Fraction Fun

I love teaching Math, and teaching fractions is one of my favorite parts of teaching Math! I tried two new things this year and I want to share them with you. Despite the fact that I am in my eighth year of teaching 2nd grade, I am constantly trying to find new things, as I know many of you do as well!

Fraction Play Dough

First, I bought everyone their own can of Play Dough from the Dollar Tree. They come in packs of 4, and they had all kinds of colors. The kids enjoyed "claiming" their own can and picking out their own color to work with. 

I opened our study on fractions by telling my students to divide their dough into two pieces. They all tried to find different ways to do this, because they are very into coming up with ideas that others may not have this year! See the list below for ideas that came up as we explored fractions with play dough. I honestly didn't plan all of these ahead of time, but it really evolved!

-Guide students to show different divisions of the play dough. As you guide students through this, create an anchor chart showing drawings of the play dough balls: unequal parts, equal parts, halves, thirds, fourths.
-Discuss wholes: When students show halves, thirds, or fourths, connect back to the idea that 2/2 = One whole, 3/3 = One whole, and so on.
-Keep going with the above idea, and introduce some addition sentences 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 3/3 = One Whole
-Discuss how students' parts are the same or different. Some of my kids flattened their play dough before dividing, some kept it in a ball. The shapes were different, but the fractions remained the same.

Pattern Shapes App

In my small group, we used our new iPads for the first time! This app is called Pattern Shapes. Clarity Innovations has some great apps for Math tools! I am really loving them. But back to the point. Here are the two things we did to connect our work with pattern blocks to fractions:

-I guided students to "cover" a yellow "cupcake" with different colors of icing. Then, we named the parts and paid special attention to how many parts it took to cover the cupcake.
-After doing this, I assigned students to use these equivalent fractions to create a picture that was "Half Yellow". I found this idea in my new favorite blog, E is for Explore. Some students stuck to just maintaining equality with the basic equivalent fractions. So, every time they added a blue rhombus, they pulled out three blue rhombi and one yellow hexagon. More advanced students explored the idea that doing something like using 1 red trapezoid, 1 rhombus, and 1 triangle would also balance out a yellow hexagon.

Have fun teaching fractions!

Freebie Friday: Dictionary Scavenger Hunt

I don't know about yours, but my students are obsessed with using the dictionary. They will use almost any opportunity to grab those weighty books off the shelf and flip through them.

Now, I know that my 21st Century Learners will not find the opportunity to use real dictionaries very much in their lives. With a Smart Phone close by, what's the point? But, I like to harness their energy in learning about using these reference books in a fun way.

The Common Core standards do state that they need to be able to use a glossary and beginning dictionaries, so why not come up with a fun way to practice those skills?

Today, I'd like to invite you to try out my FREE Dictionary Scavenger Hunt for the month of March. This activity can easily be used for work time, center time, or even morning work. Check it out!

Well, today I sign off from school and ON for Spring Break! 8 hours and counting! Happy Friday!

The Leprechaun Is NOT Visiting My Classroom. Here's What We'll Do Instead.

Today, as my school let out early for a Snow Day, I reminisced about growing up outside of Savannah, Georgia. We never got out for snow, but we did get out for a hurricane once or twice. And, you may or may not believe this (depending on your St. Patty's parade and celebration knowledge), but by the time I was in Middle School, we also got a day off of school for St. Patrick's Day! This has nothing to do with any sort of seriousness about the holiday and everything to do with the fact that, inevitably, no one showed up for school because they headed downtown to the big parade instead.

Unless you were in my family. If the doors were open, my sister and I were at school. Even if there was a hurricane a comin' and you and maybe three other people got sent home on a bus a few hours later. 

Now, since I teach in a different part of the state, St. Patty's is just a regular old school day. But I can't help making a big deal about it. I know it is still the end of February, but I should remind you that St. Patrick's Day is just a few weeks away! I have Spring Break between now and then, too, so I have to be on my planning "game" to get all of our activities in.

Do you have a very naughty leprechaun that visits your room, makes a mess, and leaves behind some gold coin candy? I don't. Despite my love for celebrating St. Patrick's Day, I just cannot bring myself to willingly make a mess in my beautifully organized room and cause general chaos. I just can't. Besides, my newest student wrote me a love note recently where he stated he loves me in spite of the fact that I'm picky and strict. Actually, I think he said he loves me because I'm picky and strict. So that is working for me right now. And furthermore, I can use those gold coins as leverage for getting my kids to do what I want for reinforcing my kids for their great efforts and accomplishments.

But I do love fun and silliness, I PROMISE! So I've created a few products to help celebrate St. Patrick's Day in an Instructional way. Today and tomorrow (wait, I think the tomorrow part was supposed to be a secret for now), TPT is throwing a big sale, and this includes my store! So check out these products and consider adding them to your cart today. If you visit my store, you will also see one March item for FREE! It is appropriate for 2-4 grade.

 March Friends Writing

My students will be creating these stories next week so we can post them in the hall during St. Patty's Week! Some of them spied my sample today, and got very excited to have some fun with this project.

ELA & Math Centers

I'll be using these in my ELT centers for March! I think they are cute and will give the kids good practice on some review standards so that I can give my attention to my intervention groups during that time. I've differentiated these for 1 & 2 grades.

I hope you find a great TPT deal today! Happy Snow Day! Have fun teaching!