Coin Cones!

It's all about the money, money, money!

That's what we've been singing all week in first grade!

It has been all about the money!

Hammering home coin identification is a tough one.

With money it seems like kids either get it or they don't.

Fingers crossed more get it, than don't!

I wonder if because we use debit cards so much more now 

and kids have less exposure to money at home. 

Just my two cents- no pun intended.

Driving to school this morning, 

which is my favorite thinking spot, 

I was thinking about ice cream!

I was also thinking about how my kiddos
needed a Fun Friday craft activity
as well as some additional money practice.

Then this deliciousness was born!

The set up is easy peasy.

Copy scoop template onto a variety of colored paper.

You need 4 scoops per student.

Copy cone template onto brown.

Copy table of coins onto regular printer paper.

********

Then away the kids go!

Here are the directions I gave.

1. Color all the coins the correct color 

on the sprinkles sheet. 

Sidebar- we call them jimmies here in Massachusetts.

2. Color the rest of the boxes multicolor to resemble sprinkles.

3. Cut out 4 colorful scoops.

4. Cut out 1 cone.

5. Glue scoops on cone.

5. Cut out sprinkles sheet.

6. Glue matching sprinkles onto each scoop.

On the first scoop they had to put the word "penny", 

the pictures of the penny coins, 

the word "one cent" and the symbol for "1 cent".

Then repeat for the nickel, dime and quarter 

down the scoops on the cone. 

I then had them check with me 

before they glued any sprinkles down 

to see that they had everything where it was supposed to be.

 I love when an assessment can be fun and 

makes a cute decoration too!

Such a job perk!

Grab your templates to do this project with your class {here}!

Be sure to visit me at A Burst of First
for more tips, tricks and ideas!

A Few Spring Freebies

Hey guys and dolls, how's it going? We all seem to be winding
down, and reaching the end of our curriculums, but we still
have a few weeks of schooling left!

For me, I know that I want to keep our schedule pretty much
the same: small groups, center time, etc. I'm not ready to just
start with the worksheet/busy work time.

I want to make sure that I'm still going over important concepts,
getting them ready to go to first grade! I want to share some
freebie centers/intervention materials that I am going to be
using for the next few weeks. Click on the pictures below
for your copy!

The first freebie can be used for a math center, or small group,
it is great for practicing subitizing.

At my school, we still do DIBELS (ugh!). Even though testing 

is over for this school year, we are currently going over long 

vowels, and I don't want my littles to forget about short vowels, 

so we're trying to practice it all!

I hope these freebies are helpful to you as we are counting down the hours!!

Place Value Art

Happy Friday! It's Lizz, from Learning with Lizz, sharing one of my favorite place value activities!

I love integrating art with math! Our place value unit was brought to life when students used paper base ten units to create the first letter of their names.

Take a look...

You can use this FREEBIE to use in your classroom! I hope you enjoy!

Math About Me!

Hi, everyone! It's Jaime from Bright Concepts 4 Teachers.

Open House is this week and I am so excited for my students to show off all that they have learned so far this school year. I wanted to share a project I had my kids do (with some guidance from their parents) for our big event! I call it MATH ABOUT ME. Each child gets a foam poster board and finds pictures of himself or herself. They decorate the board with the pictures and items that represent their personality. Next, they write captions using NUMBERS about their life. For example, one child took a picture of all 57 books they had in their bedroom. Another child smiled in a picture to show 8 teeth had already fallen out. The kids get very creative with the things they can show with numbers in their life. 

Here are a couple sample posters.

This student showed the number of letters in his name, the time he gets on the bus, his age, the number of people in his family, how many books he has, his house number, and so much more!

This student used numbers to show his birthday, the number of people in his family, his age, and the number of Legos he owns.

I always look forward to how the kids are going to represent themselves on their posters. The parents and kids also love looking at the different posters at Open House. It gives them an opportunity to learn more about one another. If you would like the project directions and a copy of the letter I send home, just click HERE for your FREE copy.

I make sure to tell all the kids that the questions are just suggestions of ideas they can use. They don't have to answer all the questions. They can create their own questions and make it meaningful to them. I hope you guys have fun with this project and look forward to seeing what your students create. Enjoy!

One-Step Card Sorting Tip

Hi there! I'm CaseyJane from Wiggling Scholars. 

When I was little, we used to "play" 52 Card Pick Up…

While we don’t play that game in my classroom, sometimes I think my students are inadvertently trying to bring out the same organizations skills in me that were once developed by the “game.”

Seeing as I prefer to spend my time crafting beautiful lessons (and not sorting through 12 decks of cards), I’ve come up with an organizational tip that takes moments to prepare, and saves you lifetimes of stress and annoyance from sorting cards…

 

This shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes to do 12 decks of cards, and you can get a parent volunteer to do it. Just run the marker along the edge of the cards on both ends of the deck. Just like sanding wood, go with the ‘grain’ of the card. Run along the edges not across the deck.

I chose Scentos for this project. I tried other marker brands and the marker leaked onto the faces of the cards. You can also do different color combos.

Check out how easy it is to find the mismatched card!