Category Archives: Math

A Peek Into Our Morning {Work}

I am so excited to say that the newly-revamped Page Protector Printables Bundle 1 is NOW the Bright Beginning Binder!

I will share about how we’re using this resource below, and I hope you might see some ideas you could use in your own homeschool or classroom!

Here’s a peek of my students hard at work in their Bright Beginning Binders with our beautiful bulletin board in the background and our Word Work board to their right!

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I am so excited about our new Bulletin Board. It includes our Calendar Time area, a Where Am I? area where I’ll do some gentle instruction in geography, and finally the Math Minute where for now I have some coin posters that I printed 4 to a page for use of a compact space. You can find this awesome resource for FREE at Leanne Price’s TpT store.

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Date Night

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How is your Saturday night shaping up? 😀 Mine has included spa night with my two favorite girls and now a date with this lovely dude above.

I will readily admit I love spa night with my two girls AND I love my laminator. Back to cutting out my completely revamped Page Protector Bundle 1. Here’s a sneak peek …

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For the first 48 hours after this post has gone live (9 p.m. CST), this product will be half-price. Click HERE!

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Egg Carton Math

This post shares about a recent activity I did with the three little ones. I never got it out of my drafts folder. I wanted to talk about something on my blog besides heart surgery today, so I hope you enjoy (and can maybe use) this neat idea for repurposing an egg carton while practicing math skills!

I am adding a couple of notes:

• I just used a sharpie to write random numbers 0-9 in each slot of the egg carton.

• I found that egg cartons are not all created equal. If you can find one where the egg holders go all the way up on the ends, it will work better. Hope this makes sense!

• I used pom poms because they are QUIET, which may be helpful in classrooms as well. You can certainly use other manipulatives as well!

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My kids LOVED this lesson. I was so impressed with their sequencing skills, and truly there is no substitute for ENGAGING and ACTIVE learning. I can only imagine how this would have gone if I had given them a list of random numbers between 0 and 100 and asked them to sequence those numbers. Continue reading

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Math Monday: {Fractions in First}

Fractions. Ahhhh. You either love them … or you don’t. Half of us do and half of us don’t love them. I’m too funny. Ahem.

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After seeing what happens when a student is NOT taught fractions in a living math sort of way at a young age and how this has greatly affected his ability to SEE them—”This pizza has 8 pieces. If I eat half of it, how many pieces did I eat?”—I decided to make sure fractions are a part of our everyday language for our two firsties. They are picking it up so effortlessly.

I have been working on my fraction page protector-sized printables a LONG time. A labor of love you might call them!

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I am happy to say our first graders have enjoyed them thus far. I plan to create some add-on sets that will be more useful in an upper elementary classroom, but these would work well for students who are working on whole, half, fourths, and thirds.

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I use these in many ways. I play Candy*land a lot around here with a certain little someone, and her big brother and big sister often like to join in the fun. I can slip in some extra learning for them by having them draw a fraction card when they draw a candy*land card. It just makes learning fun!

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In the photo above, S is working on matching cards with word problems to the correct answer. She used both the fraction picture cards and number cards for this. I let her choose. It is more fun that way! She LOVES these cards.

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The word problem cards assume a certain level of reading, and you’ll notice a little number in the bottom right corner. This set also includes a recording sheet for students to write the answer to the task cards, which can be used separately as well.

She was very proud of herself! I really just let her go with this, and she soared! I need to get these back out again … maybe tomorrow would be a good day for that. If you have fraction manipulatives, they would be great to use alongside these or you could bake cookies or pizzas or whatever else sounds yummy at the moment!

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This is quite the collection of interactive, learning fun with 60 task cards (with word problems), 120 flashcards including number fractions, fraction words in black and outline fonts, and fraction pictures, as well as 6 mini posters of 6 different fractions: 1 whole, 1/2, 1/4, 1/3, 2/3 and 3/4. If you’re interested in checking it out more, I have them for sale in my TpT store.

I’m sharing this on love2learn2day’s math Monday blog hop. Check it out for more great math learning fun!

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Math Monday: Coin Critters

Money has not come easy at our house for our first graders. I have tried several times and then put it away.

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Of course, the children get coins for their allowance and we give them opportunities to spend the coins, but they just haven’t caught on to the four coins and their names and amounts.

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They do have the penny and its value of one cent down. I suspect this is in large part due to the different color of this coin. It also helps that you can count pennies by ones.

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I plan to do several coin activities this week, keeping them active and fun.

For today, we tried an idea I saw on Pinterest of course. I pinned it to my Math Ideas board, but the original link seems to be broken. You can still get an idea of what to do from the image.

I gave each of them a piece of recycled copy paper (printing mishap on back side) and used a sharpie to divide it into four sections. I then wrote four amounts on each of their papers, using both forms of writing the amount (e.g 11¢ and $0.11).

