Friends of Ten Giveaway!

I am so excited to show you what I've been busy working on. It is called Friends of Ten and I made it with my friend Lindsay! We were working on math curriculum this summer and commenting that learning the parts of ten is a core math skill that needs more attention. We wanted to make sure the partners to ten were really cemented into their young minds so we wrote an original rhyming story with our own creative number characters!

1. We will read this book to the class. We are going to print, laminate and bind into a book that can be reread later but you could also project it if you prefer.

2. We also made half sheet flashcards with just the character. We will start by randomly putting the cards up with magnets and asking volunteers to come partner up the characters to make ten. The next day we will flash the cards and ask the students to call out who the friend of ten is.

3. The students love mini-books so we created one they could reread. Coloring the characters will help ingrain the partners, plus the last page asks them to match the friends up.

4. How about a fun game to continue the practice? In Birthday Bash the students pick a birthday hat to wear and become that character. The object of the game is for students to find their friend of ten. When they find their partner,  they both check in with the teacher. If correct, the students receive a small prize (candy, sticker) and then pick new birthday hats to continue playing.  When time is called, students will be excited to share how many "friendships" they were able to make. The labels are included in the download so all you have to buy is the birthday hats at the dollar store!

5. Finally, there is a cut and glue worksheet that can be used for assessment or simply more practice.

Didn't Lindsay do a great job on the illustrations? I bet she'd get the warm fuzzies if you left her a comment.

As always, I am giving a copy away to a lucky follower. Enter below and good luck! If you have to have it NOW, click {HERE} to go to my store.
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2 Winners

Congrats to my winners!!!
Lori Raines gets a copy of Daily Editing Word Problems for the whole year

and Katie Bauter will receive my newest product The Laces Club!

 Thanks to everyone for entering!

The Laces Club and a giveaway

Do you have students who come to school in shoes they cannot tie? Are they distracted on the rug, focusing on their laces instead of your lesson? Are you and the students who can tie getting tired of tying laces for others?

I had the above problems until I created the The Laces Club!  One little boy this year was particularly inept at shoe-tying, yet he was sent every day in shoes with laces. If he was one of the kids who walked around not minding his floppy strings, perhaps things wouldn't have come to a head. BUT, this young man would ask me, other students, volunteer moms, even other teachers MULTIPLE times a day and DURING LESSONS! He just could not do ANYTHING else until his shoes were tied. I was going NUTS so even though shoe-tying is not a standard, I felt this was a life skill that needed to be addressed.

I did not spend a lot of class time but the kids were so motivated they spent their free time practicing.

What to do:

1. Demonstrate how to tie shoes (a document camera gives a nice close-up.)

2. Read the included poem together several times.

3. Explain that anyone who can show that they can tie their shoes will get a certificate to take home and a badge to put on our bulletin board display. This was a great ego boost for a few children who don't usually excel academically but were one of the first to get up on the board.

I had a shoe-tying book from when my kids were little

 but so many kids were motivated to practice I made extra practice boards.

These practice materials were available for early finishers or recess use. I was lucky enough to have parent helpers available to "test" the students who were ready. I also was often asked during recess duty. Seeing names go up motivated others to keep practicing so they could join. Club members became the experts, helping their classmates to learn. Watching them encourage each other out at recess was absolutely adorable!

My question for you is which method of shoe-tying do you use? Bunny ears or the traditional? Have you heard of the Ian knot? I found this video and showed it to my 5th grader and he thought it was SO much faster he now uses it daily!

I was thinking of making some real practice shoes available this year.  I could continue to feed my chevron addiction...

or it might be cute to match the theme if you have one.

I put these materials together for only $2.50 in my store. If you'd like to win a copy enter below.  

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If you didn't enter my Daily Editing Word Problems giveaway it only has 2 more days so click here to go enter.
 

Daily Editing Word Problems Update and Giveaway!

I have finally finished updating my Daily Editing Word Problems to align with the Common Core! Phew, that took FOREVER but now I am set for the ENTIRE YEAR!

I also made two major improvements:
1. The whole week is now on one page.
2. There is now an answer key!

I have posted before that my students complete this as morning work but it could also be used as a math warm-up. In the last few years I have used these in conjunction with a calendar page (Cara's and my own version) and as a stand alone in a math notebook. Both ways worked great, just depends how much time you have. Here are some cute pics from years past:

 The first half of the year we circle sight words, add punctuation and capitalization, and solve the math problem. We discuss the key words, draw a picture, and write a number sentence if applicable.

The second half of the year we do all the above but I have also added spelling errors to correct.

The kids LOVE getting picked to share their work under the document camera and I LOVE that I have a roomful of confident kiddos able to explain how they knew how to solve the problem. They also get wise and know I'll call for a second person to share if they can explain an alternative way to arrive at the answer or use a different tool (number line, ten frame, 120 chart, etc.) Can you say Standards for Mathematical Practice? And I was doing it before I even heard about the good ole Common Core Standards!

If you have bought these previously, the awesome news is that you can go to your TpT purchases page and download this major update for FREE! If not, this Daily Editing Word Problems {Common Core} pack for the WHOLE YEAR is available in my TpT shop.

I am going to give this updated pack to a loyal follower so enter below!

I have one week until I go back. Yikes, why does summer always go by so fast!

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And the winner is....

Congratulations to Amy Zuniga on winning a FREE copy of my new Editable Chevron Teacher Binder and Calendar pack!

Click HERE if you are interested in buying a copy for yourself.