April Math Stations

Now that it's April my kinders can really do a lot in math! We just wrapped up our unit on measurement about a week ago, and have moved on to learning about addition, so our stations have lots of measurement and addition practice. Next month we'll study subtraction and then do some final review before the school year ends! I think my kinders are in great shape math-wise this year since they have gotten so much math practice each day from our work stations.

Here's some of what we've been up to at our math stations this month.

Station 1: Bug Jar Counting

(Each bug jar has a number at the bottom and students count out that many bug erasers into the jar. I made lots of jars so my students could practice with the numbers 1-31. I can't remember where I got my jar template, but here is a free mason jar template I found that is very similar.)

Station 2: What Comes Next?

(Students roll a die and write the number they rolled in the square. Then they write the numbers that come after that number in the carrots next to the square. Good counting and number writing practice! You can download this cute game for free from Kindergarten Hoppenings.)

Station 3: Adding Up Strawberries

(Students roll a die a place that many strawberries in the first basket on their workmat. Students then roll the die again and place that many strawberries in the second basket on their workmat. Students record the addition problem they have made on the recording sheet and then solve the addition problem. I got these plastic strawberries from Lakeshore, but you could also just use red unifix cubes and have the kids pretend they are strawberries. You can download my free workmat here and the recording sheet here. I copy the recording sheet back-to-back so they have space to do more addition problems.)

Station 4: Egg Addition

(Students open up a plastic egg and take out the erasers that are inside. Inside each egg I put different combinations of bunnies and carrots. Students write an addition sentence for adding together the bunnies plus the carrots and solve for the answer. My students used a recording sheet I got from Mrs. Ricca's April Math & Literacy Centers, but in the past I have also done this game with students just writing the addition problems on scratch paper. The mini erasers are from Target.)

Station 5: Hatching Numbers

(Students roll two dice, add the numbers together, and trace the sum on their recording sheet. This game, with the darling graphic of the very hungry caterpillar, is from Mrs. Wills' Incredible Egg Oviparous Math Work Stations.)

 Station 6: Best Cookies Ever!

(Students pick a cookie card and solve the addition problem written on the cookie. Students then record the addition problem on the recording sheet and set the cookie card on the cookie jar showing the correct answer. I let my students use unifix cubes to help them solve the addition problems as they played this game. This game is from Mrs. Wills' Frog and Toad Literacy and Math Stations.)

Station 7: Egg-cellent Measuring

(Students measure different sized eggs with unifix cubes and recorded the lengths on the recording sheet. This fun game is from Mrs. Ricca's April Math & Literacy Centers.)

Station 8: Picnic

(Students roll two dice and cover up the picnic basket with the sum on the game board. This game is from Mrs. Wills' Frog and Toad Literacy and Math Stations.)

Station 9: Domino Addition

(Students pick a domino, draw what their domino looks like, and write the corresponding addition problem for their domino. You can download the recording sheet for free here.)

Station 10: Measuring Weight With Carrots

(Students weighed classroom objects in our balance scale to see how many carrots they weighed. I found these little carrot erasers at Target and they were fun to use to weigh different things. If you bought these same erasers and want to have your students measure objects with them, you can grab my free recording sheet here.)

Hope you got a few new math station ideas! I'd love to hear what math stations your students are working on right now!

Spring is here!

I've been so busy lately that this is my first blog post this month- and now I log on today to find out that Blogger has completely changed! I just don't know if I can handle this-can I make it go back to the old layout?!

Well, moving on, my kindergarten class has been studying spring weather, insects, animals, and plants this month! We made these darling ducklings that I saw here. We also made umbrellas out of paper plates that we cut in half and added pipe cleaners to. I was brave and let my students get out their water color paints to decorate the umbrellas-they turned out pretty cute!

We have been learning about the parts of a plant and made these darling art projects as well. This idea is from April Larremore's All About Plants unit which I totally recommend!

We also made this cute carrot graph from the unit. I loved getting my kinders to eat some healthy carrots for a snack! I think next year I might go a step further and have them try eating all different kinds of veggies that represent the different parts of a plant (i.e. carrots for the root, celery for the stem, spinach for leaves, and broccoli for flowers). Then we could graph which part of the plant we think tastes best!

We did some fun experiments in science to learn about plants too. The students loved seeing the leaves of the celery change color as the celery stems sucked up different colors of water.

We are also growing bean plants in baggies on one of our windows. I sure hope they grow! Some years I have had great success with growing beans and other year the beans just rot- I have no idea what makes for successful bean growing-so I am crossing my fingers that things work out this year!

During shared reading this week we read a fun poem about plants. This poem can also be sung to the tune of "Row, row, row your boat." We have been working on highlighting blends in our poem. We also read the big book Jasper's Beanstalk which I love. It is a cute book about a cat that tries to grow a beanstalk and isn't very patient about it. My favorite thing about the book is that it is a day of the week book (similar to the book Cookie's Week ) and each page tells what happened on a different day of the week. I have been encouraging my kinders to try out writing books like this in writing workshop and some of them have made very cute books using this structure. 

