Wow it has been a long time since I posted... or maybe it just feels like it! Between all the holiday hoopla and the classroom hoopla I'm exhausted! On the upside I made a new year's resolution, and no it isn't losing weight (although it should be). I have decided to be more aware of recording all the neat things we get to do and experience in my classroom! Not only do I want to be able to share our success( and sometimes not-so-successful) events, but I also want to have these memories for years to come. So, my new resolution is to take photos and video of just about everything I can. I sort of cheated and started my resolution in December, but maybe you'll enjoy the beginnings of it!
During math I usually do differentiated centers every Friday. These centers are usually as follows:
Working with Teacher: working on the lesson we are doing that week
Basic Skills: some type ofactivity about a basic skill I have noticied they are missing on formative assessments I give weekly
Computers: I have an AWESOME website my kids go to for games (this post will follow soon), all the games are divided by area of weakness and level. Those pink mousepads are just paper protectors with a weekly schedule I created in order to make sure students get a little bit of everything. (again, too much infor for now, but I'll post soon)
Math Game: Our Title I teacher is awesome and has helped to create a large resource bin of math games (I'll try to get those added on here someday too)
During the centers before we went on break I wanted to have a little more holiday fun so I tried out a couple of ideas and the kids LOVED them! I also saw their scores go up on our recent mid-year assessment due to hitting on some of the curriculum pieces they had "gaps" in.
One of the centers were chains that had color patterns and number patterns and students had to figure out which number went next. I gave them a pile of green and red strips of paper that had the answers on them. At first they were scared, but they did really well with! (she is giving the OMG look here :-)
The patterns were put in order from easy, medium, and challenge. Students were asked to add 2 links to each easy/medium chain, and told they could try the challenge is they wanted. I found most students went right for the challenge becuase they were so eager to figure it out. Some of the patterns were adding, some were subtracting, some patterns were steady (+2, +2, +2), others increased (+1, +2, +3). They did some awesome work on these.. don't you love his earings by the way? Haha!~
Another center I had for basic skills was Symmetrical Snowmen! Symmetry is a big gap for my students so we revisited it by folding paper and cutting! They also could add snowflakes (again symmetrical!). We had so much fun making them and they got very creative. This was also nice for my students who struggle with fine motor skills.
Well that is all for now! I will post again next week about my math centers more. Stayed tuned, and I'll set you up with the most amazing list of leveled computer games! :-) Talk to you soon!
