Number Puzzles

I did it!  Through many, many headaches I've completed my number puzzles.  This project made me realize just how difficult it is to work with clipart.  I will have to say that they did turn out cute.  I made three different sets of puzzle cards.

The first set contains puzzles for the numbers 1-10.  Each number has three pieces with a bonus fourth piece to allow for differentiation.  Each puzzle contains the numeral, the number represented in tally mark, the number represented in base ten blocks, and the bonus piece contains the number word.

The second set contains puzzles for the numbers 11-20.  I did this set the same way as the numbers 1-10.

The third set contains puzzles for the numbers representing tens from 10-100.  This set was very challenging to make the clipart do what I wanted it to do. Each number in this set has three pieces with a bonus fourth pieces for differentiation.  This time, each puzzle contains the number, the number represented in base ten blocks, the number represented in ten frames (there was no way I was making that many tally marks and besides I taught my first graders last year not to draw by ones when your number is above 30 because it takes too long and it is hard to count) and the bonus piece contains the number word.   I did make two different variations for the number 100, one puzzle has the number shown using base ten 10 rods and the the other with the 100 block.

I can't wait for my 4 year old niece to try this!

All items are now in my teacherpayteacher store.  I even created a bundle with all three of the puzzle sets.  To celebrate the start of football season and the many long hours I spent creating these.  My puzzles will be on sale until after the Miami Dolphin game on Sunday.

Each set will be set at a sale price of $2.25, regular price is $2.75.  The bundle will be on sale for $5.00, regularly priced at $6.50.

Here are the links to each of the sets:
Numbers Puzzles 1-10
Number Puzzles 11-20
Number Puzzles for Tens 10-100
Puzzle Bundle

I'm thinking about making a mixed up sentence center with these puzzles too but that is going to have to wait a while.  I've spent too much time working on these that I need a break.

Amber

My Crazy Summer

It has been forever since I've had time to write.  Last year was a crazy, busy school year that kept me working late every night.  Over the summer, I decided to move back to Illinois, which is extremely hard to get a teaching position.  This school year, I will be subbing, working on products for my teacherpayteacher store, and tutoring.  There is always a chance that a full-time position will open up during this school year, fingers crossed.  I will have to admit, that it is a little different not setting up a classroom this year after doing this for the past nine years.  It is also hard to break my habit of buying school supplies that are now all on clearance wherever I go.

The past month, I've been busy making different themed calendar numbers.  So far, I've created calendar numbers using the following themes: football, soccer, basketball, stars, polka dots, fall (apples and pumpkins) and paw prints.  The paw print design has been the most popular design that I've created.  I'm trying to figure out some other seasonal designs that I can create.

My super cute paw print calendar numbers!

I'm currently working on numeral puzzles.  I will be making three sets of these, one containing the numbers 1-10, another with the numbers 11-20, and the last one with tens (10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100).  For these, each number puzzle will have three pieces; the numeral, tally marks representing the number, and base ten blocks showing the number.  I've also decided that I will be making a fourth piece that will contain the number word, which can be used for differentiation.  I am hoping to get these finished by the end of the week.  I am almost finished with the puzzles for the numbers 1-10.

I am trying to think about cute things to make with pumpkins and apples for September and October.  Enjoy your school week, I'll be back later this week to give an update on my number puzzles, hopefully they will be completed, fingers crossed.

Amber

Plants

For the past week, my students have been learning about plants.  It has taken all of my energy to get my very ready for Spring Break to start first graders on board to learn.  Our Spring Break will start on Friday, two more days!

We have done a lot of reading and illustrating about plants.  I'm going to share a couple of the books that we read, I've created them and have them listed in my TeachersPayTeachers store.

