Addition Properties, Adjectives, and Halloween crafts (what we've been up to)

These pictures are from September but better late than never eh?

We have been super busy in room 214 and I haven't had much time to stop and think, let alone stop and blog. 

We have also been trying to finish up our Postcards for the Great Postcard Exchange. (mailing those out this weekend:))

Here is proof we are alive and learning:

 cooperative groups to review ordering numbers least to greatest and greatest to least. This is a great activity as the students receive a large stack of numbers to 9,999 which they must work together looking at the place value to help order the numbers.  

 Addition Properties: This was our hands on exploration of the Commutative property of addition.
Students explored creating problems with their unifix cubes and then flip flopping the addends to see that the sum stayed the same. Then they recorded the problem on the grid paper and labeled the problem.

 (below: one of my students brought in this HUGE Halloween pencil. Here he's using it to ace his addition properties common assessment)

 Finding the unknown variable in a number sentence.  Here we used cubes to explore finding the unknown in expressions.  Students created their own problems and had a neighbor sit down and solve it. They would plug it back in to check and make sure it fit in the equation.

 Halloween adjectives: Due to end of quarter testing and running out of time, I didn't get to complete all the plans I had for covering adjectives with some fun Halloween activities.  We were able to do a simple exploration with Halloween stickers.  Students are given a sticker in their word study journals.   After we talked about adjectives and went through a flip chart on the Promethean board, students had to come up with adjectives that described their sticker.  We then shared them on the document camera. Super simple, but super cute and fun.

 More examples of the students coming up with their "colorful words" 

 Halloween art: As most of you know, i love doing creative and crafty things myself and especially with my students.  After some pinterest inspiration I found rock creatures and pumpkin acorns. The above picture is my rocks and pumpkins:)

 Here are some of the students creations. I love those creepy Frankenstein faces

 boooooooooooooo GHOSTS!

 Here is another math actvitiy we did once end of quarter testing days were over.  

1st portion of the game was comparing numbers.  Students could make the Jacks, Ace, King, and Queens any number 1-9 they wish to help build their number.  We used Popsicle sticks to make the greater than, less than, equal to signs.  Each student took turns comparing and were allotted a point for each correct comparison.

for the 2nd portion of the game students pulled 3 or 4 cards off the top (depending on if you wanted to do three digit or four digit numbers). They then had to arrange their cards to make the smallest or largest number possible.  The student who made the smallest or largest depending on what I called out, earned points.  

Some students began catching on how to move their cards to beat their partner using the place value concepts.  

Thursday was the last day of the 1st quarter which made yesterday a teacher workday.  

Report cards, IEP progress reports, lesson planning, and a workshop. Teacher workdays are never long and productive enough. 

We also went to the fair for Special education day which I will also be creating a post about.