Understanding Multiplication

Well, Hello! This year has been moving quickly, I can hardly believe we are in the middle of October!  This week we began our first of three chapters on multiplication in third grade.  I absolutely love, love, love Go Math's Understanding Multiplication chapter and how their self confidence grows as they learn each new strategy. 

On Day 1 we glued this fabulous foldable from The Busy Class on TPT, throughout the week, we filled out each strategy portion.  

Our first strategy was Drawing Groups...or pizzas with pepperoni...or cookies with chocolate chips, you'd think those little darlings never ate. Good grief.  So, after our debate about drawing groups/pizzas/cookies we continued on to move around the classroom with dry erase boards and recreated multiplication word problems using ordinary school supplies like the example above.  

This is my second year in a row starting off my unit with this lesson and I've been happy with my results both times.  Kids end the lesson feeling excited and confident about multiplication. Win! 

I always have fun working with arrays! I'm pretty sure my students love them just about as much as I do.  This year we created simple arrays during Computer Lab using Pixi and virtual stickers.  I love this dog sled racing team!

Since my kiddos grasped onto arrays quickly I decided to do a mini lesson on area.  This game was a ton of fun way to work on that skill and absolutely no prep work for me.  Again....WIN! Students needed graphing paper for each pair/trio, a separate color crayon, and two dice.  Players rolled the dice and created an array to match the multiplication equation.  The student who filled up the most boxes with their color wins.  

However, the showstopper for these little thirdsters was taking snapshots of arrays around the classroom and hallway.  I loved seeing my students find math within our real world! It's so exciting to see them so enthusiastic! 

The activity really was not anything Earth shattering...we used Show Me to import our pictures and write the appropriate multiplication sentence.  

Wish us luck as we attempt to tackle on the serious stuff next week....interpreting multi-operational word problems. Yikes! 

What Does the Shape Say!?!?

I don't know about you, but once I saw Linda Kamp's What Does the Shape Say product featured on TPT and Pinterest, I knew I HAD to own it!   

I always love to incorporate crafts and activities into my math lessons and this one was a big hit! You can purchase yours HERE.  In this post I'm including a few other activities we've done while exploring plane shapes in third grade. 

First up was Polygon vs. Not a Polygon.  I gave each student one pipe cleaner and would shout out, "polygon" or, "not a polygon." My students had to then create a shape that matched appropriately.  We then turn and talked to our math buddies and explained to them why our shape was or was not a polygon.   This was a fun and simple assessment at the end of the lesson! Score! 

The following day as a review we pulled out our iPads and opened ShowMe, you can read more about my love for this app HERE.  There is seriously a million and ten ways to use this app in your classroom, I LOVE it.  

I allowed my students time to go around the room snapping some pictures of polygons and items that were not polygons.  Gotta love an opportunity for some real world math!  They then sorted the photos in a ShowMe document, took a screenshot, and printed them.  Of course we could have shared them digitally, but I really wanted them to take these home as a guide for their homework. 

Linda Kamp's product also comes with pieces to create an anchor chart.  Don't mind that poor fox's funky eyes...they're trying to cover a whoopsie-daisy mistake.  #ThankGoodnessIdon'tTeachArt

I decided to create my anchor chart into a more interactive peek-a-boo poster.  

My kiddies couldn't wait to get their hands going to make their own foxy shapes! 

They had to choose their shape..we only used the quadrilaterals, then write out the attributes of the shape in the word bubble.  Once that was completed it was cut and paste time! 

This little love bug just loves to create projects! 

Here they are, hanging proudly and brightening up our classroom space!!!

Now,  I'm off to celebrate my Hawks' win agains LA Kings! Yea, Buddy!!!

Area Awesomeness and Partying with Perimeter

Is this not a great visual?? I found the idea on Pinterest, but it wanted to lead me to No Man's Land...if you know who's idea it belongs to I'd love to give them credit! 

I've really grown to love teaching third grade math...like really love it! Area and perimeter is one of my favorite chapters, the kids just 'get it' and really start making some connections between math they already know! Now if only we can make some better connections in our writing....hmph! 

I'm excited to share a few things I've been doing with my class this year during our Area/Perimeter chapter, and if you're patient with me, you'll find some freebies at the end. :)

First up is GeoBoard App! It's so simple, easy to use, and free! I LOVE not having to waste time passing out my other manipulatives and dodging rubber band sling shots! WINNING!

Next up is Area and Perimeter Word Work, it's another simple activity I typed up and put in my Word Work station.  I love to have the kids reviewing math skills while practicing their spelling words and they love finding anything new in the Word Work bin! 

Here's a picture of one in action, I printed mine double sided and slipped it into a dry erase sleeve.  Make sure your students write their word on the middle row, this way your letters that dip below the line and your tall letters have space.  Students then draw a box around the entire word and determine the area and perimeter.  How simple is that??

My final share are these adorable Perimeter Pets! I gave the kids some graph paper to draw the best type of pet, they then determined the area and perimeter of the pet. I also had them do a bit of opinion writing where they had to include their reasoning for picking the animal they drew.  

