Egg Carton Math

Sometimes in these days of fast paced technology, we forget to try the simple things in our classrooms like Egg Carton Math!  Egg cartons are cheap, as they can be donated for free by our student's families.  Egg Carton Math can target all kinds of skills such as addition, subtraction, place value, odd and even, and with a little imagination the list can go on and on.

Set up is also very simple.  Start with an egg carton, punch out some circles (or use those little circle stickers), write on some numbers, and find some pompoms.  Pompoms are suggested because they are totally QUIET.  A must, when a whole group of students are shaking egg cartons!  

Now just add some of your creativity.   For example, ask the students to place a pompom in the egg carton and shake it.  They record the number on a recording sheet and then shake again for the second number.  The students write an adding sentence using the two numbers.  Try this with subtraction....they will quickly find the largest number will need to be first in the sentence.  Have the students place a large pompom and a small pompom in the carton and write a two digit number to practice place value.  You can easily differentiate skill levels for your students using egg cartons by the numbers you write on the circles.
Egg Carton math is an activity which can last for five minutes or twenty!  You will also be amazed at how fun the students will find these little creations.  Who needs an iPad when you have egg cartons? 

Fabulous Fractions!

I love visual charts, especially for math.   I made this one in front of the students to show how a piece of paper could be divided into equal parts to show fractions.  I pasted a blue piece of paper to show one.  I then folded a piece of yellow paper into two parts and cut it.  We talked about how the parts were equal because the pieces were both the same size.  We continued with dividing a red paper into thirds and an orange piece into fourths.  

The students then made their own books about fractions by using the colorful visual as a reference.

The students were given a blue sheet to show one.   The students placed these in the book and wrote the numeral 1 and the word one.

The students were given a yellow piece to fold, label and place into the books.  The students cut the middle line to make the book more interactive.  The students then continue with the red and orange pages.

After this activity, the students had a clear understanding of how to divide things into equal parts.  The next day, we extended the lesson by showing other ways the paper could be divided equally into halves, thirds, and fourths.  The math visual will be on hand in our classroom to refer to as we continue our study of fractions.

Math Wall Charts

Oh, how I love wall charts in the classroom.  This is a wall chart the students and I came up with to use when we sort shapes.  

This is also a chart we made to when we need to use color words, size words, and words to describe how many.  The students added a visual to the index cards to make the words easy to understand.  These charts hang in our classroom all year and I notice the students using them all of the time.  Wall charts are wonderful!

The Very Useful Purchase!

I love to scrapbook!  Every other Wednesday I go to a scrapbooking class and after the class I walk out with new and clever ways to make my scrapbooks and cards more creative.  Almost always, however, I feel guilty for buying things I use for my favorite hobby.  So I end up justifying my purchases by trying to find ways to use these tools in the classroom too.  This little 3/4 inch punch made by EK Success is one of those purchases.

I bought it with no real purpose but now I have found many.  The punch is durable and kid friendly.  Students can punch their own circles out to make........ 

patterns.

I also used the circles when I created our Making Ten index card books.  (Students have to flip the pages until they can show ten.  They then record the circles on a recording sheet)

Students can also sort the circles in a sorting tray,

and match the correct numeral to the dots in our index books.

The students have also used the circles to make their own number lines, locate corners on shapes, and use as counters in both adding and subtracting.  So now, I feel like my students and I have truly benefited from this purchase that I thought was unnecessary.  In fact, I would strongly suggest this punch to any classroom teacher in a second!  Have a great day!

Calendar Math

I still love starting the day with our Calendar time.  Even though today was Valentine's Day and the students were so excited we still were able to work on many math skills.

We add a straw for each day we are in school and turn an index card.  The index cards match the straws so we know exactly how many ones, tens, and hundreds there are.  I still cannot believe we have been in school 113 days.  Wow.

The number of the day was 14 (because today was the 14th of February).  The students are asked to show how many ways they can show 14 with coins.  

Our Daily news focuses on the days of the week and the vocabulary words yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

We also write our secret code date by putting the first number as the month, the second as the day, and the third as the year.  So today's code was 2-14-2012.  So even though today was a special day, we still were able to practice many, many skills in about ten minutes!

Math Stories

 We have been making Math Stories using our classmate's names in class.  I have found that using the students names is a really effective way to capture the attention of the whole class.  We create the story, write it in our class book, and then record the problem solving and answer in our math journals.  I made the Math Story Book out of large plastic scrapbook sleeves, and metal rings.  This way pages can be inserted and removed.  Of course, the cover matches our monkey theme that is going on in our classroom!