Throwback Thursday Trio

I am so happy to join in on the fun with my friends Michelle and Fern!! They've asked me to join in on the fun..so what exactly is a Throwback Thursday Trio?? Read here about what Fern and Michelle are up too:

Fern recently came up with a new idea.  Each week, we are going to make one of our normally priced packets free for one day.  This is our way of showing a little appreciation to our followers who have loyally followed our blogs.  As an added bonus, we are going to invite a different blogger friend each week to join us.  Not only will you get free stuff, you might get to "meet" someone new and want to follow his or her store, too.  How great is that?!!!  Make sure you visit our blogs every Thursday!

Click here to download my freebie! 

Just a reminder:  You will not be able to leave feedback after we change it back to a paid for lesson. 

My freebie is my

Interactive Number Journal

How is that I have two children that are COMPLETE opposite?!?! One (oldest) dislikes school with a PASSION. You would think we were asking him to run 100 miles in the pouring rain when all he has to do is homework. The other one (kinder) gets sad when it's Saturday because there is no school! He even asks for MORE homework. Every day he wants to do extra "school time" as he calls it. We had our first conference the other day and his teacher said he is also very eager in the classroom!!! I don't know WHERE this comes from!! He loves math and numbers, and I wanted a way to practice those number words early on. I know how tricky they can be later on...So I came up with this little fun Interactive Math Number Journal! You can use this journal in several ways. My little one wanted to glue it into his own spiral notebook. But I thought it would be cut and easy in the classroom to glue it onto construction paper. That way you can work on it as you need to. I plan on making a set with higher numbers, because he will get to 20 pretty quickly!!!  

It includes numbers 1-20!!

His favorite part is the high light the number section :) 

Guided Math Tips and Resources

Hey Friends! If you haven't noticed, I've  really been enjoying our guided math routine this year! We've had so much fun while learning all at the same time! If you are not familiar with Guided Math, it follows the same routine as Guided Reading! Students are working in cooperative learning groups while the teacher pulls students who need remediation or intervention. This gives you a chance to see where each and EVERY student is.

I typically introduce each topic in a whole group setting, then we start our stations. Students are practicing the skill the first day. I will also sometimes give a pre assessment.  The first day, I am rotating around each station to see where students are struggling. I group my students by how they did on the pretest. The groups will change, depending on the skill. My struggling students for money, might be different then the students who struggle with word problems. The following day, we start off with our stations again and I pull each group to re-teach the skill. We follow this routine for several days. About the fifth or sixth day of instruction, I will give a mini assessment to see where our struggles are. Using this data, I might re-group my students for intervention.

While I'm working with my intervention group, my students are completing centers. The skills are a combination of the current SOL and previously taught skills. This way, the students are working on skills all throughout the year, not just when the pacing guide says to! I don't have my kids rotate. Just the math tubs rotate. You can read more about that here

Reasons why I *LOVE* Guided Math:

*Students are doing engaging, hands on, interactive math activities

*Teacher meets with every student in a small group setting

*It's not BORING! Kids LOVE IT!

Here are my FAVORITE Resources for Guided Math:

                               

That's the reasons in a nutshell! I have SEVERAL posts on guided math and resources to use! My blogging friends also have tons of ideas so I decided to do a little linky party!

If you have a post about guided math, feel free to link up, just be sure to add my image to your post and link back to this post!!! Don't have a blog? Leave a comment of what you would like to know about guided math or your favorite guided math tip!!!

Till Next Time!

Throwback Math Stations

I wanted to share a post I did for my sweet friend Denise at Sunny Days in Second Grade a while back..I wanted to share it with you because it includes some GREAT free resourse!!

Hey! This is Ashley from The Teacher's Treasure Chest! I am so thankful my sweet  friend Denise let me stop by! 

Through blogging, I never expected to become SUCH good friends with the other bloggers. I talk to them more than I do my "real" friends. We laugh together, cry together and talk about life together. We really care about each other. It's amazing how close we've all become. 

