Using Touch Dots to Count Money

Have you ever had a student that just STRUGGLED with counting money and you couldn't figure out what to do in order to help them?

Well, I have this child EVERY.SINGLE.YEAR. and I find that using Touch Dots to count money has helped my students every time (maybe I'm just lucky???). I truly believe in touch dots for counting money and for learning to add.

In my money unit, I have posters for using touch dots and a few practice sheets to get students used to counting and seeing the touch dots. My students love doing them!

When I first start teaching money, I always teach this Coins Poem first (you could use this video to teach your students the words and have a visual of each coin at the same time):

After teaching my students the coins (even though they should already know their coins), I then move on to teaching them how to add the coins up and use touch dots to count money.

In this short video below, you can learn how to use touch dots with your students to count money.

Now, for my students that already know how to count money by adding the coins together, I do not MAKE them use the touch dots. I usually do a little pre-assessment and a lot of informal observations on my students while teaching money the first few days to see which students I will MAKE use the dots.

I hope you enjoy this alternative way of counting money as much as I do!!!

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The Pencil Grip Review and GIVEAWAY!!!

This month, I decided to try out these amazing Pencil Grips to see if they would help my students correct their grips and improve their handwriting. I knew right away which students I wanted to test these on.

Here is a picture of one of my student's grips before using the pencil grip and with the pencil grip. Doesn't it look so much more comfortable with the grip???

Before using the grip.

While using the grip.

What I love most about the pencil grip, is that my students were SO excited to use them. Most of my students that HATE writing are the ones that I noticed could use some help with their grip. I'm not sure if it's just a coincidence or what, but my thought is maybe their grip is causing them to be uncomfortable when writing. But as soon as I let them start using the pencil grip, they wanted to write and write.

I think this would be an ideal product to have in any PreK-2 classroom and for older grades to even have a few on hand to help students that are still struggling with their grips.

If I taught PreK or Kindergarten, I would use a whole class set of these things!!! For grades 1 and 2, I would definitely use these with my students still struggling with grips and even in a Word Work Center or Handwriting Center. The kids would be excited to just be able to write with these fun grips!!! They have lots of different colors too! EVEN GLITTER!!! eeek :)

You can find The Pencil Grips on Amazon or over at their website as well.

Now for a GIVEAWAY!!!!

The Pencil Grip Inc. has decided that they would like to give away TWO sets of their 3 Grip Training Kit to TWO lucky winners!

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post and you will be entered into the Rafflecopter below. The last day to enter will be February 26th. Please don't forget to leave your email address in your comment so that I can contact you for your prize. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Groundhog Day Snack

This February, my class is using my February Yummy Snacks pack to make fun snacks while sequencing our recipes. It has been a lot of fun so far!

We started out by making our little Groundhog Day snack and it was so much fun! It's definitely one of the easiest (not to mention the cutest) snacks I've ever made with my class. 

Check out the video below (I made it with my kiddos at home too) for making your Groundhog Day snack. You could even use this video to guide your students in class!

Click on the picture below to download the February Yummy Snacks:

I hope you enjoy this snack idea!!!

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Sweet Treats at Primary Peach

Head over to The Primary Peach blog to download some funny goodies! Today I shared my February Yummy Snacks packet for FREE!

There are LOTS of other fun freebies posted and there will be LOTS more to come all month long!!!

I hope you enjoy! :)

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5 Regions of GA

Every year, 2nd grade teachers in GA have to teach the 5 regions of GA. We do lots of fun activities while learning about the 5 regions.

The first thing I teach, is the 5 Regions Song that my class made up years ago. This helps them to remember the names of the 5 regions and their locations.

Use the video below to teach your students the song if you like.

After teaching the song, we then start to dig a little deeper into each region. We usually create a flip book for each region that tells about the habitat, the animals, the weather, and the type of landforms in that region.

This is a yearlong standard that we teach and the kids love learning about the 5 regions.

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Minute To Win It Reward Party

Earlier in the year I showed you my "Addition Facts Hall of Fame" and "Subtraction Facts Hall of Fame".

By middle of the year of 2nd grade, I expect my students to master their addition facts (20 facts correct in 1 minute). For those that have mastered their facts, we do a special party. I decided to do the party during recess this year because I didn't want my other students to feel like they were being punished for not mastering their facts (every child is different and their circumstances are different as well). But I did want to reward the ones that did master their facts because they worked very hard and deserved it.

