Math Book Monday - 10 Easter Egg Hunters

Hey friends! Today is the first post in a new weekly series I am starting called "Math Book Monday". It's hard to share pictures and ideas since I'm not in the classroom right now, so I thought I needed something to keep me going until I get back into the classroom in September!

If you know anything about me, I have a love for all things books. I can't walk past a book store without going in. I have a huge collection of math related picture books and am looking forward to sharing some of my favourites with you. So make sure you come by each Monday where I will share with you a math picture book and a fun idea to go with it! :)

Today I'm going to show you a fun Easter book! It's called "10 Easter Egg Hunters" by Janet Shulman. It's a cute little counting, rhyming book about ten lost eggs! I love that each time they find an egg, it shows the number of eggs on the side like a little ten frame. Great for a little subitizing practice!

I thought this book would be a perfect mini-lesson book to get into practicing tens partners. In this simple activity, each student needs a picture mat, a recording sheet & pencil, and 10 Easter counters (toy bunnies, mini-erasers, or unifix cubes). Students drop the 10 counters onto the picture. Then they count how many counters land ON the picture and how many land OFF the picture. Then they create a number sentence on their recording sheet using those numbers.

If you would like to try this activity with your firsties, click {here} or the picture below to download.

Janet Shulman also has a few other holiday counting books--10 Easter Egg Hunters, 10 Trick-or-Treaters, 10 Valentine Friends, and 10 Trim-the-Tree'ers. You can buy any of the holiday counting books from Amazon by clicking on the pictures below:

     
   
I hope you enjoyed this week's Math Book Monday! Check back next week for a new book idea.

Hoppy Easter! Freebie

Easter is coming up in a few weeks. I'm trying to avoid the stores because all those Cadbury Creme Eggs and Mini Eggs are just so very tempting... lol. I did pick up a few little bunnies for my neices and nephews though. Zoe's a little too young for the treats, so I got her this cute little puppy wearing bunny ears. It looks like my Molly and Zoe jut loves her Molly dog. :)

I whipped up a few simple labels to attach to the chocolate bunnies. Click the picture below to download them.

Five for Friday!

It's time again for Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching! Technically it's Saturday... but I'm still awake so I'm going to count it as Friday. It was our first week back after Spring Break and it was a whirlwind of business! We learned about oviparous animals, started our new Easter math centres, did some Spring math activities, and started an Eric Carle author study! Woo! No wonder I was tired after work today! Not to mention I couldn't sleep til noon everyday like I did on Spring Break... boo!

1. This was a cute little Easter present from one of my students on Monday. Just a few chocolates and a mini chocolate bunny, but the bag was just precious!

2. On Monday we wrote about our Spring Break.The paper was one I got from a retired Grade One teacher... she used to make everything by hand! Can you imagine?? lol. I'm getting so impressed with my students writing! I don't have to help them spell every word now. They are taking risks and sounding out their words like pros!

3. Here's our author study bulletin board. I love how it turned out! Unfortunately I can't share any of the pictures with you, but really I just Googled "Eric Carle" and printed some of the images I found onto cardstock.

I have this DVD so we watched one of the stories today as a little break treat at the end of the day! :)

The kids are loving his books so far! And if you have never heard the song to go with his book "Today is Monday", you might not want to watch this video... This song has been stuck in my head for a week now. Hehe!

4. I had bought these divider plates a while ago, but never really pulled them out. When I saw this adorable "Peas & Carrots Addition Game" from Frog Spot, I knew it would be perfect for these plates! The kids had a blast adding their peas and carrots together. We used a dry erase marker on the big part of the plate to write our addition sentences.

5. We did a few activities on oviparous animals as well. I did this mystery egg activity last year, but this year we got to put the small pictures under the document camera for everyone to see. Woo! Exciting! ;) We learned about some interesting oviparous animals!

This sort is from Chalk Talk. Love it! We also read the poem "Oviparous" from Deedee's March Poetry Pack. The kids loved it.

Until next time! Happy Weekend!

April Currently!

