Chalk Talk: A Kindergarten Blog

Elephants Aloft and Positional Words

2013-11-20T20:03:00.002-08:00

This week we are learning about positional words in science. Today we read the book Elephants Aloft. After reading the book we drew elephants and acted out the different positional words in the story.

My students drew, colored, and cut elephants out from sheets of manila paper. I placed the hot air balloons around a bulletin board. Then I added the elephants. We sat as a class around the bulletin board and discussed the position of each elephant. We labeled the elephants together.

A Room Full of Turkeys!

2013-11-18T16:12:00.002-08:00

We just can't get enough turkey in our room! I guess it's because I have a room full of little turkeys!! Lol. The cutest little turkeys in the world that is!

Today we read my favorite Thanksgiving book- A Turkey for Thanksgiving. We predicted what we thought the story would be about and then retold the story by acting it out. This story is one that easily lends itself to dialogue by the students. It was easy for them to speak for the animals by saying "can I go with you to find turkey," "I saw a fat turkey by the river," "will you carry me with you", etc. My kiddos had a lot of fun acting out this story. They loved being turkey and trying to run away.

I loved their ideas for other ways Moose could have caught turkey- introduced himself so then turkey would introduce himself back, dress up like a turkey himself, hide in the bushes then reach out and grab him, and tip toe to sneak up on him.

Here is one of my little turkeys trying to run away.

And here she is... a happy turkey at Thanksgiving dinner.

My student's sequenced the story using picture cards and then retold the story with their elbow partner.

This one was my favorite!! (cheesecake)

We read 10 Fat Turkeys and retold the story using a fence and 10 little turkeys.

Do you love my little turkey in the middle??

This week we are moving up to the numbers 11-15. We are also working on counting up and how many fives are in the number we are working with. We started out with a few numbers less than 10. Then we focused on the numbers 11-14. I made these large 5 frames the same way I made my large ten frame.

Life-size Five Frames

Materials needed: bulletin board paper, dorm tape or colored masking tape

Five Frame Dimensions: 18 inches X 65 inches

Directions:

1) Tape off the entire edge of the long strip of bulletin board paper.

2) Use a yardstick to mark off the boxes every 13 inches.

3) Tape over the lines made to mark off the boxes.

4) Laminate the frame.

After we worked with groups of five as a whole, my students practiced independently. First they made their own turkey five frames. Then they rolled a die to see how many ones they needed. We only used the numbers 1-5 today. If they rolled a six then I had them roll again. You can get all the turkey resources for both these books as well as the ones I plan on using later in the week with Turkey Trouble and One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims here.

Bear Says Thanks Freebie

2013-11-16T11:10:00.000-08:00

I love all of the books about bear and his friends. This week we read Bear Says Thanks. Then we retold the story using the characters. You can download the animal pictures and the writing sheet for free here.

I passed out the characters to the kids. When we got to their character they placed it in the center of the carpet. We used interactive writing to write the things the animals brought with them as we retold the story. All of my kids wrote on dry erase boards while one child wrote the word to go with the character.

This book is perfect for describing a character. My students always want to use the words "good" and "nice", but this book worked well for pushing them to use other words. The text is simple so it was a little easier to get my kids to find other words to use when describing bear.

We drew and wrote about other things we had to share just like bear and all of the other animals in the story.

The Turkey Train

2013-11-14T14:00:00.003-08:00

I love Steve Metzger books, so when I came across The Turkey Train at Barnes and Nobel the other day I had to buy it. I have been trying to get my hands on several of his other turkey books like The Great Turkey Race, but I guess they are out of print so they are extremely expensive to purchase now.

Here is what we did with The Turkey Train this week.

Instead of sequencing the story, we retold it simply by recalling all of the things the turkeys did in the book. We used a circle map to show all of the events or happenings in the story.

We made text-to-text connections between The Turkey Train and 10 Fat Turkeys. I would have loved to have done this comparison with one of the other Steve Metzger turkey books, but I wasn't paying $20 for a used paperback and I definitely wasn't paying over $1000 for The Great Turkey Race!!

Of course we had to make turkeys! I tried to pattern them like the ones in the book.

