Boy Mama Teacher Mama

Teacher Mama: Popcorn Math Activities

boymamateachermama — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:35:55 +0000

Popcorn Math Activities

What seems like many moons ago, I wrote a guest for post the wonderful Aussie blog, Learn with Play at Home. The post was full of all kinds of ideas related to popcorn. Since then, I have created quite a few popcorn math activities and thought it was about time to throw them all together into one neat package. And, so I did. If you are interested in seeing the original post- it is chock full of all kinds of popcorn fun- you can find it at Learn with Play at Home: Popcorn Fun! Activities, Ideas and More.

If you are interested in seeing all the activities in one place, check out our Teachers Pay Teachers store at the following link:

Popcorn Math Activities from Boy Mama Teacher Mama

Until then, here is a sneak peek at a bit of the popcorn fun you can find on Learn with Play at Home and in our TPT store.

Other popcorn related posts from BMTM:

Popcorn Counting Game

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© Boy Mama Teacher Mama 2013

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Teacher Mama: 100s Chart Math: Creating a Class Chart

boymamateachermama — Sun, 19 May 2013 23:08:51 +0000

100s Chart Math: Creating a Class Chart

I love teaching with a 100s chart. For those of you who do not know what a 100s chart is- it is basically a grid with 100 spaces numbered 1-100. There are all different kinds out there- you can buy them or create them yourself.

Here is one I created:

You can walk into almost any classroom and see a 100s chart of one kind or another hanging on the wall. If you walk into my classroom, you will see a 100s chart created by my students. I have my students create our 100s chart so they understand how it “came to be” and how it works.

I start with a piece of poster board and 100 squares of papers. I use a glue stick and a ruler to create 10 rows of 10 squares.

Then I add a title and cover it with contact paper (or you can laminate it).

Now the 100s chart is ready to go!

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Once the chart is ready to be used in the classroom (or homeschool), I present it to the class and have them make a few guesses as to what it may be. Oh, and I cover the title before doing this.

I then write the numbers 1 and 2 on the chart using a blue dry erase markers and ask the children to predict what number comes next. We continue using the blue marker until we get to the space for the 5 when we change to a red marker. I simply have this happen without explaining my reasons to the class. As we continue on, the reason will become clear. We then switch back to the blue marker and this time, I call students to come up to the chart and fill in the numbers. When we get to the space for number 10, I make a big deal about changing the color of the marker and have the student write the number 10 in red. We continue on this way until we get to the number 20. Usually by this time someone has figured out that we change colors for the counts by 5s (5, 10, 15, 20 etc are in red instead of blue).

As each student comes up to write a number on the chart, I ask them to give me two mathematical reasons why they put the number where they did. For example, if a child put 17 in the chart above, his reasons might be:

17 is one more than 16.

17 comes after 16.

17 is three less than 20.

17 is ten more than 7.

17 is ten less than 27.

Often times students like to say something like, I put 98 because that is how old my Uncle Bob is. While these are fun answers, I redirect the children to share a mathematical reason. :)

Once the chart is complete, we can use it for a variety of in class activities! Post about these activities to come so stay tuned!

© Boy Mama Teacher Mama 2013

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Boy Mama: Popsicle Stick Sunflowers

boymamateachermama — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:09:02 +0000

Popsicle Stick Sunflowers

I get so excited when I receive my arts and crafts package from CraftProjectIdeas.com. It’s always full of such fun things and my mind starts to spin with ideas the minute I open the box! This time one of my favorite craft materials was included- wooden craft sticks (aka popsicle sticks)! Not really sure why I like them so much, but I do. I have also been really into sunflowers lately. So, I combined my love for popsicle sticks and sunflowers and came up with this idea.

Directions: To begin, trace and cut a small circle from cereal box.

Cut several wooden craft sticks in half.

Using your hot glue and hot glue gun, arrange the craft sticks around the cardboard circle and affix in place with the hot glue.

Continue until the sticks have made one complete circle around the cardboard circle.

Repeat with an additional circle of craft sticks so you end up with the sunflower shape as shown below. Glue one full stick on for the stem.

Have your child paint the flowers using paint colors of your choice.

Once the flowers are dry you can “plant” them in a container with brown paper bags or tissue for soil as shown below.

Or add them to your garden. Try covering each flower with Modge Podge or something similar to protect it from the elements if you are going to keep it outdoors.

Other ideas for your popsicle stick sunflowers?

Write the name of the flowers/herbs you have planted on them so you remember what is there.

Hang them on your fence with your children’s names printed on them.