Now for the REAL reason you are here! I wanted to talk a little bit about Math Stations. A lot of times people think that centers are just for reading. So NOT  true. Students need to use engaging, hands on activities to truly learn mathematical concepts. Of course, you need to use paper-pencil activities as well. It's a balance, and you have to find the best way that works for you and your students. 

I typically use about 6 math stations a week. Four of the stations are directly related to the skill we are learning that week. The other two are typically reinforced skills, or previously taught skills. This gives students a chance to continue working on the skills through out the year.  One skill that you can ALWAYS use in a station, is place value. Place Value is usually one of the first topics covered in the year. I use several resources for this, but one of my favorite is my 

Place Value Work Stations! This activity gives students a chance to actually build the number. I use this station set AFTER the concept as been thoroughly taught and modeled. No matter what subject, stations can not be given to the students without previous instruction. It is so important that the student has a strong foundation before we start practicing on the skill. Here is a little preview into that station packet...

You can take a better look at it here

We also use our Place-Value-Choice-Boards-

These choice boards range in difficulty so they are great for differentiation!!

Depending on your grade level, pattern blocks can also be a great math station. I love "killing two birds with one stone", so this activity from First Grade Blue Skies is just great! She combines the pattern block activity with learning sight words! My students LOVE this. I think second graders can benefit from pattern blocks, especially when they promote higher order thinking skills. 

Another great
station that you can use throughout the year is this Time Packet.

I use binder rings  for SO many of my stations! It's a easy way to keep up with things and to make sure cards do not magically disappear...we all know that happens sometimes :) 

I also have several of Denise's activities! One of my favorites for Math Stations is Measurement Task Cards! This is another great station, that you could even store on binder rings (haha,I'm slightly obsessed!!)  Denise does a wonderful job with this product. I like it because quality measurement activities are limited and this one really promotes higher order thinking skills...and our students need that so much!!! 

I wanted to end with a list of some of my favorite FREE Math Stations! Thank you for stopping by and be sure to head over and check out my BLOG!!!


Free Math Stations:

FREE-Addition-Math-Center-

Multiplication-Facts-Game-Left-Right-Learn-

Back-to-School-Ten-Frames-Practice-Sheets-

AdditionSubtraction-Halloween-EYE-SPY-Game-

Four-FREE-math-games-

Guided Math and More Guided Math

Hey friends! We've been slammed the last few weeks, so I'm so sorry that I haven't had much time to stop by.

We've been hitting some major skills the last few weeks. From Problem and Solution , Main Idea and Author's Purpose, Text Features..AND Cause and Effect! We've been jammed packed! On top of all of that we've been working on our guided math routine. I know y'all can relate to the crazy life we call teaching! Sometimes I can't even believe we are able to teach our little ones so much! With all the workshops, meetings, and trainings, it makes prep time super precious!! I know I'm preachin' to the choir here ;)

Guided Math Centers

So let me tell you how I've adapted to the lack of planning time. I HAVE to teach with hands on centers, it just has to happen. For the first time, I'm at a school where colored ink is like liquid gold..LITERALLY! So I've had to change up my centers a bit. I'm no longer blessed with AS MUCH ink as I wanted (like in Texas). 

So I've been using quick and easy centers. These Math Stations are so easy to put together. I've made them so that I have to spend little time cutting, and I just laminate, hole punch and go! Some centers do not even have to be cut out.

I am absolutely love giving my kiddos an option of their learning centers. So these Multiplication Choice Boards are perfect for that! And they are differentiated so that you can use them for all of your students, no matter their level! 

The students complete these and record their answers in their math journals. 

I made three versions, a full page color version, a full page B&W Version and a half page version.

I also use these math centers in my guided math routine. Each basket has a centers on a previously taught skill. The skills we've been working with is Place Value, Multiplication, Rouding, Addition and Subtraction. All of these skills are in my Fall Math Center Packet for Bigger Kids

I have these work station cards in addition, subtraction AND multiplication. They are easy to assembly and the kids love how they are themed. 

