Telling Time and OI/OY

We have been working on telling time to the hour and half hour.  I found this cute activity from Teacher Idea Factory to practice telling time.  I had the kids draw a clock on their desks (we are lucky to have desks that we can write on).  Then I gave each of them a piece of licorice.  I told him that the licorice was going to be our hands on the clock.  We had to break the piece into 2 pieces (one short and one long for the hands on the clock).  Then we got started practicing the time.  The kids had a blast with it and if they followed directions then they got to enjoy a piece of licorice at the end. 

We have also been working on words with oi/oy and I found this cute activity from First Grade W.O.W.  The students had to come up with words with oi and oy.  They made a list of them on their desks and then at the end they came up with 2 more words with oi/oy and used a mini chips ahoy cookie as the o in their words.  They were more than ready to come up with some words for me because once they did they got to eat the cookies.  

Have a great day!

Daily 5 Progress and Math Rotations - Five for Friday!

Happy Friday! 

I tell you with Labor Day off this week, I had my days all messed up and strangely it seemed like a longer week than normal. Short weeks are always like that for me though!

So here's what we've been up to in 2nd grade:

We went over Check for Understanding again before we started practicing Read to Someone. We only have one thing left for next week - Listen to Reading. 

These kids are rocking out the Daily 5! Don't hate me, but we were doing 15 minutes of Read to Self the 2nd day!!! Thank you, dear first grade teacher! :-)

Today I even tried some math rotations...

This is group is playing our I Have...Who Has...? Time to the Hour and Half-Hour game. It is our all-time best seller and I can understand why--great for 1st grade and the beginning of 2nd grade! :-) Also available in our Telling Time Mega Pack. 

This group is working in their Interactive Notebooks. They are loving these things and so am I! The students are so engaged--all of them and all the time. These pages come from the math INB pack I'm working on, but I'm kid-testing (and teacher-testing) it before I list it. :-)

This group is working with pattern blocks. First they had to cover some shapes on a paper from Saxon and then I let them explore (play) the rest of the time.

These two are practicing one of the card games from Dealing with Math Homework. I have had a great response on what I'm calling STAR Homework (idea from Amanda Madden). I've adapted it a bit for me, but the kids and their parents are loving playing these math games and the new style of homework in general.

Don't forget to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

Have a restful weekend!

Difficulties, Telling Time, and Jeggings Anyone???

Yes...jeggings.

 

I never thought I would say that I owned a pair of jeggings...nor did I think I would ever say that I want more pairs of jeggings. In case you don't know...jeggings are leggings that look like jeans (I guess).

 

Disclaimer: I am not a fashionista...not even close.

 

Anyway...these are the boots to blame for my sudden need for jeggings:

 

 

I got these boots for Christmas (wow, they look dirty in the picture). Okay...really I bought them for myself for Christmas. But hey, they were $80 boots and I got them for $20. PLUS I had a 25% coupon and PLUS I got Kohl's cash back on my entire purchase so technically they were like $0.

 

Speaking of Kohls and Christmas, my mother-in-law was a dream shopper. Got her entire basket for free! She had to have her picture taken and everything...

I was not a dream shopper.

In fact, I hate shopping.

I did my Kohls shopping online.

 

Sorry...back on topic here. I loved the boots! So warm and toasty. I quickly realized however that I had pretty much nothing to wear with them. Hmmm...

 

I had seen the leggings with warm and toasty boots.

 

It looked cute on other people.

 

While out and about several weeks ago, I was brave enough to try on leggings with a big sweater.

 

It was as I expected... :-(

 

No, leggings were not for me.

 

Fast forward to Wednesday night. Away basketball game planned for Thursday. Temperature expected like -15 with the wind chill. The girls voted to dress up (rather than wear our team shirts and jeans). An hour and half bus ride with cold toes is not my idea of fun. I was desperate to wear my toasty, warm boots.

 

While shopping for groceries, I slipped over to the ladies clothing section, threw a pair of jeggings and a big sweater in the cart, and raced out of the store before I could change my mind.