I love Farley's Currently. I can sum up all my thinking into one cute picture! :)

So the snow here is *starting* to melt, but we still have way too much. At least two feet of untouched snow in our front yard. At least in the backyard the puppies are there to trample it down for us. We still have big drifts against the fence though. Big enough that both puppies can stick their heads over the fence and check out what's going on! Haha. Oh my, the first time we saw this happen we were just getting into the car to go to Easter supper and we just killed ourselves laughing. One of our neighbours said she was walking her dog and they popped up and her poor dog didn't know what to do. Haha. My silly puppies are just big people watchers. They love to know what's going on!

As for school, I'm still waiting to hear where I'm going to be teaching next year! Hopefully I will stay in Grade 1, but you never now!

We've been busy getting back into the swing of things this week after Spring Break. Monday was fairly quiet... I had 9 students absent. Apparently they were all taking Easter Monday as a holiday... even though it's not a school holiday here! :P That left me with only 17 students. It was a dream! I didn't want to do too much new stuff, with a third of my class away, so we wrote about our Spring Breaks and made this cute Duck/Rabbit reversible puppet freebie from Mrs. Miner's Kindergarten. The other side of the rabbit is a duck! My kids loved the book and loved making the puppet.

And did you see my fancy piece of technology on my blue shelf! I got a document camera on Monday! Woo hoo! I've only used a bit so far, but I can see it coming in really handy. Before if I wanted to show something quickly on the screen, I would take a picture on my iPhone and email it to myself. Pretty lame, huh? Now I can just place the document under the cam and voila! It appears on the screen! I can even take a picture of it from there if I want. I love technology!

Well that's it for now. Enjoy the rest of your week!

Happy Easter Sale!

I'm having a big Easter sale all this weekend! Starting tomorrow, March 29, and going through until Sunday, March 31. Everything in my store will be 20% off. Click the picture to check out my store!

I put together these little Easter goodie bags for my neice and nephews tomorrow. I couldn't resist these cute Peep tags from Creating & Teaching (find them here).

Have a great weekend, filled with family, friends, and good food! :)

I'm Back! {with a Freebie!}

I just had to share the cutest drawings we did this morning. I've never done a directed drawing before, so I thought I would give it a chance. I've got a few little sweeties who can't draw anything more than a stick person, so I thought this might help them a bit. I was quite impressed with their leprechauns! We added our poem from Deedee's March Poetry Pack and drew the leprechaun beside it. Very cute!

So after I uploaded my Easter Math Centres pack yesterday, I just couldn't stop thinking of ideas... so I put together another centre. HOWEVER this one I am offering for free! :) Click the picture check it out at TpT!

Students have to match up four number sentence eggs with each fact family basket. Cute and simple! There is a recording sheet to go with it.

Enjoy! Two more days until Spring Break! Woo woo!

Easter Math Centres {New}

Yes, it is way past my bedtime but I have been working so hard on this new pack I just had to share!! I have been a very lucky girl... yesterday and today were both snow days! I had lots of time to work at home. And that also means there are only three teaching days left until Spring Break! Woo hoo!

When we get back from Spring Break I am planning to pull out all my Easter things! I didn't have any Easter math centres, so I put together this new pack of nine centres. Click the picture below to check it out at TpT.

1. Egg-cellent Patterns {repeating patterns} 

 
2. Number Order Hunt {ordering numbers to 30}

 
3. Backwards Bunnies {counting backwards from any number up to 100}

 
4. Counting On Eggs {addition to 20 using the counting on strategy}

 
5. What’s in the Basket? {number words to 20}

 
6. Egg-y Measurement {non-standard measurement using egg rulers}

 
7. Billy & Betty Bunny {addition to 20 (or 12) with manipulatives}

 
8. Yummy Peep Subtraction {subtraction from 18 using a picture}

 
9. Easter Roll & Graph {bar graph}

Let's Get Acquainted!

Just a quick post while I'm watching the Jets hockey game and ignoring my last set of report card comments to finish... Just the personal and social development comments left to do! Ugh... How to say your child is a bully in nice words... Hmmm... Anywho, I am linking up with Flying into First Grade for her fun new weekly linky party!

We have to share three things we like using our initials, so here we go...

