'My House' freebie

 

Hi!

 

I've been working on a resource lately - well, trying to, it's been a pretty busy time in our house with both my little ones hit with gastro :(  I thought I'd share a page from it with you.

 

It's basically a little activity to get students thinking about Number in the context of addresses and house numbers. As a part of History in the new Australian Curriculum, we look at families, so I thought this would be a nice little way to tie in some Number work with that theme.

 

Graphics c www.KPMdoodles.com

If you'd like a copy, just click here :)

 

I'll be back with a game for Friday Game Day tomorrow (hopefully!)... have a great end of the week :)

 

 

 

Beginning of term Sorting Assessment

This has been first week back for the term for me, and it's been busy! I've hit the ground running... which is probably a good thing - otherwise the term is half gone before I realise it!

I'm working across classes R-7 and I thought I'd share the simple little activity we did in one of the Reception classes this week. We have termly intakes in S.A. (for the last time, we start annual intakes next year) so we've had quite a few new kids in the Reception classes this week. Perfect time for a simple little formative assessment activity to get an idea of where the newies are at, as well as seeing how the older kids are travelling!

We gave each child a copy of this sheet (enlarged to A3 so the pics were easier to cut out)....





Click here for a copy of this page, and one other :)



....and asked them to sort the shapes in a  way that made sense to them. We didn't give many instructions, as we really wanted to see how the kids went about it. It was really interesting to see the different ideas kids had, and to get an idea of their sorting and classifying skills.

To extend those kids who could easily classify the objects, we asked questions such as...

Can you count and record how many are in each group?

Can you order the groups from smallest to largest?

Which group has the most/least?

What other ways could you have sorted....?

Are there any objects that could have fitted into more than one group?

We recorded the conversations with students and their explanations on their sheet so we have a record of their thinking..... a simple but effective way to get a snap shot of kids' understandings!

Farm Freebie

 

Hi! I fell like it's been AGES since I've posted anything... the end of term has been pretty hectic, but I'm now on finally on holidays :)

 

Just a quick post today, I wanted to share a little game that's great for Receptions... Pigs and Chooks. I've mentioned before how I like to get the kids to play noughts and crosses to help develop their ability to think strategically, and this game is basically a prettied up version of that!

 

Basically, kids play in pairs - one person uses the chook cards, and another the pigs. the aim is to get four of your cards in a row, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally, just as you would for noughts and crosses.

 

You just need a game board....

 

Graphics c www.kpmdoodles.com

 

...and a copy of the cards for each pair.....

 

 

....and they're ready to play!

 

 

You can grab a copy of this game here if you'd like :)

 

Happy holidays to everyone on school holidays!

 

 

A little freebie.... 'A note from the teacher'

 

Wow, this has been a busy week! I've been up to my eyeballs in data (not exactly my favourite way to spend the day!) getting all our baseline data ready as a part of my Numeracy Coach role. To top it off I have been working on the World's Slowest Computer Ever (it's official) which hasn't helped. But, on the bright side, I have ordered a laptop which I'm excitedly checking the post for each day!

 

Because I've been pouring through tests this week, I don't really have that much to blog about (well, that you'd want to read anyway!) so I thought I'd share some 'Notes to the Teacher' that I made for a couple of my work friends a little while ago.

 

There's nine notes in total... here's a piccie of a few...

 



Thanks to Graphics from the Pond, Scrappin Doodles and Ashley Hughes for the cute graphics :)

 

Click here for a copy, I hope you enjoy them :)

Friday Game Day... with playdough!

I have a love/hate relationship with play dough.... I love using it in my classroom, but I hate making it! Maybe I've just got really weak arms, but I find it SUCH a work out to mix and cook the dough! Finally I've found a recipe that I really like, and it seems a bit easier on the arm or maybe I'm getting stronger? (I can hope right?!) Anyway, the recipe is here.. I love it because it lasts really well - we always run out of dough before it goes bad.

So, for today's game, I'm going to share a variation of the traditional Roll and Draw games, instead using play dough. The great thing about this game is it is so easy to differentiate, you can use it to practice number recognition, two digit addition, doubles, bonds to 10, times tables... the list is endless! It is also really easy to set up, you just need to get the play dough out, grab some dice and you're ready to go!