 

When I got home I realized I no longer had a full-length mirror (long story) and had to take my hubby's word for it that the outfit didn't look bad. The next morning at school, I found the closest thing to a full length mirror and here you have it:

 

 

 Apparently, I'm not good at taking selfies...but as you can see it turned out okay for not even trying it on at the store. I still say the jeggings look cuter on other people. But they are so comfy I may have to get another pair...

Okay, enough about jeggings.

Thank you for all your sweet comments after my heavy heart post. Circumstances no different, but The Lord has been sending all kinds of encouragement my way. Check out this quote taped in the front of my Bible:

 

 

It has been in there for years, but read it with fresh eyes this last week. Isn't it great?

Last, but not least (and probably why you're reading a teaching blog), telling time! Every spare moment I have my kids playing Time to the 5 Minute Connect Four from our Telling Time Mega Pack. I absolutely love the clock graphics in this pack from Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs. The hour hands are in the correct position(meaning when it is 2:55, the hour hand is almost to the 3 instead of pointing at the 2) and my kiddos are really improving at their telling time skills. Hooray! Just look at these hard workers:

I'm also excited to try a little experiment this week. My students have loved the "scoot" games I've found lately. I thought...I should find one for telling time. Then I realized I already have all the I Have...Who Has? cards ready and laminated from this pack. I think it should be easy enough to turn it into "scoot." I'll let you know how it works.

 

Hope you have a great week!

Try some jeggings! ;-)

Hopping in a Winter Wonderland!

It's here! It's here! It's here!

Okie, dokie. Time to get started. Grab a cup of cocoa or coffee (or if you're like me, mix them together for a Cafe Mocha) and get started hopping!

 

Thanks to Tori at Tori's Teacher Tips for hosting our hop. You'll start on her page and hop, hop, hop! Look for this tab when you get there:

 

 Here's a peek at what you'll be getting from us:



I have...Who has...? Game - Telling Time to the 5 minutes (one hour later)

I'm super excited about this game because my kiddos have been struggling with the concepts of one hour later and one hour earlier. The hop inspired me to do something about it! I wanted a great new freebie to give away and my students love I have...Who has...? and Connect Four games so I created a Telling Time Mega Pack!

Includes 12 games designed to give your students a fun and engaging way to practice telling time.

6 Connect Four games

•Time to the hour

•Time to the half hour

•Time to the hour and half hour

•Time to the 5 minutes (3 different game boards)

6 I Have…, Who Has…? Games

•Time to the Hour and Half Hour (our all-time BEST SELLER)

•Time to the Hour and Half Hour – Who has one hour later than…?

•Time to the Hour and Half Hour – Who has one hour earlier than…?

•Time to the 5 Minutes

•Time to the 5 Minutes – Who has one hour later than…?

•Time to the 5 Minutes – Who has one hour earlier than…?

Happy Hopping!

 

 

Telling Time Blues and Cures!!

I always get very excited when I teach the kids to tell time because we start with the hour and they get it with no problem.  Later on in the year, we introduce time to the half hour and there is just something about that half hour that throws the kiddos for a loop. For some reason after teaching the half hour, they seem to forget how to tell time to the hour.  I think it has something to do with now the hour hand moves to the middle of the numbers and now we have to count by 5's with the minute hand.   

 

Well, this year it happened again and I found some things that I tried this year that seemed to really help the kids with it.  By the end of the week, I can say that the majority of the kids had telling time to the hour and half hour down and were excited because they could do it without any problems. 

 

Here are some of the things that I used to help them with the telling time this year:

 

1.  This was a really cool idea to help the kids remember the difference between the short hand and long hand.  I found it on teachertipster.com:

 

 

I then added to this and told the kids that the ladies liked to count by 1's and would stop at 12 because they counted a shorter amount of time then the men.  We then talked about how the men would count for a longer amount of time and they loved to count by 5's only. 

 

2.  I found this cool game board over at First Grade Fanatic.  I just changed it a little bit so on the game board it had time to the hour and half hour.  When the kids finished his/her page, then they went and got the game board and the data sheet that went along with it.  They loved this game and it was great practice for them.

 

 

3.  Finally, we played our TPT I have, Who has Telling Time to the hour and 1/2 hour to practice some more. 

 

 

Using all of these resources really seemed to help the kids more this year with telling time to the hour and half hour.  YAY!

 

Have a great weekend!