I am floating on air right now! I just got an IPAD! Woo :) I mean the elation is diminished a tad by the fact that I spent $500 but...it's so awesome! I cannot wait to use it with my kiddos this year!
I have been looking around the app store have found some apps that I really like! I'm not opposed to paying for good apps, but it's so hard to tell what it is like from the lite version sometimes!! I haven't found many yet, but these are my favorites so far!
Some of the apps I got that I really liked are:
Letter School is the most fun way I have ever seen to learn handwriting! So interactive :) It's $2.99 and teaches students how to write uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers 1-10.
Circus Math is a really fun $1.99 math app that teaches all kinds of common core skills: counting, writing numbers, addition, subtraction, etc. It also includes patterning games!
Three Ring is an awesome app that syncs with your computer to store student assessment data. It is basically a visual portfolio that you and parents can access! How cool!
So I haven't had the time to fully investigate everything my iPad has to offer, but I'll keep letting you know as I find new things!
So this year I am making the change to KINDERGARTEN! Nothing like teaching a new grade level every year :) Luckily, I will be in the same school, just in a new classroom. I LOVED my old classroom. So bright and pretty. My new one is just as big, but has no windows. GULP. Here is the chaos of me trying to organize and unpack.
Craziness! How do I brighten this room up to compensate for no windows? Any ideas?
As I dive into my new kindergarten curriculum, I realized that I needed to make some new supplemental activities for my math curriculum to meet the CCSS. So I created a math packet specifically for K.CC.1: Counting to 100 by ones and tens. I feel like this is a BIG one and I wanted lots of materials to help teach.
Sidebar:
I have been really disappointed with some of my favorite teaching blogs lately because I feel like blogs have turned into advertisements for TPT products and not the fun teaching ideas I used to go to them for. Don't get me wrong, if I was making $100,000 on TPT, I would promote the best I could too...but the reason their teaching materials got so popular is because of their loyal blog followers. Sorry! That's just my way of saying that I don't want my followers to think of my blog as an advertisement so I try hard to only promote products occasionally :) And I always include freebies to balance it out!
Oh What Fun! K.CC.1 is a 215 page packet with TONS of activities to help your students work towards mastery of this standard. And it's only $5.00!
Here are some of what is in the packet :)
100 Charts and 120 Charts (for differentiation) in blank, colored for counting, and highlighted for counting by tens.
Five Frame Fun is a game where students practice counting and subitizing in regular and irregular form for numbers up to 5.
Ten Frame Fun is a game where students practice counting and subitizing in regular and irregular form for numbers 0-20.
What's the Missing Number? is a game that gives a child a card with a missing number, and they can either write in the missing number or use the number cards included. This game is available for numbers 0-10, 11-20, 20-120, and counting by 10's.
These number puzzles are perfect for early finishers or extra practice. They are awesome because they are self-correcting :)
These setting cards are an idea from Debbie Diller's Math Work Stations book. She talks about how important it is for students to practice using mathematical language. So in using these setting cards, students may have conversations like:
"How many aliens are on the rocket?"
"There are 5 aliens on the rocket."
or
"There are 5 aliens in space."
"2 and 3 is the same amount as 5."
There are endless possibilities!
Tricky Tens is a fun board game to practice counting forwards and backwards by tens. Both students start on the start square of this endless game board. They can move in any direction they please with a roll of a die. If they land on +10, they get to add their first star. Then if the same student lands on +30 the net turn, their star cards would be up to 40. Keep going until students get to 100 or 120.
I Have, Who Has is a game everyone knows! This game has cards up to 120!
Snap Cubes Counting by 10's is a great activity for students to practice counting by ones and tens. They use the snap cube cards to count by tens and can build the actual towers to go with them.
Number Neighbors is a great activity for students to understand numbers that come before and after +1, -1, +10, and -10.
I will announce the winners on Monday! Enjoy your last few weeks of summer :)
Sarah