This was my favorite lesson. We talked about how the story would be different if the setting changed. We decided to change the setting to the beach. We brainstormed what the turkeys would have done if they had gone to the beach. My kids came up with some great ideas and some awesome looking turkeys!

This is my favorite picture! I love the sharks swimming in the ocean!

This week we have been learning about real object graphs, so first we graphed our favorite winter activities using our bodies. Then we transferred our real object graph data to a pictorial format. Since the turkeys in the book skated, skied, sled, and threw snowballs we used those winter activities for our graph. You can get all of the clip art pictures, words, and the instructions for the turkey craft here.

Veteran's Day Poppies

2013-11-13T11:35:00.003-08:00

Yesterday we learned about and honored our Veterans. We made paper plate poppies. We painted the plates red. Then I helped my students cut the slits out of the plates. They cut corners and rounded a black square to make the center of their poppies.

Todd Parr Inspired Thankfulness

2013-11-13T11:33:00.000-08:00

Today we read The Thankful Book by Todd Parr. Then we made a list of the things we were thankful for. When we first started to make the list I felt like Mr. Scary in Junie B. First Grader Turkeys We Have Loved and Eaten (and Other Thankful Stuff). Our list was not quite what I was going for, but then I went with Mr. Scary philosophy and decided that at least these were the things my little ones were thankful for.

Who Will Carve the Turkey This Thanksgiving?

2013-11-11T16:49:00.002-08:00

I am sure that most of you are already familiar with this book, but I just came across it last week. I ordered it last year, but never got around to opening it or using it so it was a fun surprise when I found it a few days ago. My kids loved it!

We retold the story using picture cards of the animals in the book. I placed them out in a row in the middle of the carpet. Then I called on students to tell us what animal came next. When it was someone's turn they had to name the animal, find the picture, and act like the animal in some way. They could act like it or make a noise like it makes. We had a lot of fun with this. Some of them were really good at making animal noises.

Here is one of my students making antlers to act like the moose.

Our curriculum has us do conceptual sorts in ELA, so we did a wild/tame animal conceptual sort since all of the animals in the book are wild.

We made text-to-self connections by comparing who carved the turkey in the book to who carves the turkey at our house.

Then we made our own class book for who would carve the turkey.

The clip art pictures and class book page can be found here.

Forces at Work

2013-11-10T07:27:00.001-08:00

Last week we were very busy learning about force and motion. We learned about friction and the force that moves a roller coaster. Then we pretended to ride a roller coaster and find out how the force from a roller coaster moves you.

We read The Three Little Pigs. Then we brainstormed other forces the wolf could have used to knock down the pig's houses.

We read lots of books about motion. Then we acted them all out.

I set up all kinds of stations where my students could experiment with forces and motion. They took turns pushing and pulling each other in our class recycle bin.

Spinning Tops

Blowing Bubbles

Making different kinds of ramps. Experimenting with Friction. Seeing if things roll or slide.

Throwing and rolling different types of balls.

We made a Bridge map to show the different ways things move.

We graphed our favorite way to move.

We compared things that you push and things that you pull.

We learned that some things change shape because of a force. We experimented with this idea by pushing and pulling on play-doh to change its shape.

We tried to make heavy things easier to move.

We rolled large marbles fast and slow, side to side, back and forth, around and around, and in a zig zag.

Just found this book about force and motion. It was new to me.

My teammate, Nicole, made this graph with her kids to introduce the study on force and motion. I loved how she used the wheels to make the graph and what a great question to get started with. You can see that a lot of kids started out with some misconceptions about motion. Love her fun colored cars too!

You can go here for more about these activities, the clip art for them, and some other force and motion ideas.

Snow White and the Magic Apple

2013-11-07T16:41:00.000-08:00

My good friend Shelly had the idea of glittering apples to go with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Here are how ours turned out.

We read the book Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Then we charted the story elements. My students wrote on their dry erase boards while I "shared the pen" with another student at the front of the room.

This is the version we read. I found it at Barnes and Nobel in their discount book section. It is a large hard-back book with bright illustrations and text that is not too wordy. They have a handful of fairy tales like this in their discount books. I paid $6.99 for the book.

The picture icons I used on this chart came from Kim Adsit's fairy tales reader's workshop unit.

