New and Improved Blurt Chart and a Little Seuss Fun

The response to the blurt chart I posted last week has been CRAZY!  I decided to "purdy" (as we say in the south) it up a bit and ended up with this.

If you'd like to create your own Blurt Chart or Blurt Board for your classroom, you can get the printables here.

And here are some Seuss activities we did last week.  They are random and from different days during the week.

Truffula Trees 
These were made from Twizzlers and cotton candy and lasted all of about 2 seconds before the little sweeties had these sweets devoured. 

 
"Do You Like Green Eggs and Ham?" Graph 
My assistant cooked us up a big batch of green eggs to taste test.  I'd say they were a hit based on the data. Ha!  To make the eggs for the chart, I cut them out of green construction paper free handed so they're different shapes and sizes.  The yellow yolks were done the same way.  

  Fish Addition
I found these mats here and thought they were so adorable so I printed one off for each student and had them laminated. After reading One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, we used Goldfish crackers  to practice some addition and then ate our little fish right up.

Tomorrow is a big day in our classroom.  There's a letter waiting for us from Lyle the Leprechaun.  He's coming to visit with us until St. Patrick's Day and I'm sure he has some tricks he's going to be pulling on us.  To get your very own letter from Lyle and a list of leprechaun tricks plus lots of math and literacy activities, click here or the picture below.  
 

Circus Cat Centers

Here are a couple of pics of what my sweeties are working on while I'm working with small groups.  I used the updated clipart that is not in copyright violation and decided on a Circus Cat theme for our centers this week. 

                                         

Count the Room

Read and Write the Room

How Many Hats? Counting Various Arrangements

The Count and Write the Room are 2 weekly staples that you can find my students working on while I'm working with groups.  The themes change weekly but you will almost always find a Read and Write the Room and Count the Room center being utilized each day in my classroom.  My little friends love them.  It's really the best of both worlds.  They are up and moving and purposeful learning is occurring at the same time.  If you are interested in getting these centers along with 3 other Circus Cat themed ones, click here or on the pic below.  There are a total of 6 centers (3 math and 3 literacy) included.

I introduced you all to my oldest daughter the other day and thought I'd share a pic that has all my family in it.  Minus the dog.  **Side Note** If anyone has tried and true methods for training a dog to always poop and pee pee outside, PLEASE tell me!  Poor little Baylee is going to end up spending most of her life in a small confined space of our house if she doesn't get it together.  She's definitely not the brightest bulb in the chandelier but we love her all the same. 

Me, The Hubby, and My 2 Sweet Girls

Blurt Chart

My little sweeties are always forgetting to raise their hands for permission to speak out and it's been about to drive.me.plumb.CRAZY!  Enter the handy, dandy ..... ("Did you say I can win a prize?")  Blurt Chart!  I saw this Blurt Chart awhile back and decided to whip one up.  Mine is not as cute but it serves its purpose.  Thank the good heavens!  Here's how it works in my room.  Each number represents a child.  Beside each number I have one blank post-it note.  The original chart I saw used 3 but I needed less to offer that more instant gratification feel for my little ones.  Whenever someone blurts out they have to go remove the post-it beside their name.  Whichever student is the last one with a post it left beside their name is the winner and gets a special treat! Do you ever have a problem with your students blurting?

President's Day and Teeth

My gussy!  Is everyone else feeling as harried as I am these days?  Between work, getting my girls here and there, an upcoming wedding for my sister-in-law, and working on National Board certification, I may be officially losing my mind.  You know the lose your mind and not even care that you're losing your mind frame of mind?  Yep!  That's starting to be me more these days than not.  And to quote my youngest child, "Ain't nobody got time for that!" Hehe!  I don't know where she heard/saw it but it's hilarious when she says it.  

And now we're going to take a short break for a little mommy bragging.  This is Maddie. She's 12 going on 25. This pic is from Valentine's Day and her on her way to her very first dance.  Sigh.... where does the time go? And... I've got to throw in a video of her doing her floor routine at her gymnastics competition this past weekend.  She totally rocks that floor!  I love watching her compete but I get sooooo nervous.

 In the classroom we've been learning about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Here's a chart we did to put facts under the president that they pertained to. 

 Using what we learned about each president, students were able to write about Washington or Lincoln.  Look at this sweetie's writing.   

 "Abraham Lincoln is the first president that has a beard."  She is definitely using her invented spelling which I love to see students do because I know they've been stretching those words out like I've been teaching them to do.  My assistant and I absolutely adored this little drawing.  

Right now we are learning all about good dental hygiene.  I don't have everything ready to post yet but here's an "I Have...Who Has...?" number edition freebie.  Just click here or the picture below.  

A Sunday Special and Manic Monday: {FREEBIE} for Valentine's Day

I'm linking up with Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies.  Head over and check out all the wonderful freebies!

Click the pic above or here to go download this freebie.  And if you have time I'd love it if you'd leave some feedback.  Thanks!

I'm linking up with Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies.

Freebielicious for Fabulicious Freebies on the First.

When the Lights Go Out

Does a dollar make you holler?  It does for this gal.  Finding anything for $1 or less these days is a rarity so there's nothing better than hitting up the Dollar Tree or Mighty Dollar where you know whatever treasure you find is only $1.  Glow stick bracelets come in a pack of 5 and are a cheap and fun way for students to practice letter formation and do some hands on shape learning.

3-D Shape Fun

We're learning about 3-D shapes this week.  I began by briefly introducing a sphere, cube, cone, and cylinder by holding each one up and telling them the name.  Then we began  talking about the parts that are found on a solid shape:  a face, an edge, and a vertex.  I made this anchor chart to help them remember the parts.  

 It has taken us all week to remember the words vertex and vertices.  I had one sweetie
that remembered regurgitate from studying about penguins and combined it with vertices for "vertitate" and one that called a vertex a Veggie Tale.  At least he made the connection that they both started with the letter v.  Hehe!  I'm really trying to teach them the correct math vocabulary terms and get them to use them more frequently this year than ever before in hopes of helping them become better able to communicate their math thinking.  

Today we zoned our focus on identifying a cube and composing a cube.   Students got to work with a partner and each one got a tray with the materials they needed to build a cube (12 toothpicks and 8 balls of play-doh and a small cube for reference) and they got busy.  I thought about leading them through the process step by step and decided to see if they would be able to do it with their partner's help.  And I'm so glad I did!  Instead of focusing on following step by step directions that I would have been giving them, they used those little brains and figured it out all by themselves or with the help of their friends.  

Then the play-doh balls started falling apart so the cubes started falling over and the kids started falling out!  Thank goodness we had some marshmallows on hand to calm the situation.  I think I'll use modeling clay next time to prevent any collapses of the cubes.

I had students put stickers on each edge (toothpick).  I gave them a small sheet of paper and had them take the stickers off and place them on the paper and count them to see how many edges their cubes had. 

We also counted the vertices (marshmallows) and faces and recorded how many on our anchor chart of 3-D shapes.  We will be adding to our chart and finishing up our unit next week.