Cool Compound Words!

The first grade students had been working on compound words.  They learned that a compound word is when you take two words and put them together to make a new word.  After lots of practice, they finished the study by making Cool Compound Word Penguins.  Each penguin was holding a snowball with a word on it.  The students combined those two words to make a compound word, which was written on the penguin's tummies!  How fun!

Shedding Some Light...

Mrs. Head has recently purchased some really unique reading tools!  After seeing a really neat idea on a blog, Mrs. Head purchased "finger lights" for the students to use during reading class.  We have noticed that some of the students were struggling to follow along when the teacher or other classmates were reading, and when Mrs. Head found these, she knew it would help to keep the students engaged and following along during times when other people were reading.  It has been quite successful...and the students LOVE them!  Thank you Mrs. Head for doing all that you can to make reading class fun and engaging!

Story Problems and Subtraction

The second and third grade students have been working so hard on learning how to understand and do two-digit subtraction, with and without regrouping.  When we finally had started to get a handle on it, we decided to make it really fun...we went shopping!!!  Well, pretend shopping with play money, but, boy, was it ever fun!  The boys and girls each went on a website (the boys went on Toys R Us and the girls chose Justice).  I gave them each an envelope of play money with $99 and they got to pick items to buy.  Each time they bought an item, they had to subtract to see how much money they had left and to see if they had enough to buy more.  What a great real life activity!  They finished the project by writing story problems for some of their purchases.

Geometry!

Our first and second grade students have been learning about geometry in math.  This week we focused on solid figures (sphere, cube, rectangular prism, etc.) and plane shapes (circle, square, rectangle, etc.).  We went around the school to look for real life examples of solid figures, we made solid figure flip books, and on Friday we  used gumdrops and toothpicks to build plane shapes and solid figures.  The boys and girls have done an amazing job with these!