Image Map

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Graphs, graphs and more graphs!

This post will mostly be made up of pictures, but I just wanted to showcase all of the graphs we have been creating this week!  We started off by practicing with tally marks and tally charts, and then transitioned into bar graphs, bar-type graphs and picture graphs!

Our new math curriculum has a section for Common Misconceptions and even I learned something!!

"Some students may think that a bar-type graph is the same as a bar graph.  Bar-type graphs have bars divided into individual cells to demonstrate one-to-one correspondence for each piece of data, whereas bar graphs have solid bars to demonstrate the total quantity for that category."

It all makes sense of course, but I've just never seen it written out an explained into such detail!  Duh!  We did our best to cover both bar graphs and bar-type graphs!  :)

We used this freebie from Susan Pickens to review tally marks and create a bar-type graph.  It worked perfectly!










We also created a new class graph or chart each day and discussed what we noticed on each graph. 

The TEKS for this say-
(8)  Data analysis. The student applies mathematical process standards to organize data to make it useful for interpreting information and solving problems. The student is expected to:
(A)  collect, sort, and organize data in up to three categories using models/representations such as tally marks or T-charts;
(B)  use data to create picture and bar-type graphs; and
(C)  draw conclusions and generate and answer questions using information from picture and bar-type graphs.

I was extremely proud of my class and the observations they were making!  At first, they noticed which part was greater, which got the least votes, if any sections were equal and other things like that.  Then they started comparing the sections and saying things like "If elephants had 1 more, it would be equal to the frogs." "We need one more M&M to be the same as vanilla."  It was awesome!!

Oh, and I let them name all of the graphs and they were cracking me up!!  I would take suggestions from the class and then we'd vote between two of them.  We quite a range of basic titles like "The Pet Graph" on a graph of unique animals we'd choose to have as a pet and then some funny ones like "The Stuff That People Like" on a graph of our favorite school subjects.  Haha!

"The Pet Graph"

"Our Boys and Girls Counting Graph"

"The Ice Cream Graph"

"The Stuff That People Like"

We Love Cakes!

"Cookie War"

"The Shirt Color Graph"
A little girl in my class wanted to name every graph "We Love ____" and suggested it every time!  "We Love Cakes!"   "We Love Pets!"   "We Love Shirts!"  :)   After "Cookie War" won for the name of our tally chart, a little boy suggested a similar title for the rest of the week- "Pet War"  "Cake War"  "Ice Cream War"...he really wanted it to win every time!

It was a fun week!

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Blog Redesign Celebration and Giveaway!!

The day has finally come for my big reveal!!!  I could not love my new blog any more!!!  The amazing Christi from Designs by Christi is the genius behind this beauty!!

If you are ever in the market for a blog design, you must check her out!!  She is so sweet and made my experience so painless.  She listened to every question I had and made all the little nit-picky changes that I wanted!!  Click this button to see her amazing work!  (but don't forget to come back and read about the giveaway!!)
Design by Christi

She also blogs over at her classroom blog- Ms. Fultz's Corner...check that one out, too!!  :)

Ms. Fultz's corner

Since I am just so excited about my new design, I wanted to do a giveaway as a part of my celebration!!  10 wonderful TPT sellers have donated to my giveaway and you have the chance to win some pretty amazing products!!

purple background © the amazing Ashley Hughes

One winner will receive 5 items of their choice from my store, along with 1 product from each of the 10 fabulous TPT teacher authors!!  Woo hoo!

Let's get this party started!!

Take a look at the sellers below to see what you could win!  Then hop over to my Facebook page to enter via the Rafflecopter giveaway tab!

Click here for Alyssa's store, click here for her blog

Click here for Melissa's store, click here for her blog

Click here for Jennifer's store, click here for her blog

Click here for Sara's store, click here for her blog

Click here for Vicky's store, click here for her blog

Click here for Sarah's store, click here for her blog

Click here for Hilary's store, click here for her blog

Click here for the Fab 4's store, click here for their blog

Click here for Jessica's store, click here for her blog

Click here for Sarah's store, click here for her blog

Click here to see my store and I hope you are enjoying my new blog design!!

The giveaway will run from Friday, September 27th until Sunday, September 29th at midnight!!

Click on the image below to get to my Facebook page.  From there, you will find the blue giveaway tab at the top and that is where you enter!!  Good luck everyone!!



Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Comparing Numbers- real life applications! (plus a freebie!)

One of our recent math concepts has been comparing numbers.  We've done a variety of activities to cover these standards-

TEKS 1.1A Number, operation, and quantitative reasoning.  The student uses whole numbers to describe and compare quantities.
The student is expected to compare and order whole numbers up to 99 (less than, greater than, or equal to) using sets of concrete objects and pictorial models.

TEKS 1.1B Number, operation, and quantitative reasoning.  The student uses whole numbers to describe and compare quantities.
The student is expected to create sets of tens and ones using concrete objects to describe, compare, and order whole numbers.

TEKS 1.1D Number, operation, and quantitative reasoning.The student uses whole numbers to describe and compare quantities.
The student is expected to read and write numbers to 99 to describe sets of concrete objects.


As we wrap up our first unit on numeration, one of the things I wanted to cover was some real life applications of number comparisons.  I dug through the newspaper and found some articles and ads to show my kiddos.




 We did a Think, Pair, Share about why we might need to know how to compare numbers and had a great discussion about it!  They shared that they would need to know how much something costs to see if they need more or less money to buy it, they would need to be able to compare their age to their sister's age and we used some of the examples from the newspaper, too!  They all decided that the bigger TV was better, so we definitely needed to know how to compare the inches on the TV!  We talked about the sports scores and prices at the grocery store as well.

My husband went to Kansas State and I went to Texas, so you know he loved seeing that score!

We tied it all in with our Weather unit and created a class book for comparing temperatures!

Thermometer image from the amazing 3am Teacher!!  Check 'em out here!

I gave each set of partners a weather map from the back of the newspaper and to make it easier on myself (with 28 kiddos!), I circled the two cities I wanted them to compare.  They worked together to fill in their page for the class book.







 They glued their weather maps on the back of their book page and I can't wait to show them the completed book tomorrow!  It'll be a big hit in our classroom library!

If you are interested in using the 2 book pages, you can download them for free right here!

Hope you are having a great week!



Sunday, September 1, 2013

Ten frame painting with Q tips!! (freebie included!)

Allright, when I saw a blog post by the amazing Mr. Greg at Smedley's Kindergarten Smorgasboard, I was totally inspired!!  I loved the idea of painting with Q tips for the fine motor practice and for the concentration it would take and I knew I could tie it in with our ten frame activities for the week!!


All week long, we were working with ten frames and practicing the concept of "10 and some more".  We practiced that when we see a ten frame with all the dots filled in, we don't even have to count it- we already know that it is 10!  From there, we just count on and get to the correct teen number.  We even tied it in with addition and some of my smarties were really catching on!  We were writing number sentences from 10 on the 2nd day of school!  It was awesome!

We had a district math training before school and some of the math coaches showed us a few ideas we could use.  One of them was a giant five frame and ten frame to show the kids the concepts we were practicing.  I made mine with green masking tape on poster board and laminated it so we could write on it with dry erase markers.  Here's a picture of it right after I made it, I forgot to snap any pictures of it in use!  I will have to do that next week when we use it again.


We also used this number book freebie from Ashley Reed throughout the week.  I really liked using it and my kiddos did well with it.  These pages are what led us into discussions about number sentences.  It was the 2nd or 3rd day of school and I just wanted to see what they were ready for, but a few actually had suggestions for what to fill in without any prompting from me.  We really looked at the numbers past 10 and made connections between the 2 ten frames.  For 17, we knew that the top frame would be filled all the way in (building that automaticity of knowing that it is already 10 without having to count) and we knew that we would have 7 more on the bottom frame.  That led us right into building the number sentence of 10+7=17.  It was great!


So on Friday, I thought we'd do something fun with ten frames, because everyone loves Fridays, right?  I messaged Mr. Greg and let him know that I loved his blog post and wondered if I could "steal" his idea of Q tip painting.  And because he is such a stand-up guy, he said Of Course!  (He really is awesome, if you haven't checked out his blog, then you are missing out!!)

Here are a few pictures of us painting our ten frames with Q tips!!







http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Ten-Frame-Freebie-858479

Click the picture above if you'd like to download the ten frame pages we used for our painting fun!  We'll be working more with the concept of "ten and some more" this coming week.  It'll be a quick week for me with Monday off for Labor Day and then being gone all day at a district reading training on Wednesday!

Thanks again for the inspiration, Mr. Greg!