We made the apples by clipping the corners and rounding a 6X6 red square. We added a brown stem and a leaf. Then we painted glue on them and glittered them.

We wrote about what we would wish for if we had a magic apple.

It's been a crazy week. I defend my dissertation proposal tomorrow and I am a bridesmaid in a wedding this weekend, but when I get back to blogging at the end of it all I have some fun force and motion stuff to share.

Pete and his Magic Sunglasses

2013-11-05T18:15:00.000-08:00

My kids had so much fun retelling Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses. They did such a great job with creating their own dialogue and they loved wearing the blue sunglasses. I found the glasses we used at Party City. I found them in the section that is divided into party stuff that is sorted by individual color.

We also used the book to make text-to-text connections.

We are still working on describing characters based on their inside.

Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses is perfect for talking about feelings and emotions. My kids are really into using the word "frustrated" lately. We talked about all of the different emotions in the story and what might happen to make someone feel that way. We practiced making faces for each emotion and talking in a voice that would show we were feeling that emotion. We learned that illustrators can show us how characters feel through their drawings and pictures.

We read a bunch of different books about feelings. Then we chose one particular emotion to write and draw about. Here is one example. We are not finished with her writing and drawings yet.

You can find the clip art for retelling, the venn diagram words and pictures, the instructions for the craft, and the writing sheets here.

Daily Five: Work on Writing

2013-11-03T04:22:00.003-08:00

I have written a post about daily five in several weeks because we have been hard at work adding work on writing and building our writing stamina. I chose to add work on writing second because that is what the sisters suggest. They say that read to self and work on writing should be non-negotiable daily rounds.

I started work on writing by creating this writing tools anchor chart with them. This idea and the pieces for this anchor chart came from Kim Adsit's I Can Write unit. I chose the tools from Kim's unit that we were going to use in our classroom and only introduced those. With each tool that I added we physically walked to the place where we could find that tool. We practiced this for several days and I still refer to the chart at the beginning of work on writing each day.

I also created this anchor chart with my class. Since we have been in school awhile I did not introduce the chart as though they had an option of which type of writing they wanted to use, but rather I spoke about the three ways as if I wanted to see them all. This anchor chart also came from Kim's I Can Write unit.

I forgot to take a picture of my own class chart. I will add it on Monday. Here is a copy from Kim's unit for now. I cannot stress enough how helpful all of Kim's anchor charts have been- not just from this unit, but from all of her units that I have purchased. Making these charts with my students, referring to them daily, and leaving them posted as a reference has really increased my students learning and their retention of the information I taught.

For the first week or so we wrote all together each day. I modeled writing a sentence and they wrote it with me. I had them tell me how to spell words and when to use a spaceman. Then we drew the picture. I wrote sentences that consisted mostly of words from our word wall and only one or two words they needed to phonetically spell. I did this to support them as writers. I did not want anyone getting into a habit of just scribbling in their writing journal. I wanted even my lowest performing students to be able to string some words together even if they did not make a lot of sense.

I am using large black clips to hold their place each day.

We share our writing with each other or as a class each day. Right now I have all of them share because I want to encourage the writing behaviors that I want them to use and break down those that I do not. Each day I stress how we are all learning, practicing, and growing ourselves as writers. They know not to ask "How do you spell?" I constantly remind them of all of the strategies they have to spell words. I model this daily in interactive writing too. Sharing is a little time consuming right now, but I think it is really helping. They seem to be getting more independent and better each day. Sometimes we share with partners and sometimes as a whole class.

After a week or so of modeling writing for them and doing it with them I released them to write on their own. We have been writing on our own for about a week now. Most of my students are writing a sentence. Some of them are stringing word wall words together and putting space between words is still something we need to work on, but they can already sit and write for 15 minutes of writing stamina.

At first we all sat at our tables and wrote. After we wrote like this for several days I let them start choosing their writing spots just like they do for read to self. They know to go and get their marker and journal from their cubbie and their box from their table. They also know if they forget something they need then they simply go and get it without saying anything. If they need to walk over to the name wall or the word wall they just do it and do not talk about it. They know that as long as they are working on their writing in some way that they are not breaking stamina.