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They had a lot of fun using black markers to add legs, antennae and wings to their coin critters. They now have the nickel more solidified in their minds. They aren’t counting by 5s consistently just yet, but they were able to use the nickel to add up teen numbers along with pennies as needed. The photo below is Li’l Miss’s finished page of coin critters (though I see the 9¢ has a missing head; it was there when she finished it; not sure what happened to it LOL!).

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Tomorrow, I plan to work on money with some other ideas I have on my Math Boards pinterest page as well as spend some time with this wonderful resource, Money Song, that I found at Teachers Pay Teachers. Go download one for yourself for FREE. Happy coin counting! I’m linking up to love2learn2days’s Math Monday blog hop.

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Brick Builders and a Giveaway!

A mega bundle of LEGO® goodness has been in the works for weeks. I had shelved it due to my clip art that I purchased just not being high-quality enough, but then I found some new BRICK clip art and I knew it was going to be good! And it is!

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Li’l Bro, Li’l Miss and Li’l Bit are begging for more BRICK BUILDERS math fun after testing a few of the activities in my latest offering at TpT: Brick Builders MEGA Math Unit. It is 125 pages HUGE with 105 pages of printables!!! The other 10 pages are instructions and descriptions.

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I thought it would be fun to keep the giving goodness going but today I’m going to add a twist! Continue reading

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Math Monday: Geometric Shapes & Number Knowledge

Yesterday, we didn’t do much *traditional* school. We instead spent most of the day watching history unfold and watching a documentary about a historic person: Martin Luther King Jr.

Today we were back on our regular schedule, and that involved some math fun.

I would say these pictures don’t need explanation, but Li’l Bit loves these wooden geometric blocks I have. I honestly don’t know when or where I got them, but they are fun and she loves them.

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She was playing with them while I read to Li’l Bro and Li’l Miss. She was SO PROUD of her creation. She did this all by herself with no direction from me, and I am quite proud too!

She was quick to point out to me that the one section “do not match” because she didn’t have the right pieces for that one section to match.

After reading, Li’l Bro and Li’l Miss were excited when I told them I had some math work for them to do. First they used their abaci to work the problems on the “Find the Sum or Difference” worksheets.

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They did GREAT with this, which was welcome because last week they struggled with it. I made two versions, and this is the one where they struggled last week. You may be able to see that the answer they are looking for is NOT after the equal sign, but one of the addends. If I have them the same exact problem where they are searching for the answer (after the equal sign), no problem but looking for one of the addends and they were confused last week. This week, they were acing it! Li’l Miss even said at one point,”Mommy, this is kind of like subtracting because I’m really subtracting the first number from the last number.”

Eureka, I’ve think she’s got it!. I am so excited they have taken so well to the abacus as well.

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I continued using the “What’s That Number?” worksheets with them. They seem to really like this, and I have to say perhaps I should give them worksheets a bit more often. I could easily make more of these with larger numbers as well.

The worksheets they are using are a part of my Penguins Math Unit I have for sale at my TpT store. I hope your Monday (or Tuesday) math has been as fun and engaging! 🙂

I also spent some of my last quarter TpT earnings on a fun little mathtivity for Li’l Bro and Li’l Miss to go along with our penguin fun. They LOVED this, so I’ll be looking for more of these to do from time to time. The set includes several options of math (adding, subtracting, etc.) to complete this picture by coloring the answers according to the corresponding number. Sounds complicated but it wasn’t! They added a few numbers together, and then colored each square a certain color. So, 4+2=6 and should be green. Anyway, here is a picture of Li’l Bro’s finished penguin picture.

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You can find this fun little mathtivity at TpT here. I’m linking up to love2learn2day’s Math Monday Blog Hop. Go see the other awesome math ideas!

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Math Monday: {Penguin Fun!}

My three youngest students and I have a very special week planned! Our three older students and their brothers are in some special classes this week, so it seemed the perfect week to jump into some “icy” fun with some penguins! 🙂

I noted recently that our two firsties are a bit rusty in their math skills, so some remediation was in order this week. Good news is they don’t think of it much as work! They had so much fun!

We started off our school time with an adorable and very successful Craftivity: Penguin Inkblot Painting. I can’t take credit for the idea. I found it on Pinterest, but you can click HERE to see the link yourself.

Since we covered SYMMETRY last week in our math lessons, this was a great project as we saw symmetry created before our eyes! They were enthralled with seeing this in action and taking part in making it happen. 🙂

Here they are in progress:

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{I put the paint on just like the link suggested, and the kids {even my two-year-old} did the rest}. Continue reading

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Math Monday: {Interactive Fraction Cards + Fraction Mini Posters}

I am so excited about this set! I have two firsties who are so excited about understanding fractions more and more. We have been working with pizzas, pies, and even cookies. Even little sister is having fun with her “pizza.”

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Now they can practice what they know by matching up cards to one another and/or identifying the fraction when they see it or read it.

I have been working on this set for a long while. I just couldn’t quit adding in fractions and the mini posters just sort of happened! Continue reading

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