Daily Schedule - Calendar and Math Stretch

     

This summer I read the book Guided Math by Laney Sammons. Chapter 3 was all about using Math Warm-Ups. A quote that stuck out to me was, "Participating in a variety of brief mathematical activities during the first 20-30 minutes of the day leads students to make subtle mental shifts into the world of mathematical awareness and learning." (Laney Sammons also has a book called Daily Math Stretches for K-2 that sounds interesting, but I haven't checked it out yet!) This is why I've always tried to start my day with calendar. We practice so many important mathematical skills during calendar time. This year something new I want to try is to do a short math stretch after calendar as well.

First let's talk about calendar. I am just itching to get back into my classroom to get everything set up, but my school doesn't open until August 24th! So for now, I've been trying things out in the hallway of our house. Hubby doesn't even ask questions anymore when he comes out of the bathroom and there's a September calendar hanging on the wall. He knows me well. lol. 

The other night I decided that I redid every single label and poster in my room to match my chalkboard & brights theme EXCEPT my calendar! Why hadn't I thought of my calendar?? So I got to working on monthly sets of numbers, month headers, and a variety of other posters I use for my calendar routine. Here's a peek at my hallway calendar display:

And here's a close up look at my September calendar. (PS. I have a few blue pocket charts that I want to try dye-ing black this week... but in case it doesn't work out well, I bought a new black calendar pocket chart from Scholastic. I love how it looks!) 

This is what my calendar looked like the week before I left for maternity leave. Things will look completely different, but the math will stay the same! I always lead the calendar routine for the first month or so, but then my leader of the day takes over. Here's a little break down of what we usually do:

*flip the number over on the calendar and count the numbers either forwards or backwards

*look at the monthly pattern and make the same pattern with out bodies (clap, snap, stomp, etc.)

*tell what day of the week was yesterday, today, and tomorrow

*add a straw to our collection and count the straws

*colour in a ten frame and count the squares

*check the weather and fill in the weather graph

*add any loose teeth or birthdays to the charts

*sing a calendar song or watch a calendar video (such as Harry Kindergarten)

We also do a calendar journal to go along with out calendar routine. It keeps all students on task and engaged with what's going on! You can read more about it {here}.

Here is what I have planned for my weekly math stretches...

On Monday I will read aloud a picture book that goes with a skill we are learning. I started blogging about some book ideas with my Math Book Monday series. The two large tubs in the picture below are filled with math books. I have an addiction and it's time that I start utilizing them more! lol. We will discuss the math seen in the book and usually do some sort of activity to go with it. I hope to continue this blogging series again once school is back in session! I can share more about the books we use and the activities to go along with them. 

On Tuesday we will do a number of the day activity. I've done this before as a math centre or activity before, but this time I created a cute set of posters that I will hang down the side of my big white board. I will laminate the cards so we can use them with dry erase markers. I created little number cards from 1-20 so each week we will pick a number, veclro it to the number of the day card, and show many different ways to represent that number! We will practice even/odd, number words, tally marks, one less/one more, ten frames, number lines, place value blocks, dice dots, counting forwards and backwards, drawing pictures, number bonds, part-part-whole, and writing number sentences! So many skills in one simple activity! I also created a matching recording sheet so that sometimes I can have students complete the worksheet as we do the posters together, or they can fill one in as an early finisher activity! (I will only be using numbers 1-20 with my students, but the pack I created has options to go up to 100 or 120!)

On Wednesday we will practice our estimating! Some days we will practice estimating the amount of objects in our Estimation Station. Other days we will do some measurement activities. I have been collecting some estimation ideas on Pinterest. Check out my board below!

Follow Amanda Ross (First Grade Garden)'s board Math - Estimation on Pinterest.
On Thursday we will complete a "What's Next?" activity. I will have five different patterns displayed on the board and we will have to decide what two elements come next for each pattern. This activity is perfect for practicing repeating patterns, counting forwards, counting backwards, and skip counting! Plus it will reinforce shapes, colours, and sizes too! You can download a blank PDF of this activity {here}.

On Friday we will do a data collection activity. Graphing isn't an outcome yet in our Grade 1 Math curriculum, but the skills that we use when analyzing the data sure is! We practice tons of counting and comparing numbers. Sometimes we will do a whole glass graph or somethings I might let them do a survey and graph activity, like I blogged about {here}. I have pinned tons of ADORABLE graphs on my Pinterest board too.

Follow Amanda Ross (First Grade Garden)'s board Math - Graphing on Pinterest.

You can check out any of these math products at my TpT store to help you get started!

     

Well that's it for my math stretch ideas! :) Stay tuned for more in my daily schedule series.

Peek at my Week Linky

This is my first time for linking up with Mrs. Wills Kindergarten for her Peek at my Week Linky! I put together a brief overview of what we're planning (hoping) to cover this week! I'm not sure if I will do this every week, but I thought I would give it a shot and see if it interested anyone! :)

Here we go! If you click on either picture it will take you to the Google Docs link where you can download the PDF of my schedule. In the PDF you can click on the pictures or the blue links to check out the products I plan to use this week. There are a few of my own products and many from other fabulous bloggers!

 

Now I have a little freebie for you! I always start my calendar time off by watching a few song videos from YouTube on the projector. We have a lot of favourites, mostly from Mr. Harry's Kindergarten. I decided to make a little menu of our favourite songs. I just took screen shots and put them together into a file. I added links to each YouTube video, so if you click on the picture it will take you directly to the video.  I let my star of the day choose the 2-3 videos we watch each day. They are pretty excited to be the one to choose which songs we sing! :) Click the picture to download your own menu! Enjoy!