So I decided to do a "Minute to Win It War" party for the kids that made it at least on the Addition Facts Hall of Fame. I only had about 4 students out of 24 that did not master their facts.

Here is a video of the Minute to Win It Games that we played…

They had a blast playing these games! And A BONUS was that it was EASY to set up!!! I'm not gonna lie, I forgot to go to the store the day before the party to get cookies and marshmallows, so I substituted for things I already had in my room (crackers and gummy bears leftover from another activity that we did).

I would highly recommend doing a "Minute to Win It" Reward party! And I told them it only made since to do this type of party because they had a "Minute to finish their math facts after all". haha!

I hope you enjoy! I would love to hear of other "Minute to Win It" games that you've loved playing with your students.

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Matter Experiments

We had fun with our matter experiments!

First we made ice cream using rock salt, sugar, vanilla flavoring, and ice! So fun!

 Then we made butter using heavy whipping cream and shaking it like crazy!

Last, we took a mixture of snacks and SEPARATED them to show that the mixture could be completely separated. 

Science is probably my kids' most favorite subject!!! They absolutely LOVE it!

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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!!

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RACK Calendar and Elf on the Shelf

So, this post really has nothing to do with the classroom.

Every year, my family and I do a little RACKing (Random Acts of Christmas Kindness) during the month of December. I decided that I needed to be a lot more organized with it this year, so I made a little calendar to use throughout the month. (Click on the picture below to download a PDF version of this calendar as well as a blank printable calendar, RACK cards, & Elf on the Shelf notecards)

And here are the little RACK cards that we will be handing out as we do each of our RACKs throughout the month.

My family also does Elf on the Shelf every year. Our elf's name is Buddy the Elf and he is very funny. This year he's going to be leaving a little note card with himself every morning as his communication with the kids. He's also going to be helping out with some of our RACK ideas as well. Here are some of the note cards he will be using:

Remember to click on any of the images above to get your FREE PDF printable to use. I really hope this helps make planning a lot easier for others this Christmas!!!!

GOD BLESS! And remember the REASON for the SEASON is Jesus Christ, our LORD and SAVIOR!

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Sharing Sunday - November

The FUN teacher authors over at the Primary Peach have started a blog link-up called Sharing Sunday. For this series, the teachers will be sharing TONS of resources that they are PLANNING to use the following month. Here are my plans for Sharing Sunday (click on any of the pictures to view the PDF with clickable links to take you to each of these files):

 Inferencing is a great skill to cover over and over again for 2nd graders. These riddle cards are great practice. Of course fluency is something that I'm constantly pushing this part of the year as well.

 My ELA workbook has made planning for ELA sooo soo easy. I have all of the practice activities stapled as a workbook for my students. I also have all of the tests that are included in the packet already copied for the entire year. 

My Fall pack includes lots of fun activities that are not Thanksgiving related. I love doing the Thanksgiving stuff the week of Thanksgiving, but I want all other stuff to just be Fall related. The Thanksgiving freebie has lots of fun writing ideas for Thanksgiving. 

 For math I'm using my Fall Pack to review problem solving with my math groups. These are already differentiated so I can just grab the color cards that I need and get to work. 

The Find, Tally, and Graph is a great review for graphing.

We are teaching addition with regrouping now and will be teaching subtraction in a few weeks. These regrouping bookmarks are great for quick reference. 

 During the week of Thanksgiving my class will do all of these fun Thanksgiving themed math and literacy centers. We only have 2 days that week, so this gives them plenty to do during small groups.

For unit in November, we are teaching The Creek and Cherokee Indians and in science we will teach Matter. These are some GREAT resources to use.

See anything you like??? Anything you want to use in your plans??? If you click on any of the pictures or just click HERE, it will take you to the pdf that includes all of the clickable links that will take you STRAIGHT TO each of these documents to download for yourself. I hope this makes planning a little easier for you next month! Come back in December for another SHARING SUNDAY!!!

And don't forget to head over to The Primary Peach Blog to check out the other teachers' plans!

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Fall Freebie at the Primary Peach

Head over to the Primary Peach today to check out a fun Fall Freebie that I'm sharing! Also, don't forget to enter the giveaway over at the Primary Peach!