Last week, we read a a book that I created that goes over the process of how you plant a seed.  My students really enjoyed this book.  This was a great sequencing book that led into our center writing for the week, in which they wrote about how they would plant a garden and what they would plant in their garden.  Here is the link for our steps to plant a garden reader Planting a Garden Reader

 This week, we are working on the lifecyle of a plant.  This book was a little more challenging for my first graders.  For this book, I used vocabulary like photosynthesis, chlorophyll, and embryo (these were words that they struggled with).  My students had fun reading this book and were able to understand how something as small as a tiny seed could end up as a big plant that could then make new seeds.  Tomorrow, we will be working on one of the comprehension pages that I created for this book.  Here is the link for our Lifecycle reader: Plant Lifecycle Reader

The rest of this week is going to be crazy.  Tomorrow looks like it will be another indoor recess day because of all the rain that fell today.  Thursday is Field Day, my students will be able to be outside participating in the games in the morning.  It is always fun trying to get them to focus and do anything in the afternoon and it might be a little more of a challenge since Spring Break will start on Friday.

Amber

Habitat Study

We have started our last LDC (Literacy Design Collaboration) for the year.  This is the third one that my students have done and the third one that I've created.  I feel really confident about writing a LDC now after I have been receiving a lot of positive feedback from my trainer and others from my county.  For this LDC, we will be learning about the different habitats and creating a book about their favorite animal and the habitat that it lives in.  Right now, each class is visiting a habitat for two days.  Next week, our first graders will choose their favorite habitat that they would like to visit to learn more about.  My habitat is the savanna, yes I have the best habitat of them all.  The other habitats are the woodlands, the arctic, the ocean, the wetlands, and the rainforest.

During the two day habitat visit, I have been teaching them about some of the characteristics of the savanna and about the animals that live there.  At the end of each day, the students have to write in their habitat journals.  On day 1, they write three facts that they learned about the habitat.  On day 2, they write about three more things that they would like to learn about or questions that they have. Here is the link to our habitat journal that we are using during our habitat visits.  It is a freebie in my TeachersPayTeachers store.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/A-Look-At-the-Habitats-1148748  

We will be starting our animal/habitat focus when we return from Spring Break.  I will have lots of information to share and will post the link to the journal that we will be using to write our notes down for our animal books!  I have spent a lot of time getting this LDC module ready, I actually started back in November, I created a DonorsChoose project requesting books that our students will be using to help them with their project.  I was able to get almost $1000 worth of nonfiction books that many of my students can read independently.  After my students have finished their animal books, they are going to be able to create and print a 3D model of their animal with our 3D printer.  We are really excited for this!  I really love DonorsChoose, I have gotten so many needed resources for my classroom.  It is also a good feeling to help other teachers get the materials that they need for their classroom.  DonorsChoose is amazing and if you have checked it out, you really need to and if you have any questions, I'll be happy to help!

Enjoy your weekend,

Amber

Field Trip!

Today was a very busy, tiring day.  We had our first field trip today to a farm located down the road.  My first graders really enjoyed it.  They got to see many farm animals, go on a tractor ride, and see an animal/puppet show.  Sadly, I can't do many of these activities with my students because of my crazy allergies, I'm pretty much allergic to everything that we saw.  I have been there many times in the past, as this is a common place to go for a field trip, we haven't been there in about 3 years but they still remember me as the one that is allergic to everything!

To make it easier to spot each other on our field trip, each classroom tie dyed shirts in their own colors!  Of course my shirts had to be teal, hot pink, and orange (if you ever saw pictures of my classroom, you would see why I had to have these colors)!  

Coming back from a field trip and still having almost three hours of school left is a real challenge, especially since you can't go outside because the students in grades 3-5 are taking a benchmark test.  We really picked a good day for our field trip, on testing days we have no resources and can only leave our classrooms to go to lunch.  We spent the remaining part of our day doing fun math and literacy centers that we never get to do.  One of our centers, is our Farm Animals Roll and Write activity that I created.  This game is really cute and fun!  Each student rolls a dice and then they match the number on their dice to the animal on the sheet.  They have to write a story about the animal that they rolled, perfect activity to do this afternoon.  You can grab this freebie from my TeachersPayTeachers store.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/On-The-Farm-Roll-and-Write-1184445

Tomorrow is Wednesday, that means I have 7 more school days until Spring Break!  Yes, I have not had a Spring Break yet and have been envious of those that have already had theirs.


