Math & Number Recognition Game

Remember that old card game called "War" or "Battle" where you flip over two cards and who ever has the biggest number wins those cards? 
This has been a really fun game for my boys (ages 4 and almost 6). Surprisingly, my 4 yr old caught on really fast at comparing number values. We played this a lot during our Texas off and on winter...I don't know how you Northern people have even survived the "polar vortex" this winter! Kudos to you!!!!


Directions:
Deal ALL the cards face down to the two players.
At the same time, each player flips over a card.

 

The person with the highest value card collects both cards.
If two of the same cards are displayed, then 3 more cards are placed face down. Then flip up one more card to compare values. Largest value collects all the cards.

 

Once cards in your hand run out, collect and reshuffle all your cards. You can continue playing until one person has no more cards left. Or for my 2 boys we set a timer and whoever has the most cards when the timer goes off wins. 

* I first began with number cards only, but we quickly moved to the J,Q,K, A cards and they have learned which beats which face card.

Get FREE Math Centers for the LIFE of my store!!

I've had this great idea! I have bundled ALL my math centers (for 3rd grade) together and I am selling that as one bundle now.

BUT, the great thing about it is that once you buy this bundle, you will get every other math center I create for FREE. Yes, FREE! 

This is how it works, when you purchase this bundle you will have it listed in "your purchases" section from the website when you buy it from either TPT or TN.
As I make more math centers, I will be adding them to that zip file. You can then check "your purchases" section for an update. All you have to do is download the file again for the newest math centers. So log on to Teachers Pay Teachers or Teachers Notebook to see this MEGA Bundle.

As I create more centers and add them to the zip file, I will slowly increase the price. So grab it now while the price is at its lowest.
* Since I have originally posted this bundle, it is up to 24 centers and 150+ pages.

The most recent additions are 3 new fraction centers which I have pulled from this fraction packet I created. This packet includes 3 centers, 2 activities and 1 fraction multiple choice worksheet.

My Inner Martha Stewart

I have been sick of my kitchen drawers!! I happened to cut down the kitchen aisle at Walmart and spotted this adorable red and white shelf liner. I'm still on the search for good drawer dividers, so cut me a little slack if this drawer still looks messy. You should have seen it "before". :)

BUT, I thought I'd go ahead and show my my ahh-haa moment.

I had a drawer overflowing with these straws. I tried to think what I had on hand that might contain these unruly things! I remembered  using toilet paper tubes for help hold  extension cords. So I thought this would be great for my straws.

I pulled a TP roll from my craft stash, hot glue gunned some craft paper onto it and viola!! A cute straw holder.

Countdown to Valentine's Day Activities

I pulled my Valentine file out today (2/6) to see what I needed to be getting ready for our upcoming lessons.  I pulled out this:

I realized I needed to get going. I made this last year, it is my "Countdown to Valentine's Day" pocket of activities. (Obviously, I was gung-ho last year. I had a bunch of strips). :)

What was on the strips? Easy and fun activities like:
* Read a valentine book  *Make a valentine wreath (paper plate with center cut out and construction paper hearts glued on it)   *Make cinnamon rolls in the shape of hearts   * Go on a treasure hunt for hearts in the house(I hid paper hearts)   * Make a Valentine for the grandparents   * Color a valentine coloring page  * etc.

Each day they pull the corresponding number and we do the listed activity. This gives us something to do together and it is free and simple.

The Biggest Valentine Ever & Valentine Graphic Organizers

I wanted to share a few more Valentine things I have been working on. This winter I was introduced to "The Biggest..." series of picture books by Steven Kroll. I fell in love. I quickly bought "The Biggest Valentine Ever" and had to make a lesson/activity with it. Click here to see more about this lesson.

I've made 5 activities for 1st and 2nd grades to go along with the book "The Biggest Valentine Ever" by Steven Kroll.
Included are:
* Student directions page and 6 sequence cards that follow the book.
* Heart themed spelling/coloring worksheet.
* Heart Venn Diagram to compare and contrast 2 of the book characters.
* Past, Present & Future Verb Literacy Center - (Student directions page, sorting mat, 12 verb cards, and recording sheet).
* Heart creativity directions. 

The 2nd thing I made was generic graphic organizers that can be used with ANY Valentine themed fiction story. You can get all 6 Graphic Organizers here.

I have given you a FREEBIE!! The Cause and Effect Graphic Organizer is here at Dropbox for Free. Click here for your Free C/E graphic organizer. This one is not anything super fancy. I had to give you a freebie that didn't have all the frills so I could skip giving credit to all the clipart and artist sources. :)

Valentine's Day Tic Tac Toe Board for Centers

With Valentine's Day quickly approaching I wanted to share a fun way to do centers.

 

For this set of lessons click here.

 

Many moons ago, when I was teaching (or so it feels like many moons ago) I used a tic tac toe board similar to this one for my centers during Valentine's week. Since then I have updated it and improved on it. 

Students would get this board of 9 different activities.  (Notice it has a combination of math, reading, writing, crafts, etc). Students had to choose at least 3 activities in a  row to complete. Then they could do more for "bonus points"...but that was just me who liked to give bonus. 3 points added to a low grade can make a difference. :)

The kids loved these because they felt like they had such a choice in the matter. They didn't get these very often because they take more brain power and time.

Set up: What I would do is I would have 9 different file folders. Whatever supplies or copies they needed were in each folder. The front of each folder had a tic tac toe board and there was a smiley face, heart, star, or whatever symbol I chose in that certain spot on the board. 

For example: The supplies for the writing center were in a folder marked with a smiley face in the bottom right section.

*I would keep these 9 folders and reuse them each time I did a tic tac toe board center. 

I hope this gives you some idea of something different and creative to do for centers.

Ancient Egypt Thematic Unit - Letter E

I'm not sure what it was, but my 4 yr old must have seen something on TV that spurred on a bunch of questions about Egypt and the pyramids. This inspired me to get moving on my list of thematic units for him. (I'm really interested in this topic too...and it really was on my "to do" list).

Here is my thematic unit in full at my TPT store.
 

To get ready for this unit, I went to our local library and checked out the whole 2 books they had on the subject (have I mentioned how rural we are-I was thrilled we even HAD a library). ;)  While reading some of the facts my 5 year old REALLY got into the topic. Then as luck would have it, his Scholastic book fair is going on next week with the "Reading Oasis" theme. I'm sure his Kinder teacher thinks I must research these things so he knows a ton of facts ahead of time...but it was purely a coincidence. :)

Check out my Pinterest page, I have a whole board on Ancient Egypt ideas.

I printed off a coloring page from here. They colored the King Tut mask while I read them facts from the library book. (Sorry, I have no idea why it is turning sideways, but you get the idea. Check out the website anyway).

Included in my unit is a little book of facts I made.

Then of course, since I am at home with him and not a public school teacher right now, I was able to read to them the Bible story about Moses and the Pharaoh not letting them go. I really liked this youtube link to help them teach the song it had the best images to go along with it too. Plus I also plan to teach the 10 plagues. My Pinterest page has many crafts for the 10 plagues too.

Below they were creating Egyptian jewelry. I had planned to use gold paint, but it had dried up...so we improvised. :)

Painting a snake bracelet from a toilet paper tube.

Modeling their Egyptian jewelry.

Here are 3 of my letter E activities. He has an "e" in his name so he had this down pat. So we will quickly move on to other things.