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A Smiling Teacher

A Teaching Blog by Amber Masters

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Well Hello There Turkeys!

November 13, 2015 by Amber Masters

Hi Friends!
Happy Thursday! 
I can’t even believe we are officially two weeks away from Thanksgiving. We’ve been so busy getting our learn on in kindergarten that I’ve just lost track of time. I’m so pleased with the progress my kinders have made so far.  We have had a lot of changes this year but the biggest change has been our transition to all-day/every day kindergarten. In the past we’ve had half day, then we went to rotating full days and then 2 full days and a half day a week. Whew…glad that’s all over. Its been quite different this year but overall the transition has been amazing. I honestly don’t know how we did it before. It was always rush, rush, rush. I’m just so excited that we finally have time to let them develop their learning at a “more” appropriate pace. In all honesty though, it still feels like there isn’t enough time. When I sit back and really think about the amount of time that these kids are focused and on task, I can’t help but feel ashamed for redirecting those few little hiccups during the day. I mean I can’t really blame them. We expect so, so much of these little ones. Kids are truly amazing. Especially those sweet five year olds that work harder than anyone I know.  All but a couple of my students have their letters and sounds mastered…and it’s the beginning of November. Their writing is leaps and bounds ahead of where its ever been at this point of the year, AND they are all readers. Real readers.
 That makes me smile. 

Of course like everyone else we’ve been obsessed with turkey’s since November 1st. Obsessed isn’t even an exaggeration. We love turkeys. We’ve been getting our turkey fix during math stations for sure. 
Our pattern blocks have been put to good use creating one of a kind turkeys! Students have to arrange the blocks, trace and color. Of course there is some counting thrown in there too! 
They’ve been loving this station. 


Isn’t his turkey just adorable?! 
You can grab it for free here! 
We’ve also been chugging along with counting. Practice, practice and more practice makes really great counters! My kids love putting the links on the turkeys. This station is great because not only does it help build number sense, it also supports those kiddos that need to strengthen their motor skills. 

Many of my students are working on building larger numbers so I made three levels to support all of their needs. 
Level One: 1-20
Level Two: 11-30
Level Three: 21-40

You can get all 3 levels of this station here. You can also try level one out for free below! 
I hope you find these resources helpful! 
I’d love to see pictures of them in action in your classroom! 
Have a fabulous week!!   

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Filed Under: freebies, math stations, math workshop, thanksgiving, turkeys

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A student gave this to me the week before schools A student gave this to me the week before schools shut down last March. We had no idea what was coming. I haven’t taught students in person since then. I’m posting again because I need all the motivation to finish this school year teaching online. I really miss teaching kids in person. That’s all.
⬇️ Easy Math Game Idea -students spread out ⬇️ Easy Math Game Idea

 -students spread out their pattern blocks and the teacher does the same
-teacher describes a shape or shapes (ex. Find a shape with four sides, or find the blue rhombus, or hold up shapes that make 7 sides all together) 
- students / teacher hold up the shape or shapes that were described. 
- if a student holds it up first, the class gets a point / if I hold it up first, the teacher gets a point. 

My students have loved playing this game. I like that it keeps them engaged, and that I get some valuable info about what my students know. Also, you should know that you’re playing against the entire class. The first time we played, I took it pretty easy on them and slowly grabbed the shapes. The next time, they actually beat me! They were so fast! 🤣
⛸ Ice Breaker is definitely a book you’ll want ⛸ Ice Breaker is definitely a book you’ll want to share with your students. Ice Breaker tells the story of Mabel Fairbanks who broke down color barriers in figure skating. Despite Mabel’s talent and hard work, she was still denied the opportunity to compete for an Olympic gold medal because of the color of her skin. Mabel became a coach, mentor, and advocate for equality in skating. She was the first Black women to be inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame.
Grateful for this guy today, and every day! 💗 W Grateful for this guy today, and every day! 💗 We “celebrated” with Chuy’s last night 🌮 and 🍕 for lunch today. We might go crazy and get 🍦 tonight. I mean Valentine’s Day is about the food