The game works best (I think) in pairs or groups of three. Each player will need some play dough and the group will need a die to share as well as a game card (or you can write the directions on the board if you'd prefer). 

Click here for a copy of the game cards that I've used. :)

I've used graphics from Ashley Hughes and Scrappin Doodles

This game card only needs a 1-6 die... it's designed to practice number recognition (1-6)

Player one then rolls the two dice and adds the number together. They then find that number on the Playing Card and make that body part for the bug. The next player has a turn and the game continues until someone has made a complete bug... they are the winner!

You can easily change the creature you are making to fit in with your current theme too... a snowman, a face, a farm animal, an alien, a fish... anything will work.

A fun and easy game, which is great to practice a range of skills, and best of all.... kids love it!

I've linked up with Kindergarten Works to share Kindergarten teaching ideas... head on over to find some fantastic teaching ideas especially for the little ones :)

First day back!

Having termly intakes of Receptions has its benefits (especially the small class size in term 1!) but it does make for a pretty full on first week of term - every term!

We had a big group of newies this term, so this first week is really going to be taken up with getting them settled and finding our grove again. We read that lovely little book 'The Kissing Hand' on Monday - it's such a lovely way to talk about first days and how the kids are feeling. I actually ordered a copy online for my daughter at the beginning of the year (for when she started Kindy) and was going to use it with my class then but Australia Post was a bit too slow for that!

My class really enjoyed the story... we did a couple of activities related to the book to start off the term,

After reading the story, and having a chat about how we felt staring school, the kids drew a picture of how they felt and we wrote a sentence to go with it. The newies got this copy....

While those who have been at school for a term had a blank template, where they either wrote a sentence themselves, or cut and pasted the words to make a sentence.

Here's a finished one....

Here's a copy of this activity, I've included all three variations :)

Sorry for the short post today... my mind is a bit frazzled from such a busy week! I'll be back for Friday Game Day soon :)

Ladybird Freebie

Hi :)

Today I'm linking up with Classroom Freebies to share this little Freebie....

We were learning about Ladybirds for the last few weeks of term, and this is a little booklet that I made. It's actually a part of a bigger pack that I'm hoping to finish and pop up on TPT in the next week or so (I just need to get out of holiday mode first!)

To use the booklet, you just need to cut the bottom section of each page off...

....cut out the individual words and glue them in the correct order.

Then staple the pages together and you have a cute, simple ladybird booklet!

You can download the booklet here

I hope your class enjoys it :)

Jess

Race to Ten... a Classroom Freebie

 
Hi :)

Today I wanted to share a game that I have made to play with my kids next term. Some of the older ones have got a great understanding of trusting the count and are doing a good job at subitising, so I want work on the idea of counting on. 

I've linked up with Classroom Freebies to share this game...

This little game using a ten frame is designed to get kids thinking about counting on (and counting backwards) using the numbers 1 - 10.

Click here for a copy of the game:)

Kids work in pairs for this game, sharing a game board between them. The aim is to be the first person with ten counters on their ten frame. Players take it in turns to spin the spinner and then add or remove counters from their ten frame, depending on what they spin. As they're playing, I'm going to ask my kids to say the maths sum that they're making with their counters. For example, if I already had 5 counters on, and I spun a +2, I would say '5, 6, 7 and and two more is 7'. You could also get kids to record their sums on paper as a bit of an extra challenge.

 I'd love to hear about the maths games you play with your class to reinforce Maths skills... or if you try this with your kids, I'd love to hear how it goes :)

Practicing doubles... Friday Game Day Freebie!

Hi!

My Friday Game Day post is actually on Saturday this week (oops!)... I have been completely out of whack this week after having a four day weekend... not that I'm complaining about it ;)

Today I thought I'd share a fun and easy game that I use to help reinforce the concept of doubles... one of those really important mental computation skills that littlies need.

Here is a free copy of the game boards :)

This game supports doubles to 12, but it would be easy to adjust for doubles to 20, by simply using a 1-10 die and adding the larger doubles numbers to the game board (I've included a blank one in the download in case you'd like to do this).

This game is best played in pairs or maybe threes - any more than that and it gets a bit tricky.