I plan to keep us all reading to self and working on writing at the same time for a little while. I want to build up their writing skills a bit before I add another dimension to this round. They still have choice in where they want to write and what they want to write about so they are engaged and excited about what they are doing.

Next week I plan to make Kim's anchor chart about what good writer's do and how writer's can help the reader. I also plan to continue working on sentence structure. I model this in all subject areas everyday in whole group writing, not just during work on writing time.

2-Dimensional Shapes in Math

2013-11-01T19:24:00.002-07:00

This week we learned about 2-dimensional shapes. We started the week by making this anchor chart from Kim Adsit's Shapes Galore unit.

We learned about the attributes of circles. We circle painted with marshmallows. I got this idea from Deeanna at Golden Gang Kindergarten.

We brought in objects from our homes that were in the shape of a circle. This idea also came from Golden Gang Kindergarten.

We ate cookies for our circle snack.

We learned about the attributes of a triangle. We sorted shapes by triangles and not triangles.

We put shapes together to make different and larger shapes (see our anchor chart).

We ate Doritos for our triangle snack.

We learned about the attributes of squares and rectangles. We sorted pictures of every day items into groups of squares and rectangles. You can download the sort from Google Docs here.

We ate Saltine and Club crackers for our square and rectangle snack.

Our Week of Pumpkin Fun

2013-11-01T18:51:00.001-07:00

Our Week of Pumpkin Activities

We passed our class pumpkin around the circle to see if it felt heavy or light.

We predicted whether we thought our pumpkin would sink or float.

We found out our pumpkin floats.

We predicted whether the force of a hair dryer would make our pumpkin roll. I got this idea from Cara Carroll.

We described the outside of our pumpkin.

We cut our pumpkin open and explored the inside.

We charted words to describe the inside of our pumpkin. I got this chart from Deanna Jump's Pumpkin Patch Palooza unit.

We made crock-pot pumpkin pie. I found the recipe in Nicole Heinlein's Pumpkin Science unit. This recipe was super easy and the kids loved cooking the pie in our classroom. I fed 17 students with the recipe. If you need to feed more students than this then you may want to borrow another crock-pot so you can make two pies.

We ate our pie with whipped cream. Yum!

We learned about paying attention to details. We studied the pumpkin picture below and charted what we noticed. Then we wrote about what was wrong with the picture and made our own boxes for the pumpkins. This idea came from Deanna Jump's Pumpkin Patch Palooza unit.

My Favorite Pumpkin Books of the Week

Hoodwinked by Arthur Howard

2013-11-01T05:20:00.000-07:00

My friend Shelly introduced me to this book and I fell in love with it. It is about a little witch who loves creepy things and wants a creepy pet. She tries all of these pets out, but none of them will search for monsters in the attic with her, watch creature features with her, or listen to her deepest, darkest, secrets. Then she finds a little kitten who is just too adorable to be creepy or her pet... but then she finds out that the little kitten will hunt monsters in the attic with her, sit in her lap and watch creature features, and lick her chin when she shares her deepest, darkest secrets. Love it!

In his journal, Max wrote "I can go to the bat store."

Of course I love this book because I love my sweet kitty Sophie!

Life-size Ten Frame

2013-10-26T14:30:00.002-07:00

A lot of you have asked me about my life-size ten frame and where I got it or how I made it. So here is the low-down...

I started with a long sheet of bulletin board from the work room. The kind that you pull of the roll to decorate your boards with.

I did not cut any paper off the frame from the top or the bottom. The width of the paper I used was 36 inches. The length of my ten frame is 66 inches. Your frame could be bigger, but you probably do not want it to be any smaller if you want your kids to be able to stand in the squares.

First, I folded the paper in half from top to bottom. I lined the edges of the ten frame in tape and made a line of tape down the middle on top of the crease. I used dorm room tape to line the edges and mark the frames. I measured the frame from left to right. Then divided the length by 5 and made each frame that size. I marked the frame at the bottom and the top then used a yardstick to connect the marks. I placed the dorm tape down on top of the lines to make each box. I purchased my dorm tape at Mardel, but I have seen it at other teacher supply stores.