A is for animals

I love my pets so much! I have to admit that my puppies are the biggest sucks in the world. Molly, the yellow lab, is almost 10 months old and she is a huge baby. She thinks she is a lap dog and maybe part cat. Look at this picture!! What a goof.

M is for Mom

My Mom is one of my best friends. It helps that she is a teacher too (check out her blog here) so she understands my obsession with books and all things teacher-y. I think it might be genetic. She is going in for surgery tomorrow and I just want her to know I am thinking about her lots!! xoxo

T is for TpT

I don't know what I would do without TpT. I find so many amazing resources on there that I would never have even thought of before! It's so amazing to see all these teachers creating and selling products that are actually useful, engaging, and FUN! :) These are my latest purchases and I just love them! I want to use these with my low reading group who still struggles with letter sounds. Click the pictures to check them out at TpT.

Beginning Sounds "MP3" Match by K is for Kinderiffic

Beginning Sound Scoops by The Moffatt Girls

Sound Racers by Heather's Heart --> Love these!!! Especially for the boys.

 Alright, speaking of TpT, I just wanted to let you know I updated my Easter Word Work pack. It has the same five activities as before, but I added a sixth stamping centre. If you have already purchased this pack, go to "My Purchases" on TpT and download it again for free. Click the picture below to check it out at TpT.

I promise I will be back this weekend to post some writing freebies and ideas from the workshop I presented a few weeks ago. Enjoy the rest of your week!

Hoppy Easter!

I survived the first week back after Spring Break... barely! Thank goodness it was only a four-day week! Haha.

Our week was full of Easter eggs and furry rabbits! Here's some of the fun Easter books we read this week:

In writer's workshop, we worked on descriptive words. We brainstormed adjectives to describe Easter eggs and rabbits and used these words in our writing.

The kids have been loving our Easter word work centres. These will continue into next week because there just wasn't enough time to get them all done! The favourite so far seems to be the Unscrambled Eggs. They love cracking open those eggs to see what mixed up word is inside! If your Easter activities are going to continue into next week (like mine.... hehe) check out my centres over at TpT! Click the picture to see them.

We did these ADORABLE bunny graphs from First Grade a la Carte. You can get the glyph recording sheet and bunny tracers from her site. I love how they turned out! Can you tell what is always on the mind of six-year-old boys? Sonic Easter Bunny, Mario Easter Bunny.... Seriously? :P

And of course I am always on the look out for ways to use food in math, so we did a little jelly bean graphing and addition. I had quite the excess of plastic eggs, so I filled 21 of them with jelly beans and let each kiddo keep one. They were pretty excited about that. Seriously, those eggs take up a lot of space! And I think I still have a huge tub filled with them! I really need to stop shopping at the dollar store...

Click the picture above to get your own copies! 

All Easter clipart is from KPM Doodles.

Then came all the egg talk! I busted out the big "o" word that we learned when studying owls... oviparous! *swoon* Some of them remembered it!

First we did a little "Mystery Egg" activity. I printed out a bunch of pictures of oviparous animals, laminated and folded them, and placed them in plastic eggs. I had each student guess what was in their egg. Then we opened them up. Some students got a big surprise! This would be a lot of fun with little plastic animals too, but I couldn't find the large selection that I wanted. If you would like a copy of my animal pictures, click {here}!

Then we read the book "Chickens Aren't the Only Ones" and did an Oviparous/Not Oviparous picture sort. I got these picture cards from Chalk Talk. She has a super cute FREE oviparous unit. Check it out!

To finish up, we created a clas book called "These Eggs Crack Us Up!" The book page was also from Chalk Talk's cute unit. I created a cover page for it. Click {here} to download. I let students choose any oviparous animal to draw in their egg.

On a personal note, I had a *fabulous* Spring Break in sunny Florida! Oh my, the weather was beautiful the entire week we were there. In five days we managed to hit 6 different theme parks. It was a little bit insane, but so much fun! Here's just a few pics if you're curious ;)

Dr. Seuss and Harry Potter both in one theme park... how lucky can a girl get??

Winnie the Pooh was the only character I met... I was *not* standing in line for 45 minutes for some of the others!! My word!

Just a couple more pictures at Disney! We had so much fun!

Happy Easter weekend everyone!!