Amber

Printing in 3D!

It has been forever since I have found time to post.  And yes, I know that I still have a winter theme but it has seemed like winter in NC.  School has been extremely busy.  It seems like I have been living at school most days.  Hopefully this changes soon.  My goal is to start posting twice a week.

This week, our MakerBot 3D printer arrived!  I was able to receive this fabulous item from a grant on DonorsChoose.  To check out some of the grants that I have posted and funded on DonorsChoose, feel free to visit my teacher page: http://www.donorschoose.org/ottman.  They are even having a Friends and Family Contest going on right now, for every $20 donation that a teacher receives, they will get a DonorsChoose gift card that they will be able to use to help their own classroom or others.  I will have to do a post someday on DonorsChoose.

It took several hours for me to get our printer functioning but we had fun yesterday printing our first objects in 3D!  I was surprised to find out that our MakerBot Replicator 2 does not have to be hooked up to a computer.  It has an SD card with some preloaded graphics.  So far we have made a chain and a shark.  Sadly the shark broke when I was trying to get it off of the glass plate.  Now I know why the recommend putting down blue painters tape before you start your printing job.  It evens comes with a couple of the blue painters tape sheets, I have never seen such a thing before but I will be ordering more off of Amazon soon.

We are going to be using our 3D printer in the upcoming months while we are completing our habitat unit.  All of first grader is going to be learning about one of the following six habitats (the rain forest, the ocean, the wetlands, the arctic, the savanna, or the woodlands).  Our students will be completing a book about their favorite animal from their habitat.  This is going to be a lot of work and I will make time to share our journey with all of you.

It is Wednesday, that is normally a good thing but this week we have to go to school on Saturday to make up a snow day.

Amber

Jingle's Wild Week in Review

Kind of frustrated that my wi-fi is not working on my tablets. I have taken some cute pictures to go with this post but I cannot get them off of my tablet! I have been trying for the past couple of hours without any luck, it is sad that it tells you that it can't connect because of a weak signal strength but it shows that it has a strong connection strength.  I'm hoping that this issue is because of the very gloomy day that we are having today and not my brand new router. I will be adding the pictures as soon as my wi-fi wants to work again.  Anyways, back to my post. **Update** I finally have access to my pictures, enjoy!

Our elf, Jingle, had a crazy, fun week this week. He went fishing for our beta fish, Millie, he build a cup tower with our sight word cups, he brought in and decorated a little tree for our classroom, and he was sitting in our awesome chair reading Rudolph! I have had quite a few students asking if I am the one that is moving Jingle and I always respond "No, I'm not moving him, he was there when I got here in the morning." Jingle has a few more surprises in store for the last 10 days of school before Winter Break. Wow, I can't believe that we are down to the last two weeks of school!

We also started working on our parent gifts this week. I'm sure that you have seen the cute little snowmen that are made out of a battery operated tea light. Since I could not find little hats to put on the snowmen, I am having my students make them out of Model Magic. We are going to let our snowmen sit and dry as long as possible before we begin to wrap them. They are really cute, rather inexpensive, and my students we able to make them in about 10 minutes. They are already asking when they can take them home! The only thing that I have left to do to them is to either glue on a ribbon to make it an ornament. My students are also making a picture ornament, I had bought a kit years ago, that I found this year, and our PTA gave us a set. So, it seems like my students' parents will be receiving 3 ornaments this year.

I can't wait to see these all finished!

Now to start planning for the upcoming school week. This week, we are going to be working on double addition facts, long i vowel sound, adjectives, and starting our Winter Holidays Around the World, I get to teach about Germany.