After the frame was made and taped off I folded it in half and laminated it. Then I cut it out and used an exacto knife to open it up. I folded it in half again the other way and laminated it again. I cut it out and used an exacto knife to cut it open again. I hope these instructions make sense. Comment below if you have more questions. I will be happy to answer them.

Five Little Monkeys Trick-or-Treat Math Fun

2013-10-26T11:55:00.001-07:00

We are finishing up our unit on numbers 6-10 this week. We ended the week with the book Five Little Monkeys. We have been working on building number sense for a long time and using different picture books has really helped to keep my students engaged and wanting to practice the same skills over and over.

We used a large ten frame and our own little monkeys to practice counting up from the number 5. Each time we started with 5 and counted up to find how many monkeys were in the ten frame. We started with the ten frame for more support and then we moved away from it and counted up using just the monkeys.

We worked on one to one correspondence in several ways. We matched up monkeys with the animals they switched costumes with in the story. We also joined hands to show the one to one match between the monkeys and the animals.

We continued one to one matching using just the picture cards. We also used this activity to compare sets and talk about greater than, less than, and how many more.

One of my students lined up all of the animals in a line across just like the monkeys. He did not have one to one correspondence in place. He thought that all he needed to do was make a line with the animals. These friends helped him by showing him he needed to turn some of the cards sideways to make sure each monkey was matched one to one with each animal.

My students used unifix cubes and small monkey pics to act out what we were doing in the large group model and to practice one to one independently when we were done.

We are still working on decomposing numbers. I have students help me model a few examples. Then I give my students their own pieces to work with while I continue to call students to model for us. This offers extra support for those who need it and gives everyone a chance to practice the entire time. It is also a great way for me to assess who has mastered the skill and who has not. This has been the most effective method I have found for keeping all of my students engaged and learning the entire time.

We used the large ten frame and monkeys to figure out how many more we needed to make 10. We work with 10 every day as part of our daily number sense routines and this was just another way of practicing that. Students used their own ten frames and monkeys while we worked off the large ten frame. My students are really getting great at subitizing.

We also did some show me math with our little monkeys. I got this idea from a Marcy Cook in-service. I said things like "show me 8" or "show me less than 5" or "show me more than 6", etc. Students can show me by making sets or showing me the number or doing both.

Take a look at my little one who is laying down. After multiple conversations about this I eventually tripped over him backward and kicked the little girl in red in the eye :( Black eye style and all. That's why she has an eye pack. Who knew that math could be so exciting??!!??

You can grab the monkeys clip art here.

Technology and How it Helps Us

2013-10-26T10:24:00.001-07:00

We have been learning about technology in social studies. We talked about all of the different kinds of technology, the ways technology helps us, and the ways technology has changed over time.

We talked about what technology means and what it is- physical devices that help us - any tools, machines, weapons, appliances, and instruments that help us. It is anything that helps us create, communicate, solve problems, and/or acquire knowledge and skills.

We made a venn diagram to compare technology we had then and technology we have now. Some pictures really could go in one or the other or both. I let my students lead this discussion and we grouped pictures based on their thinking. If they could justify their thinking then I accepted wherever they said the picture went.

We brainstormed all of the different ways that technology helps us. Then we sorted pictures of different types of technology into the different categories. We talked about how some of the technologies help us in more than one way. You can download all the technology pictures I used here.

We read Arthur's Computer Disaster. Then we made connections with Arthur.

Here are a few books we read about computers and technology.

Reading Stamina Party

2013-10-26T08:46:00.002-07:00

Last week I came across the idea for a stamina party and thought I have to do that with my kids because they have worked so hard to build their stamina and done such a great job at doing it. It is truly one of my favorite times of the day- looking out and seeing all of my kids reading the pictures, retelling stories, and pointing and reading words all at the same time.

Marsha from A Differentiated Kindergarten used these really neat fort kits that she put together, but I had to improvise just a bit. I brought in full and queen sized flat sheets to drape over the tables. My students brought in beach towels or small blankets and flashlights We turned down the lights except for our class lamp and all read in the forts by flashlight. While we read we also ate letter cookies that I found at Kroger because my students know that letters go together to make words and we read words :)

I thought the forts may throw our reading off for the day, but my kids this year are so awesome that they kept on reading forts, flashlights, cookies, and all!