Give them as Mother’s Days gifts to moms, aunts or grandmas.

Write one letter of your child’s name on several flowers and hang them in your child’s room.

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© Boy Mama Teacher Mama 2013

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Teacher Mama: Mother’s Day Portraits

boymamateachermama — Sat, 11 May 2013 05:36:10 +0000

Mother’s Day Portraits

Every year while teaching first grade, I have done Mother’s Day portraits with my class and this year was no exception. The portraits themselves are really quite simple, but the product, I find, is gorgeous, timeless and a true treasure.

Materials:

Prepared paper
pencils
black Sharpies
water colors, brushes and water
black construction paper
laminator

Process:

Give each student one sheet of the prepared paper. Have him/her draw a portrait of him/herself with his/her mom(s). Emphasize that the drawing should really only be waist up and should fill as much of the paper as possible.

Students spend time drawing their portrait with pencil. Be sure they add a pattern around the border as well.

After the pencil drawing is complete, have them go over all the pencil lines with a black Sharpie.

After the Sharpie lines are done, have students use water colors to paint the picture. I tell my students that there should be no white parts left when they are done.

Allow paintings to dry. Cut out around the edge and mount on black paper.

I have said this before- I am not a big laminator at all, but this is one of the few projects that I do laminate.

Here are some examples of my students’s Mother’s Day Portraits:

© Boy Mama Teacher Mama 2013

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Boy Mama: A Very Hungry Caterpillar Pinata

boymamateachermama — Fri, 10 May 2013 04:53:57 +0000

A Very Hungry Caterpillar Pinata

With Cinco de Mayo fast approaching, we whipped up a pinata in anticipation of the big day. Well, maybe whipped up is not the best word since it is quite a process from start to finish. Not completely sure why I decided to make our pinata a Very Hungry Caterpillar pinata, but I did and here it is…

Materials:

balloons
newspaper
flour
water
bowl and spoon
brown pipe cleaners
brown tissue paper
red, green, yellow and orange paints
paintbrushes
a lot of patience!

Preparation:

Blow up 4 balloons about the size of a small melon.

Mix flour and water until it is the consistency of pancake mix. Feel free to add more water or more flour as needed.

Tear (don’t cut) newspaper into strips.

Directions:

Dip the newspaper strips into the flour and water paste one at a time. Use two fingers to wipe off excess paste.

Place the moistened newspaper on the balloon. Repeat over and over until all 4 balloons are completely covered and set them aside to dry. Drying takes over 24 hours and up to 2 days depending on your climate and how much paste was used.

Once the balloons are dry, repeat the steps above to cover each balloon with another layer of newspaper/paste. While doing this, also attached each balloon to one another by draping strips of moistened newspaper from one balloon to the next. Be patient! This take time and some juggling, but it will stay eventually stay together. Allow to dry.

Decorating:

Before painting, cut open each segment (or as many as you like) with an exacto-knife. Keep the holes as small as possible. Fill with candy or treats and then add some more paper mache over the holes and allow to dry. Don’t be alarmed when the balloon pops! If the outside is strong, it will stay in shape.

Paint two yellow ovals on the balloon that will be the face of the caterpillar. Once the yellow is dry, paint two smaller green ovals inside each yellow oval.

Paint the rest of the face and head red being careful around the eyes. Once the red is dry, add a green nose.

Paint the other body segments green.

For the antennae, bend two brown pipe cleaners in half as shown in the photo below and attach them to the caterpillar’s head with a hot glue gun.

For the feet, cut strips of brown paper about one inch thick and hot glue them onto the bottom of the caterpillar in clusters.

Place two hooks into the pinata- one behind the head and one further back towards the rear end fo the caterpillar. Hot glue around the hooks to keep them in place. Thread a string through the two hooks for hanging.

Now your pinata is ready for the party!

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© Boy Mama Teacher Mama 2013

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Boy Mama Teacher Mama: Crazy Hat Day Activities and One Crazy Hat!

boymamateachermama — Fri, 03 May 2013 04:36:47 +0000

Crazy Hat Day

Tomorrow is Crazy Hat Day at school. I was so excited to help my boys create crazy hats, but it turns out neither one of them want to wear anything more than the baseball cap hanging in their closet. So the boy mama in me is disappointed. But, I am also a teacher mama and I DO get to create my own hat for the big day. I decided to work off the theme we are studying in first grade- plants and growing. So, I created a Plant Life Cycle Hat for myself and my teaching partner.

