The frog glyph and my thoughts on glyphs.

 I have never gotten into glyphs.  I never understood their purpose and they always seemed too complicated and needing too much class time without much learning.
I had an "aha" moment this past weekend listening to Deanna Jump speak at the Minnesota Kindergarten conference.
Mrs. Jump explained that the purpose of glyphs is to create data in a picture form but not to stop there.  Use the data created to make graphs and charts and then interpret the data.
She also stressed that Kindergarten glyph should only have 3 elements.  Any more than that is way too much information.
I was inspired.  I have been looking for ways to do more data analysis types of activities in my ongoing quest to teach math in more integrated and engaging ways.

As part of a recent unit of study on ponds I was able to create my first glyph!
We read several pond stories and all of them included frogs.  Frogs captured the imaginations of my young learners.

Here are the 3 questions in my glyph:
I think frogs are cool = a dark green frog outline
I think frogs are creepy= a light green frog outline

I have touched a frog = big wiggle eyes
I have not touched a frog= small wiggle eyes

I like Jump Frog Jump best = a long red tongue
I like In a Small, Small Pond best = a short red tongue

After creating the data we used graph paper and tally charts to collect the data and compare our numbers using greater than, less than and equal too terminology.

If you are like me and have never used glyphs before I hope you give it a try and see if they inspire you too!

10 Frame Math Games

10 Frame Cookies

You will need the 10 frame cookies and cookie jar.

A 10 frame activity sheet for each student.

Taking turns, each child selects a 10 frame cookie from the jar.  The student then reads the 10 frame and says the corresponding number.  Then the student fills in the 10 frame and the numeral on the activity sheet.

Mystery 2 digit numbers

You will need 2 decks of standard playing cards.

A 10 frame activity sheet or white board and marker for each child.

The game leader draws 1 card from each deck and sets them next to each other making a 2 digit number.

The students read the number, write the numeral and fill in the corresponding correct amounts of 10 frames.

10 Frame Games Activity Sheets

5 Little Muffins and teaching coins and values.

Rhymes and finger plays are great ways to introduce and reinforce content topics.  I found the following rhyme and finger play very useful for teaching subtraction and money.

So, There were 5 little muffins on the bakery shop, (Hold up 5 fingers)
You know, the kind with the honey and the nuts on the top. (Pretend to sprinkle honey and nuts on top of a muffin)
Along came (name a child) with a (name a coin), (Point to child)
And bought 1 muffin and ran away. (Hold up 1 finger and pretend to run away)

Final verse after all 5 muffins have been purchased the last line is.
What!? No muffins today!
Oh well, I guess I'll have a doughnut.

I created this visual manipulative game, a book and a rhyme card.
I used a metal muffin tin (test it first as not all muffin tins are magnetic).
I created muffins using foam sheets, permanent marker, hot glue and round magnets.
I created magnetic coins by hot gluing plastic coins to magnets.  I made 5 pennies, 5 nickels, 5 dimes and 5 quarters.  I introduce 1 coin at a time and as we recite the poem the child named trades a coin for a muffin.
After each verse count the coins and their values.

SUPERKIDS Class books

If you use the SUPERKIDS reading program here are some class book ideas for each of the characters.

Up, up and away! Theme to start the year.

When I need to feel inspired for the new year I like to find a theme to focus my creativity.  This year I decided to use hot air balloon.  I had so much fun with the colorful balloons. I labeled each balloon with the student's name, using permanent marker.   I had each student color a coffee filter with washable marker.  Then I sprayed them with water to disperse the colors.  Those became the hot air balloons.  The baskets are cardboard squares also labeled with student's names.  When the students arrive at school they have fun finding their name and balloon and then those of their friends.

Counting by 5's

" Make a straight line over, then a strait line down, then a nice big curve half way around!  It's a real cool  number, come on let's try, sing along with me and COUNT BY 5'S! "  So goes the count by 5's song on Jack Hartman's Math All Around Me CD.  To enhance this song, and make the numbers more meaningful I made count by 5's gloves.

I acquired 5 sets of orange rubber gloves and 5 sets of blue rubber gloves.  I wrote the numbers needed to count by 5's in a pattern on each pair.  For example, 5 and 10 are on a set of blue gloves, 15 and 20 on orange and so on.  I did this so that if I had a small class, each student could have a pair of gloves but the numbers would still be in order.
To use the gloves, we stand in a circle and I pass out the gloves in order.  Some students get 1 glove, some get a pair, depending on class size.  As we sing the song, the student displays the number we are counting.  (I stand behind the correct number the first few times until the kids get used to holding up their number.)  I point out that each glove has 5 fingers, so we are counting 100 fingers by 5's.  A whole lot faster than counting 100 fingers by 1's!
Later on I will let the students use the gloves independently to put in order and count by 5's.
This also makes a great small group math game or center.

April the Snowman

April 15, 2013

I am a big fan of thematic units and come April, I want to delve into spring and all the learning opportunities therein, but this year the weather is not cooperating!  My students had 1 day of recess with no snow pants, boots, hats or mittens, just regular shoes and jackets.  They were free, racing around the playground with glee!  We spend the learning day talking about the change in season, writing about the weather changes and signs of spring, reading about spring weather and doing spring related math activities.  The next day, snow!  One of my students came to school and exclaimed "Teacher!  Winter came back!"  What is a teacher to do?  Roll with it, modify and keep on teaching!  We are still keeping a tally chart of how many robins we see.  We used the snow to make clouds for our science experiment on rain.  (See science activities)  We connected with the weather by writing about what we like to do when the weather is rainy or snowy and read about characters in similar situations.  I did my best to stay optimistic and promise that spring will eventually get here.  After our 2nd snowstorm of the week another dear little learner said to me "Isn't it a pretty day!?  I'm a snow bunny, I love the snow!"
Well, this is a spring for all the snow bunnies out there.  Hang in there, the flowers are coming!