You can check out all of these centers right here.

Story Elements Anchor Charts

We've also started story elements this week. I've always created and used anchor charts, but now that I'm in  4th grade, we create them together. I create one as I introduce the lesson. Once I've introduced the concept and thoroughly instructed it, the students create one in their Reading Binders. I found these binders on TpT and absolutely LOVE THEM! So the kids really have enjoyed creating their own anchor charts and making them different from mine :) It's also nice to see them reference their anchor charts during the week..that's what we make them for, right :) Now, I haven't posted any pictures of my anchor charts for one reason...and one reason only..I do not have the pretty handwriting we see all over pinterest :) This is why I do EVERYTHING on the computer!!! 

Here are a few examples of our anchor charts:

For the skill Story Elements, we read "Crickwing"! What a cute book! I will have more from that lesson in a few days :)

Till next time! 

Problem and Solution, Guided Math Centers

What a busy last few weeks! 

Let me dive on into the skills we've been working on! We finished out our Author's Purpose week and moved right on into Problem and Solution!!! Problem and Solution is always so much fun! I love it when students create their own problems and solutions... it makes me remember how simple children really are. Wouldn't ya just love it if your biggest problem was "If my XboX is going to work after school?" I know I sure would :) 

Everyday, we work in our Guided Reading Binders. Our binders are divided up into 5 parts: Guided Reading, Skills, Word Work, Reading Response and Vocabulary.  In our skills section, we record our answers for the centers we've worked on for the week. This week, we worked on Problem and Solution. We used Problem and Solution match up activity and recording the answers in our binders.  

Click the picture below for the this recording sheet FREEBIE that you can use with ANY book or passage!

We are also using my Fall-Literacy-Centers-for-Big-Kids packet. I am still able to use some of my materials from 1st and 2nd grade, but have really had to dig and create for most of my resources for 4th grade! With this packet, we are practicing Main Idea, Synonyms, Antonyms, Parts of Speech and Author's Purpose. I am using these centers in the weeks AFTER we teach a topic for spiral review. As I am teaching them, I am using only skill based centers. I like this packet because even though it's a skill they've previously learned, the fact that it's fall themed, makes them think they are practicing something new! The kids are loving the graphics and colors! 

In Math, we are gearing up for our Guided Math routine. Have you tried Guided Math yet? Or looked into it? It's basically the same plan as Guided Reading! We are doing a 30 minute mini guided math plan where we are pulling students who had trouble with the skill we are teaching that week. This is in ADDITION to our math schedule, and is first

thing in the morning. I LOVE teaching in small groups, so it's perfect for me. Here is how we set up our groups for our mini math session:

1. Meet with Teacher-Assisstant

2. Hands On Math

3. Literacy Math Activities

4. Skill Based Math Centers 

*Pull remediation students  for Meet With Teacher*

For the 4th group, we are using previously taught material and providing students a chance to review those skills. The one students who need remediation, can then be pulled from their groups to work with their teacher. 

I am creating different math read alongs so that we can use during our Math Literacy Activities, while I work on them, I am just using a few titles our library had. Here is a great link of Math Literature: http://www.bookworm4kids.com/MathAndLiterature/MathLit4-6.html

All of the skill based centers are activities that students can do independently and are skills that have been previously been taught. You cannot give them a skill based center on fractions if you haven't taught the skill.  So, this year we've worked on place value, rounding and addition and subtraction. I  am using these work station cards for rounding.

I created the same type of activities for Place Value, Addition and Subtraction. When I created these, I had my non ink people in mind! I am now in the position where ink is like liquid gold! Before, I never had to worry about ink. So I created both colorful versions and black and white. My problem is,  "Plain Jane" stuff is boring to me..so I printed it on bright paper to make it colorful! Each station is being printed on a different color! You can use these cards in so many ways. I am using each skill as one center, but you could easily mix up the skills and combine them into one center. Whatever the needs are for your classroom and what works for you!! 

You can check out this product HERE and I'm putting on sale for a little bit for ya!