My 1st Math BLOG HOP! {a Freebie}

Oh My! Oh Boy! Oh Man!

         Okay now that I have gotten all that out! WOW! I am so excited!!! This is my first time ever being apart of a BLOG HOP! I always go on the hops and find great new blogs to follow and find so many great ideas! Buuuuuuttttt .... This is the first time I am one of the stops!!! Ahhh!

         Okay done! Now on to some fun teaching ideas!

         Back in December I got the opportunity to go with a few other teachers from my school to go down to Atlanta and visit and learn from the Ron Clark Academy! It was unbelievable! There were so many different things that I took away from that experience!  But there was one major thing that impacted me most during my visit...the transformations that the teachers took on during their teaching.

         Okay now I know what you’re thinking ‘transformations? Like I need to redo my room?’ NO! Now you totally can do that (I used 4 shower curtins around the room and drew airplane windows on them and we were on an airplane for our study on Cinderella around the word, and holidays around the word), but you can just transform a center so easily!

         It just required to trays that I had in the back of the kitchen cabinet, two spatulas from the dollar store, two aprons (also from the dollar store), and two chefs hats that I borrowed (for an extended period of time) from the shorties at the house! 

         I started off with just 1 cookie center, and WOW the kids had never worked so hard to get their work done, to get to that center! Even my kids that really, really, really take their time to get their work done – they did their work and did it quick to get a chance to get to the center!  

         And BOOM! Students were spelling sight words, practicing reading their sight words, writing their sight words!  I got so excited that they were excited! They were excited that I was excited!  It was just a very exciting day for all!

         That got me to thinking, so I went to the dollar store and BANG! I started to transform and create new centers!  Students are able to practice the skills they need (reading and math) and there is usually just 1 small addition to make the center ... “fun!”

           Here the kids wear army hats, vests, and use binoculars (all from the dollar store) to search the room for different things (CVC words, numbers, sight words, amounts).  We talk about how the army searches and has to strategize! They LOVE it!

          The students have a blast with the cookie centers.  They love to sort the cookies and tap the sounds out along with creating their sight words.  It’s the easy and simple things that gets them excited about it!

               Now all this brings me to my freebie and new transformed center!  My students are in need of practice time with base 10 blocks and counting.  I found some really cool police glasses and badges at the dollar store, along with some super cute clipart from Creative Clips by Krista Wallden!  In my book that makes 1+1+1=3!

So I have the police cars that have a number and a matching police officer card with the base 10 blocks pictured on it.  I wanted the kids to interact with it and build the number and not just match, so I have the students build with the blocks or on their iPads the number from the police car and then find the officer match (so they match the police officer to the car). 

           Since I work at a 1 to 1 iPad school and I wanted to make it independent enough that the students could self check, there is a QR code on the officer card (base 10 block card), so students can see if they were able to match it up correctly.

          The kids have been playing it for 2 days and they LOVE it!  They love wearing the glasses and the badges! I promise to do better with pictures! J

           So here is your freebie! 0-12 Number Patrol!  Click here to go to my TPT Store or click on the picture to go get it!  ENJOY!  Make sure to let me know what you think!

Don’t forget to hop on over to the next blog for your next freebie!

Love, Hugs, and Wiggles!

      Kyleen