Can I Get a YEE HAW?!

For those of y’all that live in Texas, you know how crazy we are about our state.  For those of you that don’t live here…I’m sorry ;) HA!  I kid!  Sort of…but seriously…you must know that us Texans are PROUD to call Texas our home.  Honestly, I can’t imagine living anywhere else…except maybe Hawaii…or a remote island in the middle of the Caribbean…cabana boy optional ;)

We spent the last week before Spring Break celebrating all things Texas.  While a certain Doctor was celebrating his Seussy-ness, we were knee deep in Texas symbols, Armadilly Chili, and lots of country music :)  Our precious music teacher coordinates this big Texas ABC play every year.  This was my first year to witness the cuteness and ohmiword…it was DARLING!!!! 

We  started off the week learning about Texas symbols.  This was a great way to extend & reinforce our vocabulary from learning about US symbols just a few weeks earlier!  I went back and drew this AFTER we made a list and quick sketches of the symbols during a whole group activity.  There’s NO WAY I would’ve had time to do this with the kids!  But I love that this helped us to anchor our learning and serve as a visual for the week.

   

We read lots of books about cowboys, Texas, and our favorite state roadkill…er, small mammal…the armadillo.  One of our favorite stories to read was Armadillo Rodeo by Jan Brett.  The kids thought Bo was hilarious!  Silly lil’ ‘dillo!  We worked on summarizing and I had the kids write about what happened at the beginning/middle/end of the story…this is a concept we just can’t work on enough!  Then we made our cutie little armadillos using a little black garage sale dot for the nose…y’all…the kids were OBSESSED with them!  I left the template at school, but I’m happy to come back and share if y’all want it.

We also turned ourselves into cowboys and cowgirls.  I’ve done this little craftivity for several years, but I always used a paper plate for their face and yarn for their hair.  My cutie teammate had the darling idea of using pictures of their faces and ohmiword…I LOVE!!!  SO stinkin’ cute!  We did a little writing to go along with it, but I guess I didn’t take a pic of that.  The prompt was, “If I were a cowboy/cowgirl…”

Of course, we extended the theme into our literacy and math stations as well.  Here are a few math activities my kids worked on last week.  Since our state dish is chili, we used beans for counters.  Then I made some construction paper beans for a few activities. 

For this activity,  the kids pulled two construction paper beans out of an old, cleaned out chili can and then counted out a matching number of pinto beans.  Then they practiced making number sentences to go along with it.  Super simple and great for reinforcing addition.

Next up, we worked on subtraction.

We did a little “Delicious Difference” activity using tens frames for help.  First up, the kids rolled a couple of dice.  Then they used the counters to fill that amount of spaces in their tens frame.  Next, the kids turned over a construction paper bean and then filled up that amount of spaces in the tens frames.  We counted the total amount and then removed the smallest number and practiced making matching number sentences.   

   

We also practiced subtracting from 10.  SUPER quick and easy.  The kids were given a template with 10 beans.  Then they had to turn over a construction paper bean to determine the amount they would REMOVE from the set of 10.  Of course, we practiced writing number sentences to match our work, too!

We’ll be doing a lot more math activities just like these  in the weeks to come using all sorts of things for practice…sunflower seeds, Easter eggs, etc.  The simpler, the better!!!! 

If all that Texas sized fun and excitement doesn’t make you wanna move to the Lone Star state, I don’t know what will!!! HA!!!!