Math Games for St. Patrick's Day

Do you add centers to your math rotations with holiday spins? I love to do that whenever I can. Here's a look at a few math games for St. Patrick's Day. Adding centers with a holiday spin can sure spice up my math rotations. 

1. Pot O' Gold Fraction Game

This game helps students practice equivalent fractions with 2-4 players.

2. Lucky Line Up Game

Need more practice with rounding decimals to the tenths place? This is just the game to get in some extra practice. This is for 2-4 players.

3. March Multiplication Games

This resource comes with three different games for multiplication fact fluency and offers room for differentiation too! 

Click on the titles to be taken to the resources. 

Summer Series Classroom Transformations Bonus: 5 Books to Inspire

Just popping onto the blog today to share some of my favorite books for classroom transformations. If you are looking for more inspiration, check these out. 

The Wild Card by Hope and Wade King

So much inspiration. I will always think back fondly to seeing Hope King at work in her classroom in the middle of a Toy Story classroom transformation. LOVED it then. LOVE it now. This book gives lots of ideas for bringing that magic to your own classroom. 

Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess

In his book, Dave shares a lot of innovative ideas for engaging your class. 

    Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire by Rafe Esquith

Another book filled with innovative ideas for the classroom. 

The End of Molasses Classes by Ron Clark

Ron Clark is one of my biggest heroes in teaching when it comes to classroom engagement. He has so many ideas that can be immediately put into practice. He sparked something with his magical school, The Ron Clark Academy.

Crash Course by Kim Bearden

Kim Bearden, the cofounder of the Ron Clark Academy, is another gem among teachers. Her innovative ideas and transformations bring engagement to every classroom. I have tried, and LOVE her ideas. Some have become a staple in my classroom. 

12 Days of Christmas Day 1: Chronicles of Narnia

In reading class, we have been working our way through the Chronicles of Narnia's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I absolutely LOVE this book and my class did too. They did not want it to end and are demanding to read other books in the series. Since we finished up last week, I decided to create a classroom transformation to review a bunch of skills and end it all with a big bang. 

For the decorating, I purchased a snowy background to hang across the front of my classroom as well as a dozen foldable 3D snowflakes to hang from the ceiling. I had my dad and husband help me with creating the wardrobe. My dad built a clothes rack that could go just inside my classroom door and my husband rigged it all around with cardboard so that when the students entered my classroom it looked like they were entering a wardrobe. I hung some coats and blankets on the clothes rack and put cotton batting on the floor for snow. I also put a tree just past the clothes and to one side with "snow" covering the branches. In the books, the trees were one of the first things the four children, in the book, noticed as they went through the wardrobe. I created a drawing of a wardrobe to hang on the outside of the door to make it look like the door of the wardrobe. 

Inside, there were a few other details too. We had the lamp and lamppost as you came through the wardrobe. A candle was burning inside (it was battery operated, of course). On a tall table at the front, I had a white lacy tablecloth along with a crown, signifying the queen as well as a fancy platter of Turkish Delight. I also displayed the book there as well. In the back, I created a very simple altar with a table. I used bulletin board paper and created a rock pattern all over it. Then I taped it to a table, hanging down to the floor. I placed an old giant stuffed lion, that was my husband's when he was a kid, on the tabletop to represent Aslan on the stone altar. 

The "Queen's" crown and Turkish Delight

Aslan on the altar

The snow-covered tree at the back of the wardrobe

The burning lamp

The backside of the wardrobe from inside looking back to the door. 

The wardrobe door

To one side, I gathered up some wood to represent the beavers. I placed some marmalade rolls nearby. In the story, the beavers served marmalade rolls to Peter, Susan, and Lucy.

As for the activities, we started with an escape room that reviewed the vocabulary, characters, and plot of the story. As students made their way through the challenges, they had certain points where they could stop to try the Turkish Delight and the marmalade rolls. They were mostly a hit. You can find the recipe for Turkish Delight here.  My principal said it was the best Turkish Delight she has ever had....she is a HUGE Narnia fan. It was the only Turkish Delight I ever had. Also, let me give you a couple of tips to making this. When you see the ingredient corn flour, it is actually corn starch (in England they apparently call it corn flour). Also, if you cannot find rose water, you can use another flavoring. I used orange instead because I went to two different stores and they did not have it. I also did not plan ahead enough to purchase on Amazon, but it is available there. The marmalade rolls recipe I used can be found here. It was super delicious, but also incredibly sweet. A little bit is more than enough for me. 