We have also been doing some fun math activities to go along with our study of plants. My students enjoyed measuring different things using sunflower seeds-and of course they liked eating the seeds when they were done with math!

We also played the "Plant a Garden" game, which you can download for free here. Students take turns picking a flower card, and and using the number at the top to put the card in the correct spot on their game board. First player to get all their cards in the right number order and "plant their garden" wins.

I know I have not been great about updating my blog lately, but I do have several posts planned for this week to show what we've been up to in literacy and math stations and some center freebies too. I also have a tour of my classroom library coming up too-so please keep following my blog! I'd love to hear what you've been up to this month in your classroom!

March Math Stations

Is it really the end of March already? What a busy month!

Would you believe that I took lovely photos earlier this month of my students working on their Dr. Seuss and St. Patrick's Day themed math stations and just never got around to posting them? Now we've moved on to spring themed activities and will be studying weather, plants, and farm animals so of course I'll be looking for math stations that go along with these themes.

Here's what we're up to this week in math.

 Station 1: Count and Link Game

(Students pick an elephant, read the number on the elephant, and connect that many links to the elephant's trunk. This game is simple but extremely popular with the kids-they love using the links. This game is from Lakeshore.)

Station 2: More or Less Game

(Students each pick a number card, compare their cards to see which partner has more/less, and then spin the spinner to see if the student with more or less wins the cards. The cards for this game are great since they have number words, numerals, tally marks, ten frames, and even objects to count. Lots of super number practice! This cute game from Mrs. Wills can be found here-it is a part of her Incredible Egg Oviparous Math Stations pack which has tons of great games in it that my kids have really enjoyed.)

Station 3: Roll-Count-Color

(Students roll two dice, add together the 2 numbers they rolled, and color in the egg showing the sum. This fabulous freebie from Me and Marie Learning can be found here along with some other great math freebies!)

Station 4: Strawberries in a Basket Counting Game
(Students roll the die, and then add that many strawberries to their basket. First player to collect 10 strawberries in their basket wins. A pretty simple game, but the kids love it - you can never get enough counting practice, right? I think this game will find its way to our play kitchen after it leaves our math stations. This darling game is from Lakeshore.)

 Station 5: Alligator Babies Game

(Students spin the spinner and then cover-up the corresponding number on their game board. I like that the spinner shows the ten frames and my kiddos certainly need the extra practice with teen numbers! This game from Mrs. Wills can be found here.)

 Station 6: Time to Hatch

(This is a memory game where students turn over cards and try to make a match. The hen cards show clocks, and the egg cards show the corresponding times. Once students have made a match, they record it on the recording sheet. A great game for practicing telling time to the hour and very cute graphics! This game from Mrs. Wills can be found here.)

Station 7: Oviparous Animals Spin and Graph

(Students spin the spinner, and then tally and graph their results on the recording sheet. Great for my kiddos that need some extra practice with tally marks! This game from Mrs. Wills can be found here.)

Station 8 A: Umbrella Number to Tally Match

(Students match up umbrellas-one set of umbrella cards shows tally marks, the other set shows the numeral and number word. This great freebie is from Kindergarten Hoppenings and can be found here with some other great spring freebies!)

Station 8 B: Missing Number Game

(I also put this umbrella themed number game in the Station 8 basket. Students look at the 2 umbrellas and have to figure out what number comes between them, then they put the missing number in the middle using the cloud cards. Great practice for number order. This game is from Musings of Me.)

Station 9: Raining Cats and Dogs Board Game

(This game has the cutest game board! And is easy to differentiate too! Students can use either number cards or addition/subtraction cards to determine how many spaces they move forward on the game board each turn. This game from Mrs. Wills can be found here.)

Station 10: Coin Grab Graph

(Students take turns pulling a coin out of the bag and recording the coins on their graph. I still have a few kiddos that are really struggling with coin recognition, so this is good practice! This game is a freebie from me that you can download here.)

I'd love to hear how your math station have been going. I'm just loving what math stations have done for my students this year. They get so much extra math practice each day and review skills that we may not be focusing on in our math book, but that they still need to keep fresh with.

My students are getting very good now with skills like number recognition, counting, comparing numbers, and graphing. We still need some extra practice with skills like coins, telling time, and measurement. We're coming up on addition and subtraction in our math book next, so I expect many of my stations to focus on that next month.

Tackling the Tattling

Has anyone else had enough with tattling? I know this issue seems to pop up every year, but this particular class of kinders is full of tattlers. I have been doing everything I can to discourage tattling, but it just isn't working. So...I just bought two new books about tattling that will hopefully help me out.

The first book I found about tattling is called A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue. It is about a little boy who tattles so much that his mom tells him he will catch "tattle tongue" and his tongue will turn yellow with purple spots if he keeps it up. Thankfully, after a visit from the Tattle Prince, the boy is able to learn the rules about tattling and get his behavior under control. Even if parts of the books seem a little silly, I think the kids will really like this. There are lots of examples of tattling in the book that make it clear when it is okay to tell the teacher and when it is just tattling. I think I might copy this book's tattling rules onto poster board and implement them with my class!

