Apps I'm Loving Lately

Hey everyone! Oh how I have missed blogging! I have been so busy! I'm hoping to get more into a balance of blogging more frequently, we'll see how that goes.

This year is rocking my socks off! My kiddos and I sure are having fun as we learn every day. It's kind of a crazy mess as we all figure out common core but it's keeping me on my toes.

I have been loving on some technology lately, due to some very generous parents. I had a family donate 2 ipod touches to my classroom. With my ipad, 2 shuffles that I got from a grant, and now 2 touches I have quite the apple classroom. I have had such a blast getting the touches set up and adding all of my favorite apps. I decided to be very limited in what I put on them, thus making sure my kiddos are really only playing games that are benefiting whatever skills I deem necessary.

Literacy: My kiddos use these apps during Daily 5. I have 3 students at a time using "technology" (1 ipad, 2 ipod touches). I usually do 3 rounds of Daily 5 a day so that means 9 students a day get ipad or itouch time. Each student gets a turn every few days - I keep track of it all on my Daily 5 clipboard.

1. Phonics Tic Tac Toe - Students practice all kinds of phonics skills. This app is so fun and gets in so many skills that my kiddos need to work on like long/short vowels, blends/digraphs and more. 

2. Word Bingo - Practice sight words in a fun way. My kiddos love to earn the "bingo bugs".

3. Same Meaning - Practice synonyms.

4. Same Sound - Practice homophones.

5. Timed Reading - Easy way for the kiddos to practice fluency on their own.

6. SAS Flash Cards - Made by the SAS company (located in my area) you can download tons of flash card decks. I use this as intervention for my kiddos who are practicing our district's sight word sets. They can even self check by listening to the word after they say it.

7. Word Magic - Great phonics practice of vowel pairs and blends.

Math: My kiddos play these apps during my Math Games time which is 3 afternoons a week. I typically will have them work with a partner on the touches and sometimes 2-3 students on the ipad. 

1. Math Bingo - Addition, Subtraction (even multiplication and division for you upper friends).

2. Sushi Monster - Seriously one of my favorite math apps right now. Students have to find the two addends/partners for a sum and feed them to the "monster". As they get better the monster changes which is very motivating if you are an 8 year old. :)

3. Jungle Math Bingo - Just like regular math bingo but with fun jungle music and animals.

4. Freefall Money - Great practice with counting money, identifying values and more.

5. Teaching Number Lines - Basic but a good introduction and practice of number lines.

6. Word Problems - Also basic but I use this one sometimes with my lower math students in math groups.

7. A+ Math Success - Start struggling students on this and in 31 days they will be so much more successful in addition and subtraction.

8. Teach Me First Grade and Teach Me Second Grade - This one technically is Reading and Math together. I originally bought the first grade version last year and had some of my lower students use it frequently. This year they came out with a second grade version. I wish it was a bit more challenging but it is great review and my kiddos love to earn "coins" and buy things from the "store". 

Math Partners

I have always loved teaching math. I'm always trying to make it more interesting and engaging for my kiddos. This year I've implemented official math partners. Instead of doing independent work my kiddos work with their math partners. They are now able to explain their work so much better. As they taught us in college "knowledge is socially constructed". Kids need time to talk, discuss and explain. I have to remind myself that noise is okay - as long as we are all on topic.

I found these cute pb&j cut outs at The Dollar Tree and immediately thought they would be perfect for helping my kiddos remember who their math partner is. I also like being able to say "peanut butters read the problem, jellies write the number sentence" etc.

Dollar Tree should still have these if you want to pick some up. They also had "mouse and cheese" and "frog and lily pad" matching cut outs as well. I may need to think of a use for some of those too! :)

Nonfiction Magazines

We just finished a nonfiction writing piece. We learned how to write a complete nonfiction paragraph and do research. Second graders love to research! They are naturally curious about so many things! We researched bats and owls and also apples and pumpkins. We read nonfiction books about each topic and then also went online and did research there. After compiling a list of facts the kiddos got to work writing their rough drafts. We then revised and edited them before publishing. Then it was on to publishing.

The kiddos worked in pairs to publish their magazines. For example one student wrote about owls and another student wrote about bats. They then put them together to make one magazine and added text features together. Here's how they turned out:

I'm so proud of them! They did an excellent job and turned out really well!

Hundreds Board Song

Last June I go to a training on SIOP - Sheltered Instructional Observation Protocol. What a mouthful! I learned that using SIOP makes learning accessible to all students, especially students who are learning English as a second language. The training was at another school in the county that is doing very well with SIOP. As a part of the day we were told to go tour/explore the school and take pictures of as many SIOP things that we could. I love seeing other teacher's classrooms - it gives me so many ideas!

One second grade teacher had a poster labeled "Hundreds Board Song" on her wall. I read it and thought it was pretty neat because it helped the kids remember what/when to add and subtract when moving around the Hundreds Board. Later I talked with one of the SIOP coaches and she told me that the teacher actually sings the song with her kids, playing the guitar. She made up the lyrics to go with Beyonce's Irreplaceable. She showed us a video and it was too cute! I couldn't wait to use it with my kiddos!

A big thanks to Patricia Owen from Hodge Road Elementary!

