Playing Uno During Math Small Group

Hi y'all! I'm  Francheryl from Primary Essentials.  I'm so excited to be apart of Who's Who and Who's New.  I teach K-5 math and reading intervention in the great state of Texas.

I use Uno cards to play games with many of my intervention groups, but rarely do we ever actually play Uno except in Kindergarten!  I use this game to practice number recognition for numbers 0-9.



You would be surprised the excitement this little deck of cards can bring your way!  I always have everyone's attention.  I remove all the special cards (like +2, reverse, skip, draw four, etc)  except the regular wild card.  You will need some way to change the color. 

I'm usually a player in the game with the students and I facilitate and keep the game moving.  I have the students lay their cards flat on the floor or table in front of them.  This way I can easily help my students make a decision on weather to play or pull a card from the deck.

We play the game the tradition way matching either the number or color.  The biggest difference is the students must say the number they are playing as they lay it on the discard pile.  Wild cards are used to change the color.  I usually help them pick a color to change it to, because they will pick the color they like most rather than a color that will help them play.  I don't require them to say Uno when they get down to one card either.  They person that gets rid of all their cards first wins that round!  It's pretty simple and they LOVE to play!  Who says you can't play Uno at school???  Next time I'll share other ways I use card games like Uno and Skipbo in my intervention groups!  Feel free to hop over and check out my blog or TPT store.

Well that's all I got!  I'll see you around the blogging world.

It's ALL About TIME!

Hi Everybody!  I'm Deb from over at Fabulously First and I'm excited to be here.  I'm a first grade teacher, mom of four and soon to be a grandmother of four! EEEEKKKK!

My first graders are doing fine with telling time to the hour.  When it comes to teaching them about the half-hour, I know what's headed my way.  It always confuses them when the hour hand is in between two numbers, so we made up this little rhyme to help them know where to look.  I taught them to look where the hour hand is and if they don't know which hour it is, then go to the lowest number.  So we reduced it to: "If you don't know, go low"!  

I use the website "Stop the Clock" and you can click below to go see it.

We start with using the site practicing time to the hour.  I give them a sheet that we use to write down how many seconds/minutes it takes them to get the analog and digital clocks matched.

Then, after we have mastered telling time to the hour we move on to the half-hour:

I have six little stools that they pull up to my activboard to play the game.  It becomes highly competitive as they all try to get the lowest score after five attempts.  It is a race after our whole group and math buddies time to get to this game.

FREEBIE ALERT!

If you are interested in using the "Stop the Clock" sheet, click below:

I also have a product in my TpT store which I know you will love!  Click below to see the scrolling product preview:

Thanks for joining us today, and please feel free to leave a comment below!

5 Ways for Students to Celebrate Read Across America Week!

Hi there!  Danielle from Crayonbox Learning here!   I am happy to be a part of the Who's Who and Who's New Blog.   Today I am going to share with you some ideas for celebrating "Read Across America" which is March 2nd.

1. Bring a Book to School Day:  Encourage students to bring their favorite book to school on a designated day.  During group time, students can take turns talking about the book they brought, and why it's their favorite.

2.  Dress up Day:  Schedule  a dress up day where students (and teachers) will dress up as their favorite story book character.  A group game may be played where students have to guess each other's story book characters.

3.  Book Graphing: As a class, graph the number of books that the students have read so far during the school year (or other designated time)  Graphing can be done for page count, subject, and also titles of books.   Younger students could graph the number of books that have animal or people characters. Older students could graph the genre of books.

4.  Writing Journal Project:  Students write about their favorite story book character, or write a letter is if they were their favorite story book character. (Author Writing Sheet Freebie here)

5.  Making Books: Students can make their own books using folded construction paper, and lined/unlined paper stapled at the fold.  The Dollar Tree often has small (3 x 5) photo albums or tablets that can be made into books.  As a class projects, students will write their own book and then share their story with their classmates.  The project can be adjusted depending on the age and ability of the students.

I hope that you enjoy these ideas.  There are many more on Pinterest.  I have created a special board just for Read Across America ideas here.

Celebrate Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year is one of my favorite holidays as it’s very close to my heart and reminds me so much of my family and culture. As a Vietnamese-American, I’ve been blessed to celebrate both the New Year in January and Chinese New Year, or more commonly known as Tet in Vietnam, at the end of January or February every year.  This year, it falls on Thursday, February 19th.