 

Each player will need different colour counters/tiles so they know which marshmallows they have covered. Player 1 rolls the die, doubles the number and then finds a marshmallow with that number on it and covers it. Player 2 then has a turn and so on. If a player can't make a move (because they can't find an uncovered marshmallow with the number they're looking for) they skip their turn. The winner is the person with the most number of marshmallows covered then the board is full.

Its part of my new Dice Fun... 15 games for Kindergarten pack that I'm so excited to have finished... if you'd like to check out the rest of the pack, you can have a squiz here

Have a great weekend... we are having some awesome sunny Autumn weather so I'm off to make the most of it!

 

 

It's chicken week! (with freebies!)

My class are very excited this week... it's our turn to feed our school chooks! We have about 10-12 chickens who live in the chook pen near our veggie garden, and each week, one class is responsible for collecting any fruit/veggie scraps and taking them to the chickens... on Tuesday my class was beyond excited! They couldn't wait until we could go out and feed them (which we do after lunch) I wish I had a dollar for every time I was asked if it was nearly 'after-lunch-time'! We also collect any eggs they have laid which the kids think is so much fun too!

So, with all this chicken business happening, it seemed like the perfect to learn about chickens... here's some of the activities we have done this week... 

We started brainstorming about what we know about chickens (key words/facts) and questions that we have... we will look into these questions over the next couple of weeks.

We also raided our school library and grabbed all the 'chicken-y' books for our class to read. We looked at a range of Non-Fiction texts.... here's one of our favourites - simple and fun to read.

We then completed two different activities about chooks.. the first one was a sequencing activity about the life cycle of a chicken...

Thanks to Zip a Dee Do Dah Designs for these graphics

The second was a simple template for them to share what they'd learnt about chickens.

We are working really hard on problematised situations so we tried a couple of different problems.

We started with a question that we worked on as a whole class....

Graphics c KPM Doodles 2012

The kids then worked in pairs to solve this problem...

Graphics c KPM Doodles 2012

They each had some 'eggs' and 'buckets' so that they could act it out.

They did a really good job!

If you'd like a copy of the activities we did, you can down load them from Google Drive here :)

A free Eggy Maths Game :)

It's hard to believe that Easter is just around the corner....

This week will be an extra busy one, a four day week PLUS we have swimming!

We are looking at Chickens and eggs for the last three weeks of term, partly because it's Easter, but also because its our turn to feed the school chooks next week so we are learning about all things 'chickenish'!

I thought I'd quickly share a little Maths game we are going to be using this week, it's called Egg Shake. I wanted to do something with egg cartons for Maths this week, so I hit Pinterest and found lots of great examples of this little game.

I've included a copy of the carton cover and numbers that I used, just click here if you would like a copy :)

To play, students work in pairs or small groups. The first player puts the chick in the carton and gives it a shake, then opens up the carton to see which number the chick has landed on. They then say this number aloud and use the tongs to pick up that number of 'eggs' (cotton wool/pom-poms) and put them in their basket. The next player then has a turn. The first player to have their basket full is the winner!

I played the game with my four and a half year old and she loved it! Hopefully my class does too :)

To differentiate the game for those kids who already recognise the numbers to 12 and can count collections, I'm going to ask them to take 2 more than the number they have (ie. if the  chick lands in 4, they take 6 'eggs'), so that they are practicing counting on. You could also pop two chicks in and ask them to add the numbers together or subtract the smallest from the largest. You could also ask them to double the number or the number that goes with it to make 12... the possibilities are endless! 

Have you played this game with your class before? I'd love to hear how you used it :)

Friday Game Day..... 2D shapes game freebie

It's Friday Game Day!

Here's a little game that I played with my class this week... they really enjoyed it!

It's a 2D shape game that kids play in pairs....
(Click here to download)
 

To play, kids just need a 1-6 die for each pair and a game board and coloured pencils for each player.

Player 1 rolls the die and then finds a shape with that number of sides on the game board, names the shape and traces it. We started off using lead pencils, but we soon worked out that coloured pencils are much better - you can easily see which shapes have been traced at a glance! Player 2 then has a turn and the game continues until one person has all of their shapes traced... they are the winner!

