Make SNOW Mistake About It…We LOVE Winter!

I can’t really say we love “winter” here in Texas…specifically, south Texas.  There’s not much winter here to speak of.  We have a few cold snaps here and there, but at this very moment, my 5-year-old is chasing our new dog outside…in his shorts…and nothing else ;)  Now that’s MY kind of winter!!!!!!

We’re bringing as much winter as we can to the classroom and we started our first week back after break with some snowman related activities.  We definitely kept ourselves busy and had SNOW much fun in the process {sorry…I couldn’t help myself ;)}

I loved teaching symmetry this time of year.  I introduced Mr. Half-a-Snowman and explained to the kids we’d need to make him symmetrical.  Of course, they had NO clue what I was talking about!!!  SO…we made a little anchor chart.  {Real quick.  I’ve had LOTS of questions about how I do my anchor charts.  I always do a rough draft with the kids…always.  Then I go back and recreate them to make them legible :)}

 

Once we brainstormed things that were symmetrical and did a few little symmetry sorts, we laid out Mr. Half-a-Snowman and all my babies got to help me make him symmetrical.  This was such a great learning opportunity for my kids.  They loved getting hands-on practice to reinforce the vocabulary and it was really cool to hear my kids tell their friends HOW to make the snowman symmetrical. 

  

Okay, okay…so it’s not a *perfect* resemblance, but they sure did have fun trying to make it “just right” :)  I think they did a dang good job!  We reinforced our learning by making these little symmetrical snowflakes.  You can read about what they looked like in my 1st grade classroom HERE and HERE.  You know how you get tired of doing certain activities year to year???  Okay, well I NEVER get tired of this one!  It’s a great activity for symmetry, patterning, and a great springboard for talking about being unique, differet, and one-of-a-kind :)

 

We’ll continue talking about symmetry this week using some activities from my sweet friend, Cheryl’s, unit…

I know it says these are activities for a Sub Tub, but y’all…this unit is so dang amazing that I wanted it all for myself!!!!!  HA!!!!  Seriously…if you don’t have it yet, you MUST check it out!!!! 

We also worked a lot on ‘counting up’ and ‘making 10’.  This was one of the kids’ FAVORITE whole group activities!  I made a giant tens frame and snowman.  I bought these awesome snowflakes at Target for 10cents a pop a few days after Christmas and was holding onto them for inspiration.  I was SO excited to put them to good use!!!!

In this game, the kids had to toss a purple snowflake onto the snowman.  The tosser would read the number and then fill in that many frames on the tens frame with the snowflakes. 

     

Once the frames were filled, the kids had to tell me how many MORE it would take to make ten altogether.  Then they had to use a different colored snowflake to fill the remaining frames.

After filling the frames, the kids had to give me a number sentence to match the toss and fill.  For the one above, they’d have to tell me, “5+5=10”.  Then we practiced writing the number sentences on the dry erase board.  They did SO awesome with this activity and it was a really great hands-on opportunity for them to see how different number amounts can be combined to make 10.

 

In other news, how DARLING is that sweater on my sweetie on the right?!?!  Chevron!  A girl after my own heart!!!  I wish it came in an adult size!!! 

Moving right along…

I made up this little greater than/less game for my kiddos this week and you could’ve heard a pin drop.  They were OBSESSED!!!  I really wanted my kids to get some hands on experience differentiating between more/less.  So…I made this little greater than/less than workmat, crumpled up some paper {aka:  snowballs}, and made some number cards {from 1-15}.  Then I took one of my 10cent snowflakes and added the greater than/less than symbol to it.

Then I took the workmat and placed it in the middle of my carpet and threw *snowballs* all around it.  I told my kids that they had 5 seconds to collect as many snowballs as they could and then I turned them loose.  OH…I only had two kids collect at a time :)

After 5 seconds, the kids stopped collecting and then we {the whole class} counted each player’s snowballs.

 

As we counted each player’s snowballs, I had them count out a matching amount of pop cubes and make a tower.  Then they put their matching number card…and number tower…on the workmat.  Once both players added their cards and towers, we talked about it as a class.  I asked them what they could tell me about the numbers on the workmat.  “One is bigger!”  “One is smaller!”  “They’re different amounts!”  I got A LOT of different answers.  I LOVE when they use math talk!!!

After we talked about which number was greatest/least, I explained how we read math sentences/problems from the left to the right…just like we read books!  Let’s use the picture above as an example.  We discussed how we would say that 11 is LESS than 12.  They had to manipulate the symbol on the snowflake to make sure we could read the sentence correctly.  Awesome little hands-on experience for those kids.  They knew the “alligator” had to “chomp chomp” the greater number, so they did a really great job of helping their friends make sure the symbol was facing the correct direction.  After we manipulated the symbol and read the sentence to determine the greatest/least amount, we took our towers and compared them in length and height.  Then we talked about how many more/fewer were in each tower {The tower of 11 is shorter than the tower of 12;  the tower of 12 is longer than the tower of 11;  11 is 1 LESS than 12…I can tell because if you take one cube away from the tower of 12, you will have an EQUAL amount…and vice versa}. 

Here’s a little clip of us playing the game.  Don’t expect anything fantastic.  After I watched it, I realized that not only do I sound very *manly*, I also use my hands A LOT and I repeat myself way too much.  And I saw…and heard…about a hundred things I’d do differently :)  But this just gives you a little idea of how it’s played. 

Greater Than/Less Than Whole Group

Can y’all tell I love math?!  I do!  And I love trying to figure out new and exciting ways to make it hands-on and engaging.  My kids are seriously BEGGING to play these games every day now!!!! 

And I’ll be back tomorrow with a little virutal “peek at my week”.  I’m going to *try* and show y’all a visual of my plans just like one of my favorite people EVER…the fabulous DeeDee Wills :)  But please don’t expect anything near as impressive!!!  HA!!