Here it is:

Front View

Side View

If you look closely you can see the hat “begins” with a seed, then shows the seed growing into a plant, stage by stage. The sun shines down on the plants and the rain falls. There is even a bee ready and waiting. Surrounding the seed, sprout etc is the soil where the seeds get their nutrients. Oh and we can’t forget the seed sign in the dirt.

The graphics I used are from Scrapin Doodles. I bought some graphics, printed them, colored them, mounted them and attached them to a cardboard ring I had with hot glue. Chopsticks, pipe cleaners, straws and popsicle sticks help the the pictures stand tall and are also glued in place with a hot glue gun.

Can’t wait to see the kids’ reactions tomorrow! Wonder what they will think.

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Teacher Mama also created some activities to do with my students tomorrow during Crazy Hat Day. Here are just a few of the ideas I came up with. If you like these ideas and are interested in purchasing them, see the following link:

Boy Mama Teacher Mama: Crazy Hat Day

P.S. Guess who now wants a crazy hat of their own? Ah, the joys of parenthood.

Stay tuned for that post!

Other Seed/Plant/Garden Posts from BMTM:

Other Special Days at School Posts from BMTM:

Pajama Day

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© Boy Mama Teacher Mama 2013

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Book Mama: Activities for The Donut Chef

boymamateachermama — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 03:01:33 +0000

Activities for The Donut Chef

I discovered a new book at the library the other day. I was actually looking for another book by author, Bob Staake (LOVE his books!), and came across, The Donut Chef, instead. The minute I saw the book, I knew I had to take it home to read to my boys. While reading it to my eldest, my mind was spinning with ideas! So, the very next day, I set aside my plans for my first graders, read the book to them and followed the reading with some super fun activities.

(Note: This book is available for sale through BMTM bookstore, click the image below to take you there.)

First we talked about donuts. We shared our favorite kinds. We graphed our findings. Then I asked the students to create their own paper donuts. I even made a paper donut box to house the donuts for our next activity.

Dozen, Half Dozen and Baker’s Dozen

After all the donuts were completed, each student shared his/her creation with the class. Then we talked about the concept of a dozen (12), a half dozen (6) and a Baker’s Dozen (13). We took some time to create dozens, half dozens and Baker’s Dozen with our paper donuts.

Fractions

I then shared a bit about fractions with the kids. This was way above their heads at this point, but with older students, it would be a wonderful way to explore fractions. For example students could determine the answers to the following questions and record them on the paper below.

What fraction of the donuts have sprinkles?

What fraction of the donuts are round? Long?

What fraction of the donut are chocolate? Old fashioned? etc

Donut Descriptions

After we had finished with the math portion of this activity, I share an observation with the class. I told them that I noticed when they describe how something tastes (in this case the donuts), they used words like “good.” We talked about how the word “good” really doesn’t tell another person how something tastes. So, we brainstormed a list of better words. We even got out the good old-fashioned thesaurus and had a quick lesson about what it is for and how to use it. The list we came up with was:

I then had the children glue their donut to a piece of paper and write a sentence about how their donut tastes using a more descriptive word. Below are some student samples.

We ended here. I’d say the kids loved it. I loved teaching it. Will definitely be doing it again next year.

Other ideas:

Write a descriptive paragraph about the donut they created or their favorite type.
Do a donut glyph.
Plan, draw and describe your own donut shop.
Create a donut shop menu.
Graph donut favorites

The activities for The Donut Chef are available for purchase. Click the following link for details.

Activities for The Donut Chef from Boy Mama Teacher Mama

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© Boy Mama Teacher Mama 2013

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Book Mama: Books about Zero

boymamateachermama — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 02:46:06 +0000

Books about Zero

We don’t spend much time thinking or talking about the number zero or the concept of zero with very young children mainly because zero is not a counting number. And, many adults simply assume that children have an understanding of the concept of zero, but that is not always true. So, here are a few books to read with your child that explain the concept of zero in a child-friendly way.

Note: There are two uses for zero and they are very different from one another. The first use is as a place holder when there are no hundreds, tens, ones etc. in a number. Look at the number 3,507 for example. Without the zero, the number would be 357 which is very different from 3,507. The second use is the number 0 as itself or as a representation of the value of nothing.

All of the following books (and more) can be found in Boy Mama Teacher Mama’s Bookstore.

Click the image below to take you to the store:

Zero is the Leaves on the Trees

by Betsy Franco

“Zero is the balls in the bin at recess time. Zero is the kites in the sky once the wind stops blowing.”

Zero may be difficult to count, but with help from this book, it becomes something every child can understand. I love the simplicity of this book–it is simply a collection of examples of something that is not, of zero! After reading this book encourage your child to find examples of zero is his own world. Amazing discoveries to be found!