Pumpkin Heads

2013-10-26T08:23:00.001-07:00

We read the book Pumpkin Heads! and made our own pumpkin heads just for fun!

Pinkalicious and the Pink Pumpkin

2013-10-24T03:26:00.004-07:00

My dissertation is a study on how we gender young children in early childhood classrooms. A running theme throughout my study has been color, so when I came across the book Pinkalicious and the Pink Pumpkin I knew I had to use it in a lesson. We area learning about informational text so we made a Venn Diagram and compared a made up story (Pinkalicious) to an informational book (Pumpkin, Pumpkin). And of course we painted pink pumpkins. My boys cannot stand the color pink and they refer to it as a "girl" color all of the time so I wanted to see if I gave them the option of painting with bright pink paint and pink glitter or orange paint if they would change their minds about the color pink. As you can see only 3 boys chose orange and in the end their choice had nothing to do with not wanting pink. This was one day that everyone- girls and boys included- LOVED the color pink.

I found out about this book and got this idea from a post made by Frogs & Snails & Puppy Dog Tails. You can check out Jaime's post here.

When the Leaf Blew In

2013-10-22T19:34:00.001-07:00

We have been using books about leaves to retell, make inferences, and count up. We read When the Wind Blew In. It is perfect for making inferences. We used the illustrations and our schema (what we already know) to infer what the animals were thinking and feeling. When we acted out the story we also made the faces the animals did in the story and talked again about the inferences we made.

I know we have been acting out a lot of stories lately, but it has really helped my students with retelling and comprehension. We usually act out the story 2-3 times so that everyone gets a turn. Retelling using the characters is really helping my students too. For right now, it is working much better than beginning, middle, and end. I think all of this character retelling now will help us get to beginning, middle, and end sooner and to do a better job at it when we get there.

Didn't my student do a perfect job of making the cow's face when he acted out the story :)

Making inferences is new to us so this was a little difficult. My students finally inferred that the cow was surprised, the cow was scared, and that the cow was going to get hit with the leaf again, sneeze again, and get the animals all excited and worked up again.

We are still working on nouns and verbs. This book is perfect for this too. There are lots of animal names and actions in the book. We sorted picture cards of the animals and their actions into nouns and verbs. Then we acted out all of the verbs in our sort.

After the nouns and verbs sort I felt like we needed a little more work on nouns and verbs. I wanted to use the same book so that I could build on the work they had already done. We did a much better job after we made this bridge map. My students wrote the words on their wipe boards while one student helped write the words for the bridge map. I chose a few animals from the story for us to use. Then I had my students choose different actions than the ones the animals did in the story. We brainstormed several and the writer got to choose the one he or she wanted to use.

We read We're Going on a Leaf Hunt. Then we retold the story using the settings. This was the first time we did this. After all of our character retelling they did a really good job with this. Then we made fall leaves to go with our retelling map.

We acted out the story as we retold it.

We used leaves and our giant ten frame to practice counting up to 10 from different numbers.

My students made their own sets and counted up on their own ten frames while we did it on the big one. For example: I placed three leaves on the ten frame. Then we counted up from 3 to 10. We did this over and over counting up from a different number each time.

I placed leaves in our counting jar this week. I found this large sparkly leaves at Walmart.

This idea came from Investigations. Students count how many objects are in the counting jar. Then they make a set of the same number using another object. Then they record how many were in the set they counted and made on a post it. This student made his own set by stacking cubes into a tower. Then he drew a picture of 9 things on a post-it.

This student matched one cube to one leaf.

We made torn paper trees and torn paper leaves. Then we practiced decomposing the number 10 using the torn paper leaves. Each student had 10 leaves. They decomposed them into two groups with one on either side of the tree. After we practiced for awhile students made their own and glued everything down.

You can find the unit which contains all of the clipart, recording sheets, and leaf project here.

The Voting Process

2013-10-22T16:56:00.000-07:00

We have been talking about the voting process. We voted on which cookie we wanted to eat for our class snack and we voted on where we wanted to read the book Duck for President. You can download the cookie vote clipart from Google Docs here and the book ballot here.

