I'm still here...

I've taken so much time away from the blog because of my program at UGA. I'm finally done!!! I've also moved and gotten a new teaching position in a neighboring county! So, I will no longer be teaching kindergarten. :( I am heart broken over this, however, I am excited to begin a new chapter! I will be a first grade teacher again!

Subtraction Bowling

We have been working with different manipulatives to become comfortable with composing and decomposing numbers.My kinders have really enjoyed bowling to see how amounts can increase and decrease. Michelle at Inspired by Kindergarten has a great freebie to go with this game!!! 

We didn't use the sheet until the students felt comfy with telling me how they were solving how many pins remained up. Then, they began recording it together and discussing how to record. Lastly, the game became a partner activity with desk versions of bowling. So much fun!!!

Ten-frame manipulatives

My teaching of number sense has improved this year. I've learned so much and have really applied it with the students! Another factor of growth includes the use of number talks and ten frames like these cool ten-frame trains and tiles! We use the printed kind too, but really prefer the more concrete versions! I can't say enough about these manipulatives!

Today we used the blue ten-frame trains to work on factors to ten. It is a review for some, but additional practice for others. They used dice to find out how many more they needed to get to ten.

 Another activity was representing teen numbers as ten and some more. They really liked this activity. They used two of the clear ten-frame bases and then helped each find out what Ten and _____ more is 16 or another teen number. Then they wrote those numbers as a number bond.

Fair Exchanges with Money

Sometimes working with money can be difficult to understand for young students because it is an abstract concept. When you show them different ways to make those connections, it gets easier and becomes less abstract. 
 

Making fair exchanges with money is difficult unless students have concrete experiences with it. Here is one way to make fair exchanges. It's like the rolling to 20 game, but you have to keep exchanging fairly and with the makeshift base ten blocks. The blocks are cut and hot glued or super glued together. If you look closely, you can see the small "n" written (for nickel) on the base ten block that is a group of five. When I tried to skip a trade, I was encouraged to keep making fair trades correctly. You can see that they're glued together in groups of 2 tens and 5 ones and can be fitted together like a puzzle to make groups of fifty and one-hundred. 


Anytime you can make learning fun, students learn!

Spotlight: Subtraction freebies and Clipboard storage

I always tell others that you can find anything online, because there are so many creative people out there actually creating!

Well, Mrs. Hicks at the The Alphabet Garden has posted a freebie Eric Carle subtraction packet. I think it's a great addition to a subtraction unit! Students will already be familiar with the characters and will love working with the colorful pictures for manipulatives! Thanks Mrs. Hicks!

Ashely at The Kinder Polkadot Patch has a fab, fab, fab idea for storing all of those great but pesky clipboards! If you hurry to Target, you'll be able to find to same container she uses for around $5.00. Thanks for help with this issue!