Fun Fraction Book

We are up to our knees with fractions in Room 19 this week!  I ordered this awesome book Whole-y Cow! Fractions Are Fun by Taryn Souders from Scholastic awhile back. Ever since then, I've been waiting and waiting for our fraction unit to arrive so I could read it with my class. It is very silly and I know they are going to just eat.it.up! 

On each set of pages there is a situation with the cow that incorporates some sort of fraction (of a set or of a whole - halves, thirds, fourths, tenths). Then it asks questions to which there is a fractional answer. Since we are working hard on learning which number "goes on the top" and which number "goes on the bottom" I thought it would be nice to have a recording sheet for my kids to write down the fractions as we went along. We may work through it orally as a whole class first and then have the activity sheet in a center later where 3/18 of them can work on it at a time while getting a closer look at the illustrations. ; ) I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do yet, but I do know that I love bringing fun read-alouds into our math block.

Before I made this document I "googled" to see if there was already one floating out there in cyber-space. While I didn't find what I was looking for exactly...I did find a whole packet of activities the author created to accompany the book - there's some good stuff in there. Here's the link: Fractions Are Fun

Click on the link below to download my recording sheet:

Whole-y Cow! Fractions Are Fun

Coin Song

Just a quick post about a poster I made to accompany a fun song about coins and their values! I'm loving the fun learning songs on the CD (Brainy Beats) from http://www.teachertipster.com/. You can also buy it on iTunes and he has some videos of the songs on his website.

My class just adores the "Honey Bunny" track, so I made this little poster to go with it. I also glued a real coin next to each line, so they would get a visual reminder of what each coin looks like as they sang the name and value. One student puts on the bunny ears (Target Dollar Spot!!) and is our leader. They point to each line as we sing it and we ALL boogie down during the "Hey honey bunny, I know my money money!" parts. It's so much fun. The song is great without this visual, but I'm hoping it will help my students who are still confusing nickels and dimes to connect the value and name to what the coin looks like. :) Honey Bunny is now a Morning Meeting FAVE in Room 19. :)

Honey Bunny Mini-Poster

Number Sense Card Game

My class has fallen in LOVE with "I Have, Who Has" and I'm not one to argue with excitement! Expect to see more and more of these decks in my posts. They can't get enough. :) I thought this would be a great deck for reinforcing mental addition and subtraction using place value.

What I love about this game is that it is quick enough to do for a fun activity during morning meeting or if there are a few spare minutes at the end of math or at dismissal time.

Click on the link below to download:

Book Giveaway Winner!

Please e-mail me (thegradetwozoo@gmail.com) to claim your prize! 

Congratulations on winning & enjoy your fun new books. :)

Thank you all for entering! 

Place Value Card Game

I made up this quick deck of "I Have, Who Has?" cards for reinforcing place value. This will be pretty easy for most of my class, but some still could use the skill-building.

Of course, when I was about 95% done making these I thought I would google and see if there were any available...and I found a great page on MathWire with lots of different decks.  I'm going to be printing the coin set ASAP! :)  Check it out: http://www.mathwire.com/whohas/whohas.html 

Click on the link below to grab my deck:

I Have, Who Has? Base-Ten

Remember to enter my book giveaway if you haven't yet!  You can enter for a chance to win until midnight - I will post the winner tomorrow. :)