We talked about how sometimes you have to wait in very long lines to vote, so we made a long class line and waited our turn.

We counted the votes and the playground was the winner.

We went outside to the playground and found a place to sit. Then I read the book to the class. The weather was perfect!

My Cute Graphics Free Clip Art

2013-10-20T18:33:00.001-07:00

I just stumbled upon a great free clipart site and I wanted to share it in case there were others who did not already know about it. It's called My Cute Graphics. The site contains free clip art images, backgrounds, clip art frames, and other fun stuff created by Laura Strickland.

Here are a few cute samples of the clip art images you can find for free from the site. You can use the graphics on your blog, your website, and for items you post on Teachers Pay Teachers as long as you link back to the site using one of the text or image links that are found here on Laura's "Link Back to Us" page.

You can also visit Laura's Whimsy-Clips Teacher's Pay Teacher's Store for even more of her fun clip art images. All of her sets come with color and black and white images bundled together. Laura's stuff is so cute and she offers so many great free images that I can't believe I am just now finding her!

You can also find Laura on Facebook and follow all of her boards on Pinterest.

10 Hooting Owls

2013-10-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

We read the book 10 Hooting Owls, made these owls, and then used them for counting and solving word problems.

We placed 10 owls in a line on the carpet. Then we reread the story and acted it out using the owls. Different students took turns "flying" the owls away and then counting the owls that were left.

We also used the owls to practice number cardinality and number conservation. I moved the owls around in different ways and asked how many owls there were each time to make sure my students understood that since I did not add any or take any away there was still the same number.

I made up problems and my students used the owls to find the answers to my questions. For example, "There are 4 owls sitting in the tree, how many talons are in the tree?" The student who answered the question shared how they solved the problem and modeled it for the class.

After we solved several problems together my students solved a problem on their own. I like how the student below actually labeled her answer by drawing eyes beside it. You can download this recording sheet from Google Docs.

This is how we made the owls:

I gave each student 1 6X6 square for wings, 2 3X3 squares for eyes, 2 2X2 squares for the black part of the eyes, 4 1 1/2X1/2 squares for feathers.

I had my students clip the corners and round to make circles out of all of these pieces.

Then I gave them a brown 9X12 piece of construction paper. They clipped the bottom corners and rounded. Then they drew a "U" at the top and cut on their line.

They glued everything they had together. Then they added wiggle eyes.

I gave them a pre-cut beak and talons. They glued those on last.

10 Trick-or-Treaters

2013-10-16T18:27:00.000-07:00

We used the book 10 Trick-or-Treaters by Janet Schulman to count objects to 10, make sets of objects, compare sets to determine which is greater, and to decompose the number 10. We did all of these activities over the course of several days. You can download the unit here.

I chose 10 students to be "trick-or-treaters." Then we worked together to count and number the trick-or-treaters.

We reread the book together. With each page we used picture cards to retell the story and to show who scared the trick-or-treater away and then one trick-or-treater would run away.

We discussed the pattern in the book--- the pattern being that one trick-or-treater went away each time.

Then we used the trick-or-treater cards to make sets and compare them to see which set was greater. We talked about what greater means and how we know which is greater. I made the sets with the cards and then had the students count them, label them with the numbers, and decide which set was greater.

We rearranged the trick-or-treaters here to help us better see which one was greater just by looking.

We reread the book again. Then we retold the story using the people and creatures who scared the trick-or-treaters away. We counted how many trick-or-treaters we had left each time. We wrote out the numbers and the number words to label our flow map.

Just for fun we made these trick-or-treaters from TLC Lessons.

My students used smaller versions of the trick-or-treater cards to make a set of ten, count ten objects, and to order the numbers to ten.

We also used the trick-or-treater cards to decompose the number 10. My students worked with partners to do this. They had a tower of ten. They put it behind their back and broke it into two parts. Then they counted the two parts and labeled them with a number card. My students also made sets with the trick-or-treaters to match their sets of cubes. We have been using the math sentence ____ and ____ makes ____ when we decompose numbers. This week I decided to add the actual word cards to make sure my students were using this math language on their own. I had them point to the numbers and the words as they read the math sentence to each other.

After we practiced in whole group and with partners, my students worked independently to decompose 10.