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January Approaches...

My whole family has been in pajamas for the entire day three days!  But now we're running low on supplies and we must venture into the world for food.  Oh well, it was fun while it lasted - staying up late, leftovers, video games, and toys, toys, toys!

It's time to start thinking about next week - the older boys are working on homework projects (please - what evil teacher assigns a project over Christmas break!?) and - uugghh - I must do lesson plans!

I think I am going to start with my Five Frosty Snowmen plans just to make things easy.  It's already printed, laminated, and cut!  Here is some of it-
The Poem

  Retelling
 


Compound words with the word SNOW! 
 


  Quotation marks and Reader's Theater



Seasonal Sort
 

Ordinals


  Roll and Cover



 If you're interested, this pack is available 
in my TpT store.


 I also need to walk in ready for the New Year!  I have been working on writing paper that has seasonal and holiday themed paper for the whole school year.  I use it for prompt writing, 'sticker stories' in the writing station, or post the color version on the Promethean Board as an additional writing opportunity.

Here are the New Year pages for FREE.  Check back - I will post the whole year long pack in my store soon!





Freebie Fridays

Happy New Year!  Hope you have a terrific 2013!

~Nikki
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Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary


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Christmas Freebies

I'm putting together a few things for my class for the next couple of weeks (we go until the 20th!) and wanted to share!

We have been reading lots of Gingerbread Boy stories, so we will be spilling some buttons out onto these gingerbread mats when we work on our Magic Numbers.





I've linked up with these terrific blog hops full of Freebies!  Go check them out!


Classroom Freebies Manic Monday
!
~Nikki
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What did you discover? Math talks!

What are kids doing in math these days?  Talking!
Talk, talk, talk!  That thing I try to get them to stop doing half the time!  (Be quiet and focus!)  But during math, it is probably the most powerful tool I've got in my arsenal.

Not only do we talk to each other during the activity, but after we have had our lesson and activity for the day, we always come back to the circle to talk about our experiences.  My favorite question to ask is "What did you discover?"  I might also ask:
     How did you discover that?
     How do you know that's right?
     Is this problem (activity, game, etc.) like another?  How are they
         the same?  How are they different?
     Did anyone do this in a different way?

Questions can be broad, or get very specific, depending on the concept we are discussing.

Kids share all sorts of tidbits, some of it spot on, and some not so much.  But, when kids explain their thinking and strategies, they reveal volumes about what they understand or misunderstand.
I know as teachers, we focus on what kids know and understand,  but, we shouldn't  overlook the power of learning about our kids' misunderstanding.

When kids describe their thinking and problem solving methods, they have an opportunity to clarify their own ideas.  As they listen to others' ideas, they learn to see things from different perspectives.

This week, we were working on the concept of one more and one less.  To help the kids 'see' the concept, we built number lines.



We made a chart to record some of our discoveries.


Gone are the days of quiet math class with only the sound of pencil scratching across the paper.  These days a good math class has a bit of noise - dice rolling, counters moving, dominoes sliding, cubes stacking -and kids talking!




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