Background from Dreamlike Magic Designs.

Other images belong to the video creators!

I hope everyone has a great Monday!

Calendar Routine and Journal

I really enjoy calendar time. You go through so many skills in such a short amount of time. And the great thing is that you can add new things as you go! At the beginning of the year we work on counting to 30 and skip counting by 10s. Then as the year goes on, we work on counting to 100, counting backwards, skip counting by 5s, and skip counting by 2s. We hit patterns, tally marks, graphing, place value... So much to learn!

I thought I would give you a peek into my daily math calendar routine. {Note: Most pictures are from last year... boo! Can't wait to get into my new classroom and get my new calendar set up!}

So I don't do classroom jobs in my rooom... Too much to organize! I just have one special student of the day--my star of the day. This person gets to be the line leader, helps me pass things out, and does the calendar for us! As the star is doing the calendar wall, all the other students are working in their calendar journals. This way, everyone is engaged and working! :)

First up is the calendar. I use this pocket chart calendar with the Poppin' Patterns months and numbers. Love them!! Each month of numbers is a different pattern and they just have the cutest graphics! **Fun tip** I put all the calendar pieces in the pocket chart at the beginning of the month, flipped around, so that each day the star just has to flip the number over. We don't have to search the room for that missing number! It works perfectly.

I also made these little cards that I put in the pockets for holidays and special events. At the beginning of each month we go over all the upcoming events! It's very exciting when the kids start counting down fun things, like Valentine's Day and Field Trips! Here's a picture of a few of my cards:

If you could use these cards, click {here} to download them. If you would like a blank template to make your own, click {here}. It's a PowerPoint document. The font I used is called "Wish I Were Here" and can be downloaded from Kevin & Amanda here. You just need to change the words and add your own clipart.

As we flip over the number each day, we talk about the pattern that the pictures make. We write on this little white board the letter name for the pattern (AB, ABC, etc.). At the start of the month we make predictions as to what we think will come next. I write it on the board as a dotted letter, so we can check our prediction the next day! I usually have the star of the day think of a way to represent the pattern with our body. For example, an ABC pattern might go stomp, clap, snap, stomp, clap, snap. It's a fun way to get our bodies moving!

Next we keep a tally mark chart of how many school days are in the month. This chart is laminated so I can just erase each month and start new.

Then we change the yesterday, today, and tomorrow cards in this mini pocket chart, and the star looks out the window and decides the weather. We put a weather card under the date and colour in a spot on the laminated weather report graph. At the end of the month we look at the graph and decide which weather was the most and which was the fewest.

Next we do a few activities to count how many days we have been in school. We add a straw to our pocket chart. When we get to ten, we bundle it up and move it to the tens spot. This is great for reinforcing place value. We also count the straws. We count the bundles of ten first, then the ones.

The star adds a number to our 100 chart. We usually practice counting up to the number as well.

Last year we added a bump to our caterpillar every day. He was one long caterpillar by day 182!! I'm not sure what I'm going to do next year, I'm still thinking on it...

And lastly we add a dot to our ten frame. Last year I had paper ten frames and the kids added a dot with bingo dabbers. This was fun, but a little messy. Especially those little lovelies who have to press the dabber extremely hard when I'm not looking, so the ink drips down the page... Fantastic! So I updated my ten frames to be cute and colourful and laminated! I also created this little poster to go with it. The star will colour a dot on the ten frame with a dry erase marker and write how many tens and ones the number has. More place value practice!

I also updated my birthday chart. I have some cute mini cupcake stickers I'm going to stick on here once I get my birthday list. For now, I just drew a few smilies on it.

We also keep track of any teeth that are lost with a tally chart. This can be erased each month.

So here's a peek at my journals. {Remember: no school access, so I can't photocopy and bind yet... Just giving you an example here!} I print the covers on bright coloured cardstock and bind them at the top with a plastic comb coil.

Inside the cover is a days of the week/months helper page. We sometimes practice reading these or chanting them. The first page is "How Many Days Have We Been in School?" The students colour in their ten frames here when the star is doing the ten frames on the calendar wall.

Next is "Let's Count the Days of School..." where the students write a number each day, when the star writes the number on the caterpillar or adds the number to the 100 chart.

And then I have the monthly calendars and weather graphs. I make it so the calendar is at the top and the weather report is at the bottom when I bind them together. I start the year off by having dotted numbers in the calendar, but we work our way to blank calendars where students have to write their own numbers. We write the number, colour in the pattern, and make a tally mark. At the end of the month we also write what the monthly pattern is, how many days in the month, and how many school days in the month. We colour in the weather graph, tally any lost teeth, and record our friends' birthdays.

If you are interested in starting your own calendar journal, I've included my journals with matching posters in this pack on TpT. You can check it by clicking this picture:

In this pack you will get: journal cover (two options), days of the week/months helper page, ten frame page, number writing page, 12 dotted number calendars, 12 black calendars, and 12 weather reports.

You will also get ten frame posters (large and small size) with place value poster, tooth chart, tally chart, birthday graph, and weather report.

I can't wait to get my calendar all set up! Do you enjoy calendar as much as I do?

Don't forget tomorrow is the big TpT back to school sale!! Check out my link to see the amazing teachers that are having sales in their store! You can get as much as 28% off! Don't forget to use the promo code BTS12 at checkout. Click the button below to link up if you haven't yet!