Winter Math Stations!

One of my personal goals this year was to make time for my students to participate in math stations to practice the skills we have learned throughout the year. With that being a goal of mine, I wanted to make my own math stations for my kids that I knew would work for them and that they would enjoy. You may have seen my 12 Fall Math Stations in a previous post and now I'm ready to share my 12 Winter Math Stations. My kids get so excited about this time of day, so I'm happy to report that I have made more time this year to fit these in! We may not get to them every day, but we do almost every day which is a huge improvement from last year. Not only do the kids enjoy these math stations, but they really get a chance to practice math skills while doing so! Win, win!! :)

Here is a peek at a few of the 12 stations that my kiddos are using right now and how we do math stations in our room.

On a pocket chart (seen below), I have the station numbers in different colors. My tables in my room are also the colors of the rainbow (minus orange since I only have five tables) so it makes organization super easy. Whatever color number they are at, that is the table color they go to with their math station. For example, if they are at station 9 they will bring their math station bag to the yellow table and begin working. The kids at station 2 and 8 (the orange stations) are my write the room math stations which obviously don't need a table. I keep all of our math stations in these drawers (seen below) and the gallon bags are labeled with the number so everything gets returned to the correct place. I call a couple numbers at a time and they come grab their bag and go to their table to get started. We only do one math station a day and I rotate the names in the pocket chart for the next day.

 

 Now for the math stations inside of those drawers...

Earmuff Mania: making ten by dressing the snowmen in two different colors of earmuffs

 

Shake & Spill Snowflakes: shake 10 snowballs and spill them on the snowflake, how many are on the snowflake and how many are off? They are able to practice combinations of 10.

 Winter Clothes - Write the Room: there are four different recording sheets to practice counting, counting on, one more/one less, and addition.

I also include answer keys for some of the math stations so that the kiddos can independently check their answers when they finish. They LOVE it!

 Penguin Craze Match: matching teen numbers to the corresponding ten frames

 Snowball Fight: each partner draws a card and whoever has the higher number keeps the cards, but there's a twist! If they draw a snowball card, they have to put all their cards back under the pile. :)

 

 Ice Fishing Draw, Say, Keep Those Shapes: students practice their 2D and 3D shapes with this game which also requires them to check their partner's answer too.

Happy Flakes: students draw a card and write the number in the snowflake on their recording sheet. Then they count on two more times from that number and record it. 

 The Height of a Snowy Night: use a snowball ruler to measure different types of winter clothes. 

 

 Roll a Snowman: this one comes in addition (use 2 dice) and regular subitizing (use 1 die). Once they roll the number, they get to draw that piece onto their snowman until it is complete.

 Chilly Addition & Subtraction. These mats are great to practice addition and subtraction. They draw a card and write the corresponding equation.

 

Also included in the pack are roll and cover games and a graphing activity with math cards and questions. As you see in the pictures, we love to use dry erase crayons instead of EXPO markers for our laminated math stations. They work awesome and erase really well without leaving residue like markers can do sometimes.

Once it's time to clean up math stations, I ring a bell and they erase, put everything back in their bag like they received it, and put it back in the drawers. They are little rock stars at this by now and it works great! 

You can get these math stations here if you liked what you saw! 

I will soon be making some spring math stations too so there will be stations for fall, winter, and spring that are all aligned to the Common Core Standards! Stay tuned! :)

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Makeover & Magic Sticks!

Howdy everybody! I wanted to do a post tonight about my winter math stations, but as I went back to look at the pictures I took on my phone they weren't too great of quality. So....I guess I'll have to take new pictures on my real camera and post about that later!  :)

Instead, I thought I would share the excitement my kinders were in when I introduced the magic spacers in writing! I really want my kiddos to remember their spaces when they are writing so I can read it better and so can they. In came...the magic spacer! This is not a new idea, but it was new to my kids. I used to always remind them to use "finger spaces" but how easy is it to forget to put your finger down after each word? When I introduced the spacers, they always had something in their hand to remind them to put a space after each word. It works great and they are excited about it! I really think sometimes it's all in how you present something to get them to buy into it because they are just colored popsicle sticks!

Yay!! All of their writing looks so much better and I can read it! 

 It also works so much better for my little lefties! 

On another note, what do you think of the mini blog makeover?! I made a new header that links up, a meet the teacher section (on the side), and a new blog button! I'm so excited about it and pretty much spent my afternoon working on it, so of course I had to blog and share it! :)

One last thing, there is only about an hour left of the Snowball Facebook Freebie Hop!! Hurry and check it out if you haven't already! It ends at 10 pm CST tonight!! My freebie will go back to a paid product so be sure to download it when you get there. The freebies are awesome and it seriously took me only about 20 minutes to go through it all AND leave comments on all the TpT freebies, so it doesn't take long! If you've already gone through, I hope you had fun! I know all of us bloggers did! :)

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Facebook FREEBIE Hop!!

