Money, Money, Money!!!!!!

We had a great spring break, even if it was cold, but it’s time to get back to work. My class is starting a unit on money we made a 5 column chart today describing each coin and discussing each coins value. The kids are so into learning about counting money and have really had a good time with this unit so far.

 

After analyzing each coin we read the book, “Making Cents,” by Elisabeth Keeler Robinson       and added any additional information to our chart.

 

 I bought Amy Lemons money unit called “It’s All About The money” to help in teaching this unit. The money pictures came from her unit.

Famous Inventers (A Common Core Unit)

This is what we will be doing when we come back from Spring Break. We will be working on common core standard RI.2.3 Describe the connections between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in a technical procedure in a text while also teaching students about famous inventors and their impact on the world.

You can get it at my TpT store!

Inventors Included in this pack:
• Thomas Edison
• Alexander Gram Bell
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Benjamin Banneker
• George Washington Carver
• Henry Ford
Lesson plans for this unit are included, along with an article for each inventor. Each article comes with timeline cards for students to sequence. There are also two response sheets to accompany the activities. A home project, with parent note and rubric for grading are also included.
Students will love this engaging unit!

Addition and Subtraction Extravaganza!

Wow! It has been so crazy around here. We have been giving our district assessments and getting ready for Spring Break. So here are a few things that I have been working on over the last few weeks. My Response to Intervention teacher wanted an assessment for math fact fluency numbers 0-5 for our kindergarten and first grade teachers. We also made flash cards to go with the unit so that the students can practice their facts.

 Get a sample of the assessment here!

Get a sample of the flash cards here!

 

If you like what you see, you can get the whole unit at my TPT store!

Class Elections were a big hit!!

The students had a great time with the class elections. We made campaign posters:

Then we voted with our secret ballots and used a line plot to discover the results:

 

We interpreted our data and elected a president and vice president for the term on one month.

 

This week we are learning about the legislative branch and wrote a bill and sent it to the president (A.K.A. the principal) for her approval or veto. We read the book “House Mouse Senate Mouse,” By Peter Barnes. It takes the student through the process of a bill being written and becoming a law in a language that they can understand. Not to mention that it is a bit funny too.

 

One more week and spring break is here. I think that this year I am as excited as the kids to have a week off!

So you want to be class president…..

My class has started learning about the three branches of government. This week we are focusing on the executive branch. We are focusing on the president and his responsibilities. We began this section of our unit by watching a Brain Pop Jr. video about the president.

 

We then brainstormed a list of the president’s responsibilities and discussed what each of those meant.

 

After discussing the President of the United States, I told the class that we were going to elect a class president this week. We will be writing an opinion paper (campaign speech) about why we or someone else in the class would make a good class president. We will also make campaign signs, and end the week voting for our class president out of our top four candidates. We will hold a vote on Friday and the class president will serve a term of one month.

As a culminating activity for our introduction to the president and the idea of electing a class president we read “Grace for President,” by Kelly Dipucchio.

 

There is also a YouTube video for this book.

I will share more as we go through the week. The kids are so excited! I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

Being sick is no fun!

It has finally hit out house. My daughter and I have got whatever has been going around school. A very unproductive weekend of soup and sleeping, but I finally think that we are both feeling a little better, just in time to go back to work. Hopefully we are getting over this stuff and I can post some exciting happenings soon. My class is loving our measurement unit and we are about to start Measurement Mania next week. I will let you know how that goes.

Measurement fun has begun!!

We have started out measurement unit. The kids are having such a good time working cooperatively and exploring measurement. We have now learned about nonstandard units called “length units” by common core, inches and length units that correspond to inches, and centimeters and length units that correspond to centimeters.

 

 I found the cool poster on Pinterest, but could not find the original pinner. I made it for my class.

 

One other thing that I did this week was put my centers into old DVD cases for storage. I wish I had thought of this a long time ago. They store so well and I created a cover that gives the students directions for each center. My plan is to go back and make one for each of my math centers. I also included a little ruler on the spine so that the students know what standard of math that they go with at a glance. Do you have any unique ways to store your center materials? If so please share.