It was a simple activity that the kids LOVED.  

I promised you freebies, and you can find both the Area and Perimeter visual and Word Work 

HERE and HERE, or by clicking on their images above. 

XOXO

Monday Made It- April Egg-dition

Hey There! The crafting and creating bug has been humming in my ear lately, but I haven't had a lot of time to get anything done.  Hopefully I'll find some spare moments soon and get some projects underway.  

A few things I was able to create were a math and literacy center for my kiddies and they have been loving them! 

First up is Springtime Synonyms.  I filled a shoebox with some Easter grass and wrote a word on each half of a plastic eggs. 

Super simple and a nice review for my third graders on synonyms and helped to build some vocabulary for my ELL students! 

Next I created a math station called Egg-Citing Multiplication.  I used my cheap Easter Eggs again to display two factors...I just did this with my Sharpie...because I'm fancy like that. 

My students liked matching two factors to their product and their teacher loves anything that reviews multiplication and division facts! 

If you'd like to use my same little chickies you can download them HERE from my TPT store.  

I'm getting excited because here in Chicagoland we're finally experiencing some spring weather! Perhaps I will be able to pack away my winter clothes before summer vacation after all! 

Don't forget to check out Tara's terrific blog and all of the other Monday Made Its!

Trying to Squeeze it All In!

I know I'm not alone in feeling frustrated and overwhelmed this time of year.   When the teachers are feeling a little worse for wear and kiddies are a tad overwhelmed, you know it's Standardized Testing Season! 

This sweet little board inspired by One Lesson at a Time reminds both my students and I that we love to learn!  The last few weeks we've been trying to squeeze in as much as we can until that big monster of a test arrives.  Here are some of the fun activities we've been doing throughout the day...

First up is Polygon Post-Its! I borrowed this rug from our Math Enrichment Teacher, threw down a cup of markers, and some Post-Its and told the kids to go to town during their snack break.  The kids had fun counting up the sides and identifying the different polygons. 

 

These story cubes were a lot of fun to make and a simple organizer.  After reading independently students filled out the six sides of the cube with the following:

1. Title & Author

2. Characters

3. Setting

4. Problem

5. Solution

6. Theme/Lesson

 

Next up we had a polygon hunt with our iPads and snapped about 1,000 pictures in 10 minutes! Ha! They just LURVE to use that camera!  Afterwards, we used Show Me as a way to organize our photos and identify the different polygons in our classroom. 

My students have LOVED getting to play Piece of Cake an idiom memory matching game! I'm so thankful for this product, it's been especially helpful for my population of ELL students who so often struggle with figurative language.  You can purchase a copy for yourself HERE.

 

Last, we had fun making these rainbow fraction tiles.  I laid out the strips and had pre-folded the thirds and sixths for my kiddies.  It was time a time consuming, but worthwhile project! I liked having the kids make the tiles instead of using printed out fraction tiles I've used before.

So, there you have it! We've been trying to have some fun during this stressful time of the school year and soon we will be able to breathe a sigh of relief! It'll be all over soon!

Wishing you peace of mind and serenity during this time,

XOXO

Five for Friday January Wrap-Up

January is wrapping up, so I thought this would be the last perfect opportunity to share some of the things going on with me and my classroom.  Since I'm ALWAYS late to the 5 for Friday party, I decided this week, I'll arrive early!

Here in Chicagoland we are on our fourth Snow/Cold Day! This really is unheard of for our area, I think I could count on one hand how many snow days I had as a kid growing up in the suburbs of Chicago.  It truly has been bitterly cold and not safe for little ones to be out and about, especially when some of them need to ride on a bus for 40 minutes to get to and from school.  

On the plus side, this gave me a lot of time to work on some projects (I can't wait for Monday Made-It) and I even finished up my valentines! You can check those out HERE

A friend of mine got me a totally awesome Christmas gift! A three-month subscription to 

Beauty Box 5, here is a little peak into the goodies I got in January.  The theme was relaxation and renewal and included a pair of exfoliation gloves, body moisturizer, compact mirror, cuticle massage oil, and some yummy coconut lip balm! I can't wait for the next package to arrive!

  

Wine +Whitey's Ice-Cream + (quite possibly the best in the mid-west) mustaches = awesome girly weekend in rural Illinois with some college friends!

My third graders love to read about Martin Luther King Jr. and enjoyed coming up with adjectives and admirable qualities about him.

The Thirdsters have been loving playing this Area Array game with graphing paper and dice.  Each student takes a turn rolling two dice and draws an array matching the product with their designated color.  When the sheet is filled, the student with the most unit squares colored wins!

I'm adding on a bonus number six...just because...well...I have one more thing I want to share!

Last week my class did a small novel study on Judy Blume's Freckle Juice.  At the end of the week we created these secret recipes for freckle juice, where I had my students using unit fractions to make up 

1 cup.  We then added freckles onto our faces by using my dot markers.  Reading/Writing/Math connection?? I'm sold!

I can't wait to see what February will bring! Hopefully a full 5 day week!