After we escaped Narnia, we started a comparison of the book and the movie. We watched the movie in 5 different segments, pausing to look for connections while comparing and contrasting. 

All in all, it was a great time! I really enjoyed bringing the book to life in my classroom. I am already thinking about the next book....Charlie and the Chocolate Factory....here we come! 

Classroom Transformation: Wild Kratts

I've been wanting to do this classroom transformation since September when educators around the world were challenged by the Rock Your School movement. It was extremely difficult to hold off on this for a few extra weeks, but personally I was unable to make it happen until today. (Long story of moving schools, selling and buying a house and having to be out of my house for showings and inspections and all the things that come with that....and also commuting between 45 minutes to an hour each way. But all that is about to end when we officially move within 15 minutes of work in a few weeks.) Anyway, It happened today and my students LOVED it! They stayed on task so well. 

I decided I wanted to do something different for my classroom transformation, but I just could not decide what. I thought about my science curriculum unit and it was animal adaptations. That's when an idea hit me. I wanted to create a Wild Kratts theme! I just love that show and so do my kids. It is perfect since it is all about animals. I decided to focus on five different animals that students could encounter any day in the area where we live.

Day one was all about worms.

Day two will be all about fireflies.

Day three will focus on bats.

Day four we will learn about opossums.

Day five will be about skunks.

Today we learned about the creature powers (adaptations) of worms. First, we learned how worms secrete a special fluid that is released through the skin. We learned how the fluid made it easier for worms to slide through tunnels and through dirt and gravel without getting hurt. After learning about this special adaptation, we made our own slime in groups, following a recipe. 

Afterwards, students were excited and ready to do some more. We moved on to a close reading activity. It was all about worms. Students were given six problems. Each problem listed two truths and one lie. Students had to read through their paper that told them all about worms. They had to highlight the truths to prove that those were not the lie. Once they found the two truths, they circled the lie and had to check it. There were flip check cards around the room for self-checking. After getting an answer right, students came to me to get one of the supplies for making dirt dessert, only they had no idea what the items were for, because I did not tell them. Most students were able to figure it out. I gave them these items in this order.

1. a cup

2. a spoon

3. an Oreo cookie in a ziplock (this is when most students figured it out)

4. a gummy worm

5. another gummy worm

6. a pudding cup

Once everyone in class was able to earn all their supplies, we worked through the steps to making dirt dessert. Students are going to use that knowledge to create a flip writing assignment that shows the steps to creating dirt dessert.

Of course we ran out of time to complete everything, but I'm totally O.K. with that. There's always tomorrow. I always overplan.

At the end of the day, my principal said she was wondering why my class was so noisy at the beginning of the day. But then my daughter, who is in her class, had told that I had done a Wild Kratts transformation. Love the excitement when kids realize it's going to be a great day.

Life Cycles and Animal Surprises

We have just started studying life cycles in science, our final theme for the year. I decided to splurge a bit and get some animals into the classroom so we can see the life cycles. I ordered ladybugs, a praying mantis egg case, caterpillars, and chicken eggs. This week, our ladybugs moved from the pupa stage to the adult stage. Today, three of our butterflies crawled out of their cocoons. 

It was so amazing to watch the butterflies emerge. They are so beautiful.

We got three different types of chicken eggs. They won't hatch for another 20 days or so. We're also awaiting the baby praying mantises. Can't wait to see them. 

Today we were all out on the playground when someone looked up and saw not one, not two, but three large opossums in the trees above us. We were all fascinated by them. We watched for probably a half hour or so. One of the big opossums actually had at least one baby in it's pouch. As we watched, we could see little pink feet sticking out of the pouch, then the tail, then nothing, and eventually, the little guy crawled out completely. It was amazing.