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What the Teacher Wore Wednesday

Hey teacher friends! It's another Wednesday and I'm here to show my outfits from last week, but also to blog about my VERY FIRST STITCH FIX BOX!!!!

So I heard about Stitch Fix a while back, but finally decided that I would give it a try. I signed up and made sure to put that I wanted to lowest prices on everything! The day my box arrived it felt like Christmas morning!!! I love mail, but I ESPECIALLY love mail with clothes. And it was a surprise!!! A stylist picked out everything for me based on my style profile and my Pinterest board. How cool is that? And there's not any obligation to buy anything!!!! I could've sent everything back if I wanted to.

You do have to pay $20 for a styling fee when you schedule your box to be shipped BUT if you buy ANYTHING from that box, your $20 goes towards the item/items that you want to buy.

Another great perk is that if you buy EVERYTHING in your box, then you get 25% off the total.

Here is what my box looked like the day I received it.

Box when I opened it (top middle), my outfit inspiration and letter from stylist (top right), how neatly my clothes and jewelry were folded (bottom right), all my goodies on my bed (left).

I decided to keep EVERYTHING inside of my box!!!! So I got 25% off of the total cost.


Here are my outfits from the week (I included my Stitch Fix items).

Monday:

Top - Stitch Fix (super lightweight sweater)

pants - Old Navy

Sandals - Sam Edelmans

Watch - Michael Kors

Necklace - JCREW

Tuesday:

Blouse and pants - Stitch Fix

Shoes - Ralph Lauren

Watch - Michael Kors

Necklace - Forever 21

Wednesday:

Cardigan, pants and top - Old Navy

Shoes - Ralph Lauren

Watch - Michael Kors

Necklaces - Christmas gifts from local boutique

Thursday:

 Cardigan - Stitch Fix

top and pants - Old Navy

Sandals - Sam Edelmans

Watch - Michael Kors

Necklace - Forever 21

And… I chopped my hair off on Thursday!!! This is SHORT hair for me! I got about 7 inches cut in all. 

Friday: I wore jeans (nothing fancy worth sharing)… so I'll share Sunday's outfit instead! :)

top, pants, shoes - Old Navy

Necklace - Christmas gifts from local boutique

I hope you enjoyed my "What the Teacher Wore Wednesday"! And you should definitely give STITCH FIX  a try if you haven't already. Click HERE if you want to sign up for your account to Stitch Fix and fill out your style profile to see if this is something you would be interested in. 

I will probably be doing my boxes every other month because I loved it so much!!! I would love to know your opinions on your boxes as well. 

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Math Facts

So, math is probably my FAVORITE subject to teach. But to me, math FACTS, are NO FUN at all. UNLESS you have some incentives to know them RIGHT!?!?!

So what I started doing last year, was putting students that pass their math facts on the "MATH FACTS HALL OF FAME" in the hallway for the whole school to see. This REALLY motivated my kids. 

This is how it works… In 2nd grade we start out the year by "pre-assessing" our students on their math facts for addition and subtraction to see where they are at. We consider mastery, 20 out of 20 problems correct in 1 minute. 

We start out the year with addition facts for everyone. We give flashcards, we do drills daily to practice in class, and we even have them do a 1 minute drill for practice each night with their parents. 

You can find my Math Fluency Homework in my Tpt store. 

When they have mastered their addition facts, their picture is put in the hallway on the "Addition Facts Hall of Fame". They get SO excited!!!!

After mastering addition, they get to start doing subtraction drills in class AND their 1 minute homework drill is also changed from addition to subtraction (how do you like that differentiation ;) )

When mastering subtraction, their picture goes on the "Subtraction Facts Hall of Fame". They then start doing multiplication drills in class, they do a 1 minute drill each night for multiplication, along with a 1 minute drill on addition every other night and a 1 minute drill on subtraction every other night. I do this, because I want their addition and subtraction facts to stay fresh since they are completely different than multiplication facts. 

The kids absolutely LOVE to compete with each other and are thrilled when their pictures go up! 

We started using an online program called "Reflex Math" this school year and the students love the games on there. I highly recommend it. 

I hope this gives you some new ideas to make doing those boring exciting math facts even more fun for your kiddos!

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