Don't miss the BIGGEST Snowball Fight of the Year!!

22 of your favorite bloggers have teamed up to bring you a...

Our forts are built...
the snowballs are packed & stacked...
and we're about to BLAST you with FREEBIES!!

So lace up your boots, pull on your mittens,
and get ready to load up on 'SNOW' much good stuff!!

Hop on over to to the Keepin' It Krazy Facebook page to pick up my freebie!

Look for this tab on every Facebook page to find the next FREEBIE.

Note: You will not be able to access the freebies from an iPad.  

Click the image below to download a copy of the clickable map to find your way to all the 'snow forts'!

The Snowball Fight begins at 10 am CST on Saturday, January 18th.  

But don't delay because the snowballs melt at 10 pm CST on Monday, January 20th!!

We hope you have fun on the hop and find lots of fun freebies that you and your kiddos will love!

Make sure to follow our blogs too so you'll never miss a FREEBIE!  

Thanks for joining our Snowball Fight!!

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Tricky Teens!

This week we started learning about those tricky teen numbers. I wanted to share a couple of things we did that I found to be helpful. Our first day, we introduced all of the teen numbers as "ten and some more." To do this, we used ten frames, counters, and place value layering cards. We would fill up our ten frame and lay out the "10" card. Then for each teen number, we made it with the counters and showed the numeral by layering the place value cards. For example, if we were making 15, we would place the "5" card on top of the zero of the "10" card to show what the numeral looks like. Then we would know fifteen is "10 and 5" and add 5 more counters to go with our full ten frame. Make sense? It's a nice concrete way for the kiddos to see how that number is made and what it looks like.

After going through the numbers together, we went back to practice with a partner. One partner got to choose the "some more" card and the other partner had to make the teen number with the counters. Then they would switch. At this point, I really focused and wanted the kids to call these numbers 10 and ____ instead of the name we call them (eleven, fifteen, nineteen, etc.). This way they truly understand what the number is and can relate it to ten. Not to mention those silly teen words don't seem to make much sense to them at this age. It's no wonder they want to write 81 for eighteen because you hear the eight part first. I'm hoping this will help relieve some of that confusion. This is the first time I've taught the teen numbers this way, so it will be interesting to see the difference as we continue on. I would love to hear how you introduce the teen numbers too, so comment away! :)

Now we are going over each teen number in depth, so we are making them again but one at a time. We are using my "Teaching the Teens" sheet to practice each number. I had the ten frame, counters, and place value cards on the smart board while we filled out the worksheet together as seen below.

Hopefully this gave you some new ideas to help your kiddos learn the teens, and if you're interested you can get the place value layering cards and the teen worksheets in my store (just click the pictures below). 

        

The layering cards are FREE {yay!} and the teen worksheets are one of my best sellers. Again, please share any ideas you have on teaching those tricky teens in the comments! I would LOVE to hear them! :)

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January Currently - Hello 2014!

Well hello 2014! Didn't you just sneak up on us?! I hope you all are enjoying your winter break and had a fun (and safe) New Year's! I'm linking up with Farley for the January Currently. 

Here we go! 

Listening - love me some Law & Order SVU....the hubby doesn't like it so much, but it's one of those shows I grew up watching with my dad and I love it! Only SVU though...probably because of Olivia, she's awesome!

Loving - our new wall decor that we put up in our new house over the break! They added so much to our big blank walls. :)

In the middle of the clock, we are going to put up vinyl that says "TIME spent making memories is worth every SECOND!" So it's not complete yet. Since we don't have any kids yet, we decided to put pictures of places we have traveled together. It's sentimental to us and I'm sure it will change over the years, but we love it right now!

Thinking - (sorry to those of you that have to go back tomorrow) "I'm so glad I don't have to go back to work tomorrow!" --- We go back on Monday.  I'm not ready! Literally...the plans aren't done! I haven't gotten into that mode yet...you?! ;) 

Wanting - I'm really wanting to finish my Common Core ELA Vocabulary Posters before I go back. They've been "in the works" for a while now and there have been some people who have bought my math posters that have asked for these. I'm working on it, I promise! Like any other break, I had high hopes to get some products finished and posted but it just hasn't happened yet! I still have a few more days right?!

Needing - I really need to get my plans done for school so it's off my plate and I will be ready instead of doing it last minute. Maybe that will happen tomorrow?!

Memory/Tradition - I love, love, LOVE family time at Christmas! We have so much fun together playing games, playing with the babies, eating yummy food, and catching up. It's the best!

Well, would you look at that! I just blogged THREE days in a row! WOW! Go me! Haha!!

Now it's your turn to link up your Currently and I hope you all have a FANTASTIC 2014!!!! It's going to be a GREAT year! :)

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