with 3D shapes, we get our hands on some and play around with them.  My school has 3D shapes in the die-cut machines so I was able to give each student their own shape.  (I actually lay in bed while watching TV and tape these together.  It takes a few days, but it's worth it in the end.)

The students put a face sticker on the faces, they line the edges, and they put a star on the vertices.  This helps with counting and understanding the different attributes of the shapes.

 "Math on the floor" is an absolute favorite.  Every year after this activity I am told, "Mrs. Johnson, that was fun!" 

 We experiment with each 3D shape and observe whether it can roll, stack, or slide.  I found that this activity was really helpful for this group of students because it lead to discussions as to why a certain shape would roll.  It helped us learn new vocabulary such as curved and flat surfaces.

Then we took a moment to compare some shapes that rolled and stacked.  Had I had more time, we would have done more comparing.

#teacherproblems  #neverenoughtime

I did, however, take some time to do some 3D shape riddles.  These are always a good way to get partners to participate in math talk and to problem solve together.

This is only a glimpse of some of the activities available in my newly updated 2D and 3D shape math pack!  What's better is it's on sale!

Have a great weekend friends!