Take Me Away.....

Oh subtraction, how fun are you? Are you teaching subtraction right now? Are you pulling your hair out yet? I actually love teaching subtraction because it gives way for some really fun hands-on activities. (Who doesn't love bowling??) We do a lot of bowling in my room during subtraction time. In years past I have used 2 liter bottles and a playground ball and bowled whole group style. Last year I discovered a bowling set in our after school storage closet! Anyhoo, if you haven't tried it yet, I encourage you to try teaching bowling with subtraction. It's an amazing way to teach them to take away from a set. I always wait until week 2 after I've taught the concept with taking away just 1. By week 2 they've got it and are ready to begin working on more complex problems. I'm uploading a SUBTRACTION BOWLING FREEBIE to use for your lessons. It's a recording sheet they can use to record their "frames" when they bowl. Column 1 has the bowling pin set to use for marking off. Column 2 has the first frame "10-___=___". Column 3 has a blank sentence to record the new set of pins from the first roll "____-____=____". I thought this was was good to reinforce the idea that we start with a certain amount and then take away from that amount. Anyway, you can grab it for FREE at my TPT store.

SUBTRACTION BOWLING RECORDING SHEET FREEBIE

New Classroom Library

I am so excited. I have a student teacher right now and she is getting ready to begin her full time teaching for 2 weeks (HELLO organization time!!), so I got a jump start on a project today. One of the most pressing issues facing me this year is my classroom library. We have just implemented Fountas and Pinnell and balanced literacy at school this year and will be fully implementing it next year. I'm very excited about it! However, looking at my classroom library, I realized that I had to really step it up and make it a place my students would enjoy using. A colleague of mine recommended the website Steps To Literacy to find book bins. I just ordered the Fun Colors set of 20 for my library. They are GREAT! They are so bright and happy and just make the center look beautiful and inviting! Since my room theme is lime green with white poka dots they are the perfect colors. Plus, I love them so much that I just ordered 3 more sets. Here is a picture of them placed on my shelves. I am in the process of organizing my books today and tomorrow, but I wanted to share a picture because they are so pretty! Once I get the bins labeled and open the center back up I'll post an "after" pic!

Sight Words Flash

I don't know about you, but my kids are having trouble learning some of those tricky "rule breaking" sight words (said, have, they...). We go over and over them but they are still so tricky to get. To try and help them learn them I've created a little thing I call "Sight Words Flash". It's a PowerPoint where the slides flash for 2 seconds at a time. I put it up on my Promethean Board at least once a day and have the students read the words aloud as they flash on the screen. They really like it. I'm hopeful that the repetition of doing it daily will help to reinforce those words. I've created several different versions based on our district words and Fry's sight words lists for kindergarten. You can pick them up at my TPT store! Click on the links below to go tomy TPT store.

Sight Words Flash Fry List 1

 Sight Words Flash- Fry List 2

  Sight Words Flash- Fry List 3

Sight Words Flash- Fry List 4

Common Core Freebie

We are in our second year of math common core here in SC and our first year of ELA common core. It's been a busy year of reinventing the wheel at the perch. We've got a new reading series, new handwriting, a new guided reading program, balanced literacy along with the new standards. Needless to say, it's been hectic, but in a good way for sure. I've been trying to keep up with everything and create new things as we approach new units. I stumbled across an awesome blog called Math Coach's Corner. If you're not following her you need to be. She's an IC in Texas and she knows Common Core to the...well, core! (pardon the pun). Anyhoo, one of the primary focuses of CC now is subitizing, which is being able to look at a number or quantity and instantly know the sets. In kindergarten we're doing this with dots, tens frames, tallies and fingers. I've seen so many worksheets to help students with subitizing and decided to adapt one for myself. I'm posting it here for you. It's called "6 Ways to Make 5" and you can get it free at my TPT store. I had my students use 2 colored bingo dobbers to create their sets of 5 and them write the corresponding number sentence to the side. It really helped my lower group understand the concept of making 5. I hope you enjoy it!