Money, Money, Money

Anyone else singing the song when they read that title? Ok, good! :)

The other day at Staple's I found this play money and coins in their dollar section. Add to that I was using the "everything in this bag is 15% off" deal and I was super excited! I bought a few packs of each.

Today I felt inspired to create some money themed games for my kiddos. I don't currently have any money games out in my math games except for a set of flashcards. I decided to use one set of the coins to make a kaboom game. All I did was hot glue some coins to popsicle sticks.

I also wrote "Kaboom" on about 5 sticks.

Then all of the sticks went face down into a pringles can that i cut down to size. The game is super easy to play. (There are lots of Kaboom games out there in bloggy land.) Kids play in groups of 2-4. When it's your turn you pull out a stick. You add the coin values and tell the amount. If your partner or group members agree with you, you get to keep the stick. If you pull a Kaboom stick you have to put all of your sticks back in the cup. :(

I added some scrapbook paper and a fancy little label and voila, math game success!

I also made my very first, I made it math game!!! Yay me! It's called Show Me the Money and involves the kids using plastic coins to show how they would "buy" items. I got the idea from the Debbie Diller Math book. I just wanted a prettier recording sheet than the one in her book :)

To download the show me the money recording sheet, click HERE.

To download the show me the money directions, click HERE.

I'm happy to share these as a freebie with everyone but I do love comments and followers. :) Enjoy!

Listen to Reading Grant

I am super duper excited to have won my very first grant! I have always thought that grant writing was hard and something I could never do until now. The Lee Brothers Sidekick Foundation gave me a grant to get some materials to use for Listen to Reading during Daily 5. Lee Brothers is a Tae Kwon Do studio that is near school and each year they offer grant money to schools in the area. I decided to apply and was thrilled that my project was accepted.

My main purchase with the grant money was 2 ipod shuffles. I can load books on CD onto these for the kids to listen to. It's better than a Listening Center because the shuffles are mobile and the kiddos can choose their own spot in the classroom. My classroom doesn't really have tons of space for a listening center anyways.

I also got some super cute headphones to go with the shuffles since I don't think that the ones that come with them (that go in your ear) are super sanitary for the kiddos to use and share. I got these from amazon.

I also purchased some books on CD from Scholastic to load onto the shuffles. I'm planning on having a few books on each shuffle and teaching the kids how to skip through the tracks and use Voice Over to find the right track. They're pretty technology savvy so it should work great!

Now I'm browsing and searching for more grants that I could apply for. We'll see what I find!

Elapsed Time Freebie

When we go back in January we'll be jumping right into our Time unit. During my planning days (during track out) I got all kinds of excited planning and making games and activities to use. I made a fun elapsed time game that includes Phineas & Ferb. My kiddos love Phineas & Ferb and I hear lots of quotes and stories about the show. It doesn't hurt that my roommate also loves the show. She works at the YMCA and they used it for one of their track out camp themes.

The game is pretty simple. To play the kiddos need a recording sheet, two dice, and a stack of activity cards. You need to make the dice using either blocks or by printing a die template onto cardstock. On one die put times like 4:00, 8:00, 5:30, etc (based on what your kids can tell time to) and then on the other put periods of time lik

e 1 hour, 2 hours, 30 minutes, etc. The goal of the game is to figure out the ending time. I put little Judy Clocks in each game set for the kiddos to use to help them. The activity cards are purely for fun but I think the kiddos will enjoy connecting an activity with a period of time. I can hear them going "What? It only took Phineas and Ferb 30 minutes to build Swinter?".

Click HERE to go to Google Docs to Download. I hope you enjoy and are able to use this freebie with your kiddos!

My First Award!

Well it's been a while! ;) After Thanksgiving I had one week left and then I tracked out. One of the many benefits of teaching year round but that also meant I was super busy getting ready for track out. So not much time was left for blogging. Or sleeping. But who says teachers need sleep anyways?

I'm so excited because I got my first blog award! Yipeeee! Haley at Following Optimism, gave me the Liebster Award for being an up and coming blog. Yay! Thanks so much Haley!

The goal of the award is to spotlight up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers. The rules are:

1. copy and paste the award on your blog
2. thank the giver and link back to them
3. reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog
4. hope that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers

So, in the spirit of Teacher Blog Love, I'm giving the Liebster award to:

2nd the Best

Smiling in Second Grade

and they ALL fall down

I know that's only 3, so many of the blogs I follow are oldies. If you are a new teacher blogger I would love to check out your blog. Leave me a comment!

I'm hoping to spend some time this week writing some more posts and catching up. I have certainly missed it!