Buzzzzzzzzzzz..........

I have a "POP" sight word game that my students love the play during guided reading lessons. I'm sure you have played some variation of this game before. Basically the idea of the game is you choose a card and read the word on it. If you get it right, you keep the card. If you get it wrong, it goes back into the pile. If you get a "POP" card, all your cards go back into the pile. Simple and fun. My kiddos never tire of this game!

Well I wanted to use this same game idea to reinforce some math concepts. Enter the BUZZ game! Same idea, but I have made a version for 2D and 3D shapes. Students choose a card and identify the shape on it. If they get it right, they keep the card. If they get it wrong, it goes back into the pile. If they get a "BUZZ" card, all of their cards go back into the pile! The player with the most cards is the winner! Click any of the pictures below to check these games out on TpT. You can play them with the whole class, during your small group time, or put it out as a math centre! 

Ahoy Mateys!

That's about the extent of my pirate talk knowledge. Maybe throw in a couple of "Arrrrs!" and "Where's me treasure?" :) Next year on this day, my sister-in-law is getting married. We joke that all the speeches will be in pirate talk. lol

These are a few of my favourite pirate books. David Shannon's "How I Became a Pirate" and "Pirates Don't Change Diapers" are always a big hit with the kids. "Twenty-Six Pirates" and "Shiver Me Letters" are two fun pirate ABC books.

I wanted to create a fun pirate freebie for you, so I came up with three math games for you. Pirate Cover Up is a game where you roll two dice, add them together, and cover up the same tally mark gold coin. Then there is Pirate Bump (addition and subtraction versions). {If you don't know how to play BUMP, read my post here.} Each game comes in a colour and black & white version.

A BUMP for Every Season

One of my students’ favourite math games to play is BUMP. I have a few different versions I have blogged about before… the most popular ones are Super Mario and Princess BUMP. I made a freebie summer version {here} and a freebie hockey version {here} as well.

It’s a pretty simple game. Here are the rules:


With my math centres and word work centres, I love to have games or centres that just change slightly each month… that way, you only have to teach it once and the students can do it all year long. So I thought to myself… wouldn’t it be fun to have a BUMP game for every holiday?? So I took a break from the million other TpT projects I am working on and made some new versions. These will be perfect for Math With Someone rotations during guided math! You just have to teach the game once in September, then each month you can change the gameboard and it becomes a new centre! Voila! Easy peasy! Click the picture below to check it out on TpT.


I made games for 11 different holidays/seasons: Back to School, Fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Remembrance Day/Veteran’s Day, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Winter, Groundhog Day, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Spring, Camping, and Summer.


For each holiday, there are four options: full colour addition, full colour subtraction, black & white addition, or black & white subtraction. If you want to save on coloured ink, just print the black & white versions onto coloured cardstock!


Another great thing about BUMP is that it is very easy to differentiate for students. Just change up the type of dice you give them. Easiest: two dotted dice, medium: one dotted die and one number die, and harder: two number dice!


If you want to try out BUMP with your class, check out the pack on TpT. If you download the preview, you will find the list of holidays, the official rules, and the Back to School addition gameboard for you to try out.


Oh, and if you don’t follow me on Facebook… look what I did this weekend! You are looking at the new Mrs. Ross! :) It was the most beautiful, perfect day I could have asked for. Beautiful weather, awesome family & friends, my darling baby girl, and saying I do to my best friend. It doesn't get better than that! :) Have a great weekend!

Happy New Year! {Math Freebies!}

I know, I know.... it has been almost two months since I last posted! This is my first post in the new year, can you believe it?? I hope there are a few of you still out there keeping tabs on my poor little blog. If you are, well lucky you! I'm here with a few fun math freebies that I hope you can use!

Things in my life have been super busy and this growing little girl inside of me is taking up a lot of my time, energy, and thoughts. I can't believe she will be here in less than 10 weeks! {Or later if she's as stubborn as her momma.} I only have 8.5 more teaching weeks until I take my maternity leave! I keep telling people I'm not sure what I'm more worried about... having a baby or leaving my classroom for such a long time! :) I can't guarantee I will be posting much once the baby comes, but once things settle down a bit, I hope I will be able to take some time to do some postings and maybe throw out a few new products.

Here are just a few simple math activities I've been using in our math centres...