Zero

by Kathyrn Otoshi

“Zero was a big, round number. When she looked at herself, she just saw a hole…right in her center. Everyday she watched the numbers line up. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7… She wanted to count too.”

Zero tried and tried to be like the other numbers. She doubled herself up. “She forced and flattened” herself, but no matter what she did, she “didn’t count.” She tried to impress the other numbers hoping that they would see her value, but to no avail. She finally gave up until Seven pointed out, “It’s what’s inside that counts most.” Finally, with some encouragement from the other numbers, Zero found a way to count, a way to have value and to finally feel “whole.”

This book is not only a good for teaching the value of zero, but also for teaching children the value of friendship.

Zero the Hero

by Joan Holub

“Unlike most numbers, Zero believed himself to be a hero. He just needed a chance to prove it.”

This is book is hilarious! The humor is perfect for slightly older children as well as adults. Zero has renamed himself, “Zero the Hero,” but soon realizes that his number friends don’t need him nor do they really respect him. So he takes off to “infinity” or “oblivion” and leaves his friends behind. Finally, the other numbers realize that they did indeed need zero and began to miss their friend. Then one day, while wallowing in their sorrow, they were attacked by the Roman Soldiers (Roman Numerals). From far away, Zero heard his pals’ call for help and he swept into save the day.

Pete the Cat and 4 Groovy Buttons

by Eric Litwin

We are huge Pete the Cat fans in our house and I think this one may be my favorite. Pete the Cat has four groovy buttons and one by one they fall off leaving him with zero buttons, “but does Pete cry? Goodness no!” He just keeps on singing his song! Eventually all of Pete’s buttons fall off, but luckily, he is still left with one very special button!

Check out this video too: Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons on YouTube

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Want to explore the idea of less than zero? Try this book from the MathStart Series:

Less than Zero by Stuart Murphy

Do you know any good books about zero? Please share!

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Teacher Mama: Happy Birthday Earth!

boymamateachermama — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 02:59:29 +0000

Happy Birthday Earth!

We are not done with Earth Day just yet! In fact, we have made Earth Day into Earth Week in our school. Today, we wrote birthday cards to the Earth. The students had two tasks. The first was to draw a picture of what they wanted to give the Earth for its birthday and the second was to write a birthday message for the Earth. The kids really liked this idea and were very thoughtful with their gifts.

After the students pictures were complete and their writing was done, we “wrapped” the picture in recycled wrapping paper we found in the art cabinet. So, after reading the message, you “open” the gift to see the picture. Here are some examples:

I created a template this evening when I came home to put in my Earth Day files for next year. Here it is! If you would like a copy, simply click the image to download it!

Looking for other Earth Day ideas from Boy Mama Teacher Mama?

Earth Day Activity

Garden Cupcakes

Earth Day Poster- FREE DOWNLOAD

Earth Day Pledge

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Boy Mama: Garden Cupcakes

boymamateachermama — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 03:47:08 +0000

Garden Cupcakes

I offered to make an Earth Day treat for our first graders. I saw several ideas I liked online, but felt like creating something that was my own. So, I came up with these Garden Cupcakes. I did not have time to make my own batter or frosting, so I used the store-bought kind. Next time, they will be from scratch! I still think they turned out really well.

Ingredients:

1 package of Oreos (or similar cookie)
2 containers of chocolate frosting
2 boxes of yellow cake mix
ice cream cones (wafer)

Creating the Gardens:

Make the batter according to the instructions on the box.
Fill a rimmed baking pan with the empty ice cream cones.

Fill each cone about 1/3 of the way full with batter.

Bake according to the directions on the box. Keep an eye on them because they do not bake the same as a traditional cupcake.

Allow to cool.
While the cakes are cooling, crush the cookies in a blender or cuisinart.

Ice cooled cakes with the chocolate frosting.

Sprinkle each cupcake with the chocolate cookies.

Seed Signs:

I used bamboo forked toothpicks I found at Target with the other toothpicks. I thought they looked “garden-y.”

Print the provided template. Click on image below to download. Graphics are courtesy of MyCuteGraphics.com.

Cut out each seed packet image and glue one to each stick

Allow to dry.
When the signs are dry, place one seed sign into each cupcake. And you are done! Aren’t they adorable??

Looking for other Earth Day ideas from Boy Mama Teacher Mama?

Earth Day Activity

Happy Birthday Earth!

Earth Day Poster- FREE DOWNLOAD

Earth Day Pledge

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