We also played it that if you rolled a 2, you got to roll again (there are no 2 sided shapes on the board) but you could play it tough and say they miss their turn! If a player can't make a move (for example, if they roll a 3 and all the triangles are already traced) they skip their turn too.

My kids LOVED this game... I hope yours do too :)

Ladybird Maths Fun!

Hi :)

Last week I wrote about a training day that  my school went to with Ann Baker - I came away really wanting to try  and do more contextual problem solving with my kiddos. Ann calls it a 'Problematised Situation', basically it's Maths learning in a more real context, that involves thinking mathematically and problem solving (... perfect for Australian Curriculum - well any curriculum really!) Problem solving always seems to be SUCH a tricky thing for kids, so I'm SO keen to really stuck into it with my Receptions this year.

We started off the lesson with a game of noughts and crosses (click here for info on a nifty way of playing it with the whole class). I've often played this game with my kiddos, it's really great for problem solving and (as Ann told us!) adaptive reasoning. Which ever way you look at it, kids LOVE this game and learn from it so I figure it's a win/win situation!

I started with some pretty straightforward questions today - we've been learning about Ladybirds so I followed that theme for our Maths too. Our first question was.....

We completed this question as a class, and talked about what the problem was and what we needed to figure out. It was a big heads-up to see the number of students that didn't understand 'altogether', so we had to explore that in detail as well. 

I actually did this on the Smartboard, but didn't save it (bright, I know!) so here's basically how we figured it out...

I then sent the kids off with this problem....

I was really impressed with their efforts! 

We spent a good 15 mins at the end of the lesson sharing some of our work -  this was a really valuable part of the lesson. I got to hear kids explain their thinking and talk through any misconceptions and the kids also got a chance to share their thinking which is really helped clarify their learning.

We use a document camera that can be used with the interactive whiteboard... such a handy tool! It means that we can display the kids work on the board (rather than us all trying to peek into their book!) and we can draw/write things on their work as we need to.

I'm really trying hard to have a big focus on the reflection part of our lesson... it's an area that I need to put more effort into! Today's reflection worked well, so I'm definitely inspired to keep it up :)

Here's the next problem we're going to try... 

This has a focus on decomposing number.. I'm hoping some kids might start to see the links with Rainbow Facts to 10!

A template for them to use to help solve the problem

If you'd like a copy of these questions, just click here.

I was really pleased to see how many kids could use what they'd learnt from the first problem to help with the next one, and I learnt that I need to plan for some more learning on the concept of 'altogether' - so it was a productive day all round! ;)

Have a great week!

Jack and Jill's Bucket... A Measurement Activity

 So far this year, we've been looking at Nursery Rhymes, and last week focused on Jack and Jill. I don't think I've ever really noticed until now, but that is a pretty gruesome story... two people falling down a hill and cracking their heads! I only really noticed when I played an animation to the class and half of them were looking at me eyes wide open, worried if Jack was going to be alright! Poor, dear kids!

Anyway, I thought I'd share one of our Maths lessons from the week. For this lesson, we compared how much different 'buckets' (well, containers that we had in our room) could hold. I worked with the kids in small groups; they each chose a 'bucket' and we measured how many blocks they could hold.

We used a number line to show how many blocks were in each bucket...

We then recorded what we'd learnt...here's an example of our finished piece of work...

Sorry about the picture quality :)

The kids really enjoyed this activity, I was able to have some really good conversations about comparison and measuring with each group when which was great too. If you'd like a copy of the sheets we used to make these, just click here :)

Freebie for St Patrick's Day :)

Hi :)

I just wanted to pop on quickly to share a little Maths activity for St Patrick's Day... I'm joining up with Mary from Sharing Kindergarten for her St Patrick's Day Linky!

It's a simple but fun game for kids to play to practice addition to 12..great for pair work, early finishers and Maths Centers! I just print off the game board and laminate it, then you just need 2 dice and some counters to cover the numbers with. Each player rolls both dice, adds them together and covers that number on one of the shamrocks. If the number has already been covered, they miss their turn. The player with the most numbers covered at the end of the game (when all shamrocks are covered) is the winner!

Click here for a copy :)

I hope your little ones enjoy this game :) What plans do you have for your class for St Patrick's Day?