First up, Hockey BUMP! We had some local junior hockey players come visit our school during Numeracy Month to do some math activities with our students, so I whipped up this little BUMP game for them to play together. I thought it would be fun for anyone doing an Olympic theme this month... or if anyone has some hockey fans in their classroom. I know I have a bunch! {Me included! Go Jets Go!} If you have never played a BUMP game, it will soon become a class favourite! Each player gets 10 unifix cubes. Player 1 rolls the dice, adds the numbers together, and places their cube on the correct number. If another player's cube is already on the number, they may BUMP it off and place their cube instead. If Player 1 already has a cube on the number, they may place a second cube on top and "lock" it in place, meaning no one can BUMP it off! Then the next player goes. The first player to place all of their cubes is the winner!

{Click the picture or here to download Hockey BUMP.}

Next up is a little domino adding centre. You can use regular dominoes, but I found these cute Ladybug Dominoes in the book order one month! I can never pass up cute math manipulatives like this! For the centre, students choose a domino and draw the spots on their recording sheet. Then they write the addition sentence below the picture. Easy peasy!

{Click the picture or here to download Ladybug Domino Addition.}

This is another fun domino activity, but for partners. It's called Spot the Dots. Each player gets their own gameboard and some unifix cubes. They take turns flipping over a domino, adding the dots together, and placing a cube on their gameboard. The first player to get three paw prints in a row is the winner!

{Click either picture or here to download Spot the Dots.}

Last up is a game students can play alone or with a partner. The student rolls two dice and finds the matching ten frame. There is a colour version that students can cover up with unifix cubes or a black & white version that students can colour! My students love to colour, so this is a fun game for them to play.

{Click either picture or here to download Winter Warm Up.}

I hope you have a had a good January! Ours has been super cold... three snow days and countless days of indoor recess. I honestly think the kids have gone outside for maybe two or three days this month.... They are getting restless and so am I! Hopefully it is an outdoor day tomorrow! Stay warm friends.

Techy Updates!

Alright, I'm back from camping and feeling quite a bit more relaxed! I finally feel like summer has started. I have a blank week ahead of me... meaning no renos, no work, and nothing on the schedule! So excited! Here's how much fun the puppies had swimming and camping this weekend.... they were exhausted on the ride home! :) A tired puppy is a happy puppy!

So I've been playing around with some of new bloggy technology that has been floating around. First up, Blog Lovin'! When I first heard that Google Reader was going down, I signed up for Blog Lovin' and immediately became a fan! I don't know how you like to read your favourite blogs, but I love the Blog Lovin' toolbar. I just open up Blog Lovin'... see how many unread posts I have, then open them up in the toolbar. This way I get to see the full layout of each blog. I love seeing all the different blog templates out there... (I'm thinking I might be in need of a makeover one day!)

I find it's so simple to use. Just click the <newer or older> button to see all of your unread posts from all the blogs you follow! You can also "like" posts to remember them for later. Do you follow your favourite blogs with Blog Lovin' like I do? Would you like to follow me? It's easy. Just click the picture below and click the blue follow button! 

Next, I've been playing around with my Facebook page. I've uploaded some new pictures of my new classroom! All I have done so far is move in tons and tons of boxes, so there's not much to see. But it gives you a before picture when I show you my absolutely finished classroom! We aren't allowed back into the school until August 19th... and then I only have 4 days to unpack, organize, and decorate my classroom before I am off to Vegas for a week! Woot woot! I'm not complaining though. It's going to be a very busy, exciting summer!

Click here to see pictures of my new classroom!

Here is a new freebie for you--a math game that practices addition to 20, using manipulatives. It is called "Add Them Bones". Students take turns spinning the two number spinners, putting doggy bones on the dog houses, and writing an addition sentence to go with it! A fun math station that can be played alone, in partners, or in small groups. (Note: The game board comes in full colour like picture, without the background colour, or in black & white.) Click the picture below to get your own copy!

And the last bit of techy adventure... I finally joined the Instragram craze. I'm not sure who is interested in following me, but I do take lots of iPhone pictures! Sometimes those pictures don't make it to my blog, so Instagram will be a fun way to share those extra pics! Just click the picture below and click the blue follow button!

Well, that's it for now! Have a relaxing Sunday!

Five for Friday.... last one for May!

Do you know what time it is? Yes, it's after midnight. Yes, it's bedtime. But it's also time for Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs!

{1.} When we finished our Laura Numeroff author study, we decided to write our own circle story. The last book we read was If You Give a Pig a Party and in that story the pig invites some of the characters from the other stories, but also a snake, a rabbit, and a fox. I had the students vote for which animal they wanted to write a story about. The snake was the winner! Then we had to vote on a food that started with an s, to keep with Laura Numeroff's pattern (moose - muffin, dog - donut, cat - cupcake, pig - pancake). We decided on sundae! Yum! We wrote the story together. Then I typed it up and gave each student their own copy to illustrate. 