To celebrate Tet, my family cleans and decorates our house with yellow and pink spring flowers, prepares our ancestors’ altars by offering fresh fruits and traditional cakes, dresses up in our traditional long dresses, attends mass at our Catholic church to pray for a good and prosperous year, and watches dragon dances. Plus, children receive lucky money as they wish their elders ‘Happy New Year.'

Getting lucky money from my parents and elders at church was always my favorite!  How can a kid say no to her loved ones giving her money, right?!  Now as a mom, I do my best to pass along the same traditions and great memories to my son.  I love seeing him captivated by the loud sounds, music, and sights of celebrating such a fun and wonderful holiday.

As teacher, I love to incorporate and teach about different cultures and traditions into my classroom, especially when it comes to Chinese New Year. I love sharing personal stories and memories of the holiday while also encouraging my students to celebrate and learn more about Asian cultures. 

Here are some ideas to celebrate Chinese New Year with your students:

-Read Sam's Lucky Money and other Chinese-themed Children's books (Ruby's Wish)

-Read nonfiction text on the holiday 
-Write facts using different graphic organizers
-Make paper dragons and parade around the classroom

-Help students identify their Chinese Zodiac
-Make paper lanterns to decorate the classroom
-Create Lucky Money envelops 

-Watch dragon dances videos from YouTube

I love having my students parade around the classroom with their paper dragons!  It really is the most favorite of theirs as well.  They giggle, dance, and have just about the best time! But what really make them so excited is when I show them a mini-dragon.  I love seeing them so excited and fascinated!

If you are celebrating Chinese New Year in your classroom, come check out my Chinese New Year Packet! With printables, vocabulary cards, colorful signs, graphic organizers, a Chinese Zodiac Calendar and bookmarks, and an interactive game with game mats and dice templates, students will be greatly informed and thoroughly engaged the entire unit! See the video below on how to play the Zodiac game with your students! 

And as Vietnamese people wish each other Happy New Year, Chuc Mung Nam Moi!

Hi there!  My name is Ha, and I am first grade teacher from Texas.  This is my eighth year of teaching and seventh year teaching in first grade.  I am married to my high school sweetheart and together, we have a two-year old son and a new baby on the way.  This is my first entry for Who's Who, and I am thrilled to be part of this wonderful collaborative blog.  Thank you so much for reading!  I can't wait to hear from our awesome readers and fellow bloggers! :)

Learning Mats- Tens and Ones

Hi I am Abbie from Tales From The First Grade!  

I have always struggled with math small groups.  Where to start, staying focused, having a complete meaningful lesson.  In an attempt to better myself, my lesson planning, and most importantly my students I starting working on an interactive learning mat.  The mat focuses on the standards we are working on that month/week, depending on the rigor of the standard.   I incorporated basic math skills we work on all year.  After using the mat for the first time, I was hooked!  The lesson went smoothly, students were having ah ha moments, and I felt SUCCESSFUL!  Isn't that the best when you walk away knowing you did your best and it worked!  Here is an overview on how it works and the lesson I taught!

I use 5mil laminate.  The students can write and wipe right off!  

 One of the biggest struggles for my students is understanding 1 ten can equal 10 ones.  

 Organized kids are successful kids!  I like the students to keep their materials in neat organized piles.  The designated area really helps with keeping students organized. 

While teaching small groups I have a focus student.  The student is usually the one I need to progress monitor.  On top of progress monitoring, I usually spend a little more time on the main skill taught.  While I am working with that child the rest turn their mat over and complete the 100's chart activities and fact families.  I love how they are focused on foundational math skills and are able to stay engaged while I get some great one on one time with my focus buddy. 

So here is how the lesson goes!

 I give the students a number!  They then count out tens and ones to make the number

After they have counted the number out we talk about how many tens and how many ones.  We write it in expanded form and on the tens and ones table. 

Next we practice exchanging a ten for ten ones and determining the new amount of tens and ones.  We document the change on our tens and ones table. 

After a few numbers, I have the students turn over their sheets and work through math review while I work with a focus student!

I love that smile!!!

I hope this gives you some great ideas for math small groups!

Be sure to stop by my blog!

Burlap Bulletin Board

Hi there! I'm Neetu from Cinnamon's Synonyms and I'm thrilled to be blogging here on Who's Who today!

