Ice Cream Equations!

Oh summer---I’m so glad you’re here! J  It’s been just a week, and I’ve already spent an entire day in the pool, read a whole book, and eased into summer relaxing mode!  It’s awesome. 

I promised myself I’d catch up on some R&R at the beginning of summer break.  At the same time, I love using this time to get a head start and chip away at my to do list for the fall.  I was browsing Etsy just for fun, and the cutest ice cream clip art ever jumped out at me—I had to buy it and make something for my class with it!  I tweaked and worked at it, and love how it turned out.  Think it will be a great activity for the start of the school year! 

The result is Ice Cream Equations! It’s an equation-building card game where kids race to build a target number with a certain amount of “scoops” (number cards).  Players can add, subtract, multiply or divide as long as the end result is the number on their ice cream “cone” card.  Sometimes they’ll be asked to build a number with 2 scoops, sometimes with 5 scoops, and everything in between!

The set includes student directions as well as easy variation ideas to make the game easier or more challenging for your students.  There are printable ice cream scoop and cone cards for play, and a game mat where players record their equations and “race” to the sprinkles on top.  Cute little cherry chips are included to be hands-on manipulatives for building the equations with +, - x, and ÷ symbols. 

One of the biggest challenges I feel with teaching math today is building students’ number sense, fact fluency, and mental math skills.  I’m hopeful that this game targets all of these, and will be motivating and FUN for kiddos at the same time!  I plan on this being a staple in my math centers in the fall!

Scoop up some FUN, and take number sense and critical thinking skills to the next level!  Hope you'll check out Ice Cream Equations at my TPT store!  Stay COOL today and have some summer fun!  J

                                                Melissa

Pet Shop Prices! A QR code activity

WOW!  Time is FLYING!  There are just days left with my sweet kiddos, and it has been busy, busy, busy!  It’s been way too long since I’ve posted last so I’m happy to be finally blogging again! 

We just wrapped up our 3^rd grade economics sale last week, and our super 9 & 10-year olds raised a whopping $1,000+ to donate to the local food bank!  It was quite the project and they did a super job!  The kids learned so much about marketing, packaging, and income and expenses.  It was also the perfect opportunity to loop back and practice MONEY MATH! J  We added totals, reviewed ways to count coins accurately, and practiced strategies for making change.  LOTS of learning went into that one day sale!

I put together a few money math centers for this, and Pet Shop Prices was one of the kids’ favorites for sure!  

After being inspired by some SUPER CUTE pet clip art, I came up with a pet shop theme for adding dollar amounts with accuracy.  Students are basically “running the shop!”  Using a “price sign” for items in the store, they fill out dollar amounts on their student receipt sheet.  They add the totals and double check to make sure that they are correct.  THEN….the fun part:  they use an iTouch, iPad, or smartphone and QR code app as a price “scanner” to see if they were right.  They were HOOKED!

I’ve posted Pet Shop Prices here on my TPT store.  It includes the Pet Shop price sign, a student reproducible sheet with 8 “receipts” for them to solve.  There are self-checking QR codes on each receipt.  There are also paper price check cards to print out and use if QR code reader technology isn’t handy. 

We had so much fun with this, so I hope you’ll take a look and check it out!  Hope you are enjoying these last few days of school and gearing up for a relaxing summer!  J

More soon,

Melissa

Character Trading Cards

Woohooooooo!  State testing wrapped up this week!  Kiddos and teachers everywhere have lots to be proud of! J  Big….sigh….of….relief!

We have a little more than a month to go on our campus, and I’m looking forward to making those last days of school really count!  One thing’s for sure, I want to keep my students reading, reading, reading through the rest of the school year and well into the summer.  If you’re looking for fun ways to do this too, I’ve got a GREAT tool for you:  Trading Card Creator!

This fun FREE online tool comes from ReadWriteThink.org, the website of the International Reading Association.  It lets kids create a virtual trading card where they describe a character’s feelings, actions, and more—all based on the text they’re reading.  Students can upload images, save and even print their double-sided trading cards for sharing.  What a great way to have kiddos talk about the books they love and spread their excitement! 

You can access the card creator here, or there’s even a FREE iPad app.  Both the app and website are excellent!  

This web tool is really versatile, so you can even have kids create trading cards of events, story settings, abstract concepts of more.  Lots to explore with the Trading Card Creator, and this is just ONE of the super activities on ReadWriteThink.org. 

My kids LOVE making these, and have a blast trading them!  What a fun way to keep that learning going through the last days of school!

I’m dabbling here and there with some other great end-of-year activities to keep the kids engaged and learning—I’ll be blogging about those later this week!

Have fun trading! J

Melissa

Easter Egg Math Challenge!

Looking for something math-y to do this week?  I’ve got a fun activity to share!

Call me goofy, but don’t you just love those little plastic Easter eggs that are EVERYWHERE right now?  They’re inexpensive, come in all kinds of colors and designs, and are just plain fun—so I had to find some ways to pair them with learning!  I’ve got a few things in the hopper (unfortunately down to the wire with Easter just a week away), and am hoping to crank them out in the next day or two.  I finally sat down today to finish at least one.  Here it is—the Easter Egg Math Challenge!

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With this math problem-solving EGGStravaganza,  learners solve story problems, then check inside a matching plastic egg to confirm their answers!  Simply copy, cut, and tuck the answer slips into 8 plastic numbered eggs—it’s ready to go!  It includes 8 higher-level math questions, and I’ve also included blank question and answer templates so that students can write their own questions too! 

                      

I use this as a math center, and put all the answer eggs in a cute little Easter basket and the student recording sheets nearby.  My kiddos LOVE this activity, and the simple peeking into the eggs to see if they’re right!  It’s a great review of math concepts such as elapsed time, area & perimeter, number patterns, multi-step operations, and more!  A fun math center, partner activity, or whole group review.  It’s math critical thinking combined with Easter basket fun!  Hop on over to TPT to check out the preview! 

Melissa

Too Noisy?

It’s probably happening in just about every classroom in America this week:  spring break fever!  The students know it’s coming…the teachers know it’s coming…and everyone is ready for a few days of vacation!  And with all this excitement often comes an increase in chattiness!  I’m definitely a teacher that encourages kids to talk about their ideas and problem solve with their peers in class, but sometimes we all get a little TOO loud!

This week I think I found a solution.  Better yet, it’s a FREE solution!  It’s a genius app called Too Noisy!  This wonderful tool uses a visual meter to signal kids when the classroom is becoming too loud.  A yellow sky warns that the decibels are climbing, and a black stormy sky tells students that they’ve passed the noise threshold!  I like that you can adjust the sensitivity according to the situation and environment too!

Just right!

Getting loud!

TOO noisy!

I use it by opening the app on my iPad, and putting it under the document camera in my class.  It’s a big enough display to even just put the iPad at the front of the room for students to see.  Small groups could even take an iTouch with the app as a great reminder!  Too Noisy is available on both iPad and iPhone, so there’s nice flexibility.

I used it yesterday when a group of 8 kiddos practicing Reader’s Theater got a little bit too loud.  With it, they were able to work much more quietly--in the hallway no less!  I used it today when we were packing up for the day.  It’s such a simple way to give kiddos feedback on how loud their voices should be.  I’m a fan! 

Again, this app is FREE but for $1.99 a few more bells and whistles such as different background themes and a counter that tracks how many times the noise meter has reached its peak.  Check it out in the app store or at toonoisyapp.com.

Hang in there kids!  Hang in there teachers!  Spring break is just around the corner! This tool might just help a little bit in the meantime!  J

Melissa