If You Give a Snake a Sundae

by 1AT

If you give a snake a sundae, he will want a cherry to go on it.

The cherry will remind him of a clown’s nose. He will ask you to take him to the circus.

At the circus he will want to go see the clowns perform funny tricks.

One of the clowns will give him a balloon animal.

The balloon animal will remind him of the zoo. He will ask you to take him to the zoo.

At the zoo he will want to see the tigers first.

The tiger’s stripes remind him of the zebras. He will want to go see the zebras next.

Then he will go visit the monkeys.

Inside the monkey cage, he will see a red ball.

The ball will remind him of a cherry. He will ask you for one.

And chances are… if you give a snake a cherry, he will ask you for a sundae to go with it.

{2.} For the past two Christmases I have gotten a Cute Overload Daily Calendar. Love it! Each day I would rip the pages off and just stuck them in my drawer figuring I would eventually find a use for the cute pictures. Well I decided to bring them to school for a fun story writing activity! I let them choose a picture to be their main character. They cut it out, glued it on their page, and drew a setting for their animal. 

{3.} One afternoon we just had a math games afternoon, rotating through a few fun addition/subtraction games.

Tip Top Tally - Amazon

Number Hunt - Really Good Stuff

Swashbuckle Addition - Really Good Stuff (out of stock now)

Math Marks the Spot - Really Good Stuff

Math Dash - Edupress

{4.} Our field trip to the zoo is on Thursday this week, so we have been busy learning about some of the animals we will see at the zoo! We have been making our little zoo card books. The students have really enjoyed learning about the animals. Some of them have never been to the zoo before, so it will be pretty exciting for them.

{5.} We only have 18 more school days left! Then two admin. days which will involve a lot of cleaning, packing, organizing, saying goodbye to my current school, and moving to my new school! :)

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When I saw Melonheadz' adorable Potato Peeps clipart, I decided to updated my freebie math game and use her clipart to give it a fresh new look. The game is the same--students can work alone, with partners, or in a small group. You just need enough Mr./Mrs. Potato Head pieces for each student. Students take turns rolling two dice and adding them together. They take a potato piece according to the legend. The first student to complete their potato person is the winner! There is also a recording sheet to write down the addition sentences. Click the picture to download your new freebie!

Have a great weekend!

New Products, Just in Time for the Teacher Appreciation Sale!

TeachersPayTeachers is having a Teacher Appreciation week sale this Tuesday and Wednesday. Everything in my store will by 20% off. If you use the code TAD13, you get an extra 10% off. Click the graphic below to check out my store.

Thank you to Beth from Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs for the cute graphic!

I know my cart is pretty full, waiting for the big sale! If you are looking for some more things to add to your cart, check out my newest products. I just uploaded two new math versions of the game "I Have, Who Has?" Each game has 30 cards that form a continuous circle. The first set works on place value with base ten blocks from 1-100. The second set works on subitizing with ten frames from 1-30. Click on the pictures to check them out at TpT!

Next up is something I have been working on for a while and I am so excited to show you! This is a pack of 120 phonics cards. At the beginning of the year, I used blank letter cards to practice the sounds that letters/digraphs/etc. made, but I really wished they had pictures on them to remind the students of the sound. So I decided to make my own! This pack contains 120 cards, complete with the cutest clipart ever! Here are the phonics sounds included in the pack:

Vowel Sounds (a,e,i,o,u,y)
Consonant Sounds
Long Vowel Patterns (a_e,ai,ay,ey,ea,ee,igh,ie,i_e,o_e,oe,oa,ue,u_e)

Other Vowel Patterns (oo, ow, oo, ou/ow, ew, au/aw, oi/oy, ea)
"R" Control (or,ar,ir,er,ur)
Digraphs (ch,th,gh,sh,wh,ph)
Beginning Blends 

(bl,kn,wr,br,cl,cr,dr,fl,fr,gl,gr,pl,pr,sc,sk,sl,sm,sn,sp,st,sw,tr,tw,spl)
Ending Blends 

(mp,nk,ck,nt,sk,nd,lk,ft,st,sp,lt,ld,rd,lf,pt,ct,lp,rk,rn,dge,rt,tch,rm,mb,lm,lb,x,ll,ff,ss,tt,zz,ing,le,tion,sion)

Finally, I have completed my last three word work packs for the year. I have made a spring pack, camping pack, and summer pack! This will definitely keep us busy for the next 38ish school days! :)

Have a great week!