I have a quick little bulletin board tip to share with you ...I actually came up with this idea by pure accident!

Here's the real deal: I am not very talented when it comes to making bulletin boards look pretty. No, really... I'm not. I usually find myself fiddling with my boards ... constantly... because I NEVER like the way things look.  After several failed attempts I usually give up and accept my attempt for what it is (because honestly, who has time to fuss with this stuff when there are a gazillion things to do in the day).

This year, I haven't fiddled with my board once!! Annnd, get this... I continue to receive compliment after compliment on the way my board looks! Yay! Success!!!

In the fall, when school started, I knew I wanted to have a neutral background for my boards. Something that would make my students' work just pop!  In our district there's a huge push for Reggio inspired kindergarten classrooms and although I don't teach kindergarten I thought it'd be neat to incorporate some natural elements into my decor just as the Reggio philosophy encourages.

My initial plan was to just cover the board in this burlap material I had laying around in my basement. I figured it'd be perfect because if the material is resilient enough for the outdoors, then it'd be an ideal way to create a fade-proof bulletin board for my classroom.

I had one problem though...

It barely stretched out far enough to reach the top and bottom of my boards.  Take a look:

I had two rolls of burlap, so I used one to cover the center part of the board.

Then, I cut the other roll in half (lengthwise) and used it to cover the empty parts at the top and bottom. I knew it would look sloppy if I just stapled it flat -  it would look like three ugly rows of burlap. This is when the idea to do this poofy thing came about:

Burlap is extremely easy to work with... the little poofs just happen naturally. Yep, burlap is your reliable friend and will do all the pretty poofing for you. NO SKILL REQUIRED... but people will think you're super talented with mega decorating abilities.  I love Burlap! It took the stress right out of beautifying my board.

It's February now, and I haven't had a single urge to change it out! 6 months is the longest relationship I've had with a bulletin board. I think this is true love!

Neetu teaches in a school with a high population of English Language Learners. With the awareness that students learn best through visuals (whether they speak English as a second language or not), she strives to create engaging language based resources filled with illustrations that kids just dig! There is a strong language component in everything she creates (including her math and science activities). This is inspired by her need to help her students build the vocabulary required to succeed in every subject, not just language arts.  Visit her store by clicking HERE.

Play in the 21st Century Classroom

Hello!  I'm Hannah from 21st Century Kindergarten and I am super excited to be one of the newest contributors to "Who's Who and Who's New!"  I am a Kindergarten-teaching-mom-of-three-wife-to-a-teacher-and-basketball-coach in Kentucky.  My goal as a teacher is to bring Kindergarten into the 21st Century while staying true to teaching strategies that help my young students learn best.

Play in the Kindergarten classroom has become a thing of the past with the advent of higher expectations, new core standards, and the pressures of high-stakes testing trickling down to primary teachers. But, after doing some research for a graduate course this summer and recognizing the needs of my students, 

I decided it was time to bring play back into my 21st Century classroom.  

Each month of this school year I have chosen a new theme for dramatic play and have centered all of my play and explore centers around that theme.  All activities are aligned to Common Core and 21st Century Learner standards, provide for student choice, and give opportunities for those important lessons about social interaction and conflict-resolution.  

By devoting time every week (if not every day) to play, I have found that the sense of community among my students has improved, their thinking and questioning skills are better, and their overall academic performance is higher than classes I have had in the past who did not have as many opportunities for exploration.

Young students NEED to PLAY!

This month our theme is Communication and our dramatic play center is a post office.  Students are enjoying making stamps, weighing packages, paying for stamps, and writing/delivering letters and postcards to family and friends.  At the computers students can play Valentine's Day games and practice typing "emails and blogs" in Word.  At the block center students are creating communication devices including walkie-talkies and cell phones.  I bought a couple of cute dramatic play sets from TpT and have also added some of my own ideas over the course of the last couple weeks.  I generally let the activities evolve as the students play and add to them as they ask for items.

Check out these photos straight from my classroom!

 Next week I plan to add a twist to the communication theme with opportunities to play "Oval Office!"  Students will be able to pretend to be the President, work at a desk, and communicate with their constituents through press conferences on the Smart Board (aka video themselves with the document camera and live-broadcast speeches on the board).  You can kick off your Presidents' Day studies with this FREEBIE from my store,

21st Century K:

Grab this FREEBIE!