Our very first math unit this quarter was Place Value (Numbers in Base Ten in Common Core speak). We were doing TONS of hundreds board activities so I knew I would have to teach my kiddos the song. They absolutely loved it! I downloaded the instrumental version of "Irreplaceable" on itunes and then wrote the lyrics on chart paper and taught it to my kids. It only took them a few times of practicing to have the words memorized - along with motions to go with it all.

After talking with Patricia and receiving her permission, I have a video to share with you but it's nothing fancy. I took the audio of my kids singing and used imovie to add the lyrics. It's so untechnologically perfect but it'll give you the picture.




Here is a little sheet I made that has the lyrics and a picture that helps the kiddos remember the movements on the hundreds board. Feel free to use it in your classroom! Click HERE to donload it on Google Docs.

Math Games for the New School Year

My Math Games Posts Part 1 and Part 2 are some of my most visited posts on my blog. I love math games! My kiddos last year loved them too! They begged to do Math Games! I knew that I would need to reorganize my games for the new school year. It was one of those items on my to do list that was important but not quite as important as making name tags and planning for the first week.

So it got pushed back until after school started. One afternoon I went through my cart and pulled out the games that we won't use until later in the year and organized. Here's what the cart looks like now:

Our first unit for math is numbers in base ten/place value. So all of my games that are currently out are place value related. Here's what I have out currently:

Swinging Around the 100's and 200's Chart - Free on TPT from Fourth and Ten

Flash Cards - of course. Such an easy bin. I took out the time and money ones and just stuck with addition and subtraction. Dollar Tree has great flash cards.

Race to 100 - Free on TPT from Primary Graffiti

The ever popular Bump from Sunny Days - My kiddos love, love, love this game! For student led conferences last year they had to show their parents how to play one math game - this was a popular choice!

Addition Jenga - Picked up this original Jenga set at the flea market for $3 and then downloaded the free labels from Minds In Bloom. I printed the labels onto adhesive backed paper and then laminated it. Yep, you got that right - they were sticky and laminated! I wasn't sure if you could do that but it worked out great - I wanted the durability of laminating but didn't want to have to tape or glue each strip. 

The kiddos simply build the jenga cube as usual and then when they remove a piece they have to solve it. Simple, yet fun!

Place Value Bulls Eye from What The Teacher Wants - I think this is my personal favorite because it helps the kiddos practice expanded form and because it's so fun! It reminds me of skeeball - who doesn't love skeeball?

Slides and Ladders from First Grade a la Carte - To practice doubles facts! This isn't a place value game but addition is coming up next and this game is simple so I threw it in there. 

Last but certainly not least in my kiddos' eyes is Power Towers - They absolutely love this!  The original idea comes from Teacher Tipster. 

That's the beginning of the year line up. I've shown my kiddos the games and now we are beginning to practice playing them. They are already excited!

We Like to Move It!

It's already week 5 of the new school year for me! Phew! I'm loving my class!

For the past few weeks I have been teaching them greetings and activities for morning meeting. I've found some new ones thanks to pinterest, TPT, and bloggers. I've especially found a bunch that get us moving!

Here are some of our favorites!

 1. Cha Cha Slide - It's easy to follow, gets the kids moving, and is so much fun!

2. Get Funky - Another easy to follow, line dance type song. It gets stuck in your head easily!

3. Stomp, Stomp Clap

4. Cupid Shuffle - Yep, that's right we're shuffling. I think it's great practice of the ordinal words "left" and "right". So many of my kiddos still get those confused!

5. Jump Up, Bend Down - Haven't tried this one yet but I think it will be a winner!

I've been using these, along with the brain breaks from 3rd Grade Thoughts to keep us moving and thinking. The kids are loving them! Sometimes I'll even get a "Miss R, I think our brains need a break!"
I use my CD player and my projector to show these and it works great!

Marker Management

Today I have a quick management tip to share. I have my students use whiteboards and dry erase markers very frequently in math. I try to be very strict about keeping the boards in their lap, no doodling, following along, etc. But I still have kids who are drawing and rolling their markers on the board or throwing it around in their hands. I was starting to get frustrated last week when I realized that I needed a good motivator to reinforce whiteboard and marker procedures.

My solution is something super simple but effective!

I had some very kind parents donate colored dry erase markers - I'm talking neon, primary and more. All sorts of colors.

 My kiddos each have a black dry erase marker in their pencil boxes. I told them at the beginning of a whiteboard math time that I would be looking to see who was using their board and marker correctly. At the end of math I would pick the one person who I thought did the best job of participating while showing the correct procedures. That person would get to pick a colored marker to use for the next whiteboard math time. They would get to use it for that entire time and at the end they would return it and I would pick someone else to choose a color.

 You would have thought I was giving away a trip to an amusement park - they were so excited!

It's the small things folks! :)

Also be sure to check out my guest post over at Adventures of a Third Grade Teacher. Amber is a dear bloggy friend of mine and she has so many great ideas! I posted about how I'm using "math bins" in my classroom.

And for all of you who are gearing up for a new year - I feel for you! I have been back for 4 weeks already. I love meeting my new kiddos but I even more love getting into a routine. :)