The second book I found about tattling is called Don't Squeal Unless It's a Big Deal: A Tale of Tattletales. It's about a classroom of little pigs and their teacher who has had enough with their "squealing" - I can totally relate. The teacher eventually teaches the class the difference between when something is a "big deal" and it is okay to come to her and when something is a "kid-sized problem" that the kids can work out themselves. I think after reading this book to my kiddos I might have them work with me to create a list of "big deals" vs. "kid-sized problems" and then we can role play ways to solve the "kid-sized problems."

If you have any other great book recommendations of books that deal with tattling or other classroom behavior issues let me know!

Learning about coins

Last week we started learning about money in kindergarten. We're just focusing on the basics like naming coins and their values. We've also been counting pennies-nothing too challenging! I'm planning on adding some money games to my math work stations this week. Here are some freebies for you in case your students need some practice with coins too!

This game is called Coin Grab and it practices coin recognition. I fill a little cloth bag with an assortment of coins (you could also fill a paper lunch bag or little purse) and then students take turns pulling out a coin and graphing it on their recording sheet. They do not grab a whole handful of coins at once-this is important to explain to kinders. Once they reach the top of their graph with one of the coins, the child stops and records how many of each coin they had on the bottom of the recording sheet. You can laminate the recording sheet and let students fill it in with a dry erase marker, or what I usually do is just copy it in black and white so students can fill it in with a pencil (and it is not a big deal to the kids that the coin pictures are not in color).

In case you're still studying teeth for dental health month, here is a simple little tooth math game that works on money skills. Students spin the spinner, count how many cents they spun, and move that many spaces on the game board.

I'll be back later this week with pictures of all my current math work stations. I'd love to hear what you're up to this week!

February Math Stations

Valentine's Day may not be until next week, but we are already celebrating with lots of heart themed activities. My kinders have definitely gone valentine crazy!

We've been practicing measurement, counting, graphing, patterns, and addition this week with our math stations. Most of these station activities are meant to be done using candy hearts, but I decided to save the candy for Valentine's day and we have been using foam hearts, plastic hearts, and heart erasers instead.

The kids have been LOVING these stations-my class loves using manipulatives and I guess all the cute little hearts are hard to resist!

Station 1: Candy Heart Patterns

(Students make a pattern with candy hearts (we used foam hearts) and then color in their pattern on the recording sheet. You can get this great freebie from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten.)



Station 2A: Counting Hearts

(I wrote numbers on a bunch of those little heart containers from Target, and then students had to put the containers in number order and fill them with the correct number of heart erasers. Simple number and counting review!)

Station 2B: Valentine Clip Cards

(Students count the monsters and then clip a clothespin onto the heart showing the correct number. Such an adorable activity! The heart clips are from Target and the monster cards are a freebie from Amy at The Resourceful Room. This is a pretty quick activity so that is why I had this game in the station 2 basket along with the heart containers counting game (above). Both games give great counting practice!). 

Station 3: Race to 50

(Students take turns rolling the die and covering up that many numbers on their game board. My kiddos used heart erasers to cover-up their game boards. First player to get to 50 wins. This fun freebie is from Shari Sloane's Kids Count website.)

Station 4: How Many Letters Graph

(Students took a conversation heart out of the bag, counted how many letters were on the heart, and graphed it on their paper. This station snuck in a little literacy too! This fun freebie is from The First Grade Parade.)

 

Station 5: Cupcake Addition

(Are these cupcake erasers not the cutest thing? Thank you Target! Students picked an addition card, placed cupcake erasers over the cupcake images on the card, and then recorded the addition problem and the answer on their recording sheet. This fun freebie is from Amy at The Resourceful Room and she even has cupcake subtraction cards if your kids are ready for that too!)

 

Station 6: Measuring Length with Hearts

(Students used hearts to measure the length of different classroom objects and then recorded their findings on the sheet. You can get my freebie recording sheet here.)

Station 7: Lovin' Addition Game

(I just love this type of addition mat. Students were given a bag with a mix of pink and purple plastic hearts (from Target). Then they put some purple hearts on the left side of their addition mat and some pink hearts on the right side of their addition mat. Finally they recorded the addition problem they'd made and the answer on the recording sheet. Even my struggling students were able to use the manipulatives successfully to do some simple addition problems! Grab this fantastic freebie from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten.)

Station 8: Measuring Weight with Hearts

(This was easily the most popular station this week-but also one of the more challenging ones too since it introduced a new skill. My students had never used a balance scale before, but now they are turning into pros! They weighed different classroom objects to see how many hearts they weighed. It took some real teamwork to count each heart as it was dropped into the balance's bucket. You can grab my free recording sheet here.)

Station 9: How Big is Your Heart?

(Students used little foam hearts to measure and then record how long different sized hearts were. You can grab the heart template and recording sheets for free from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten.) 

I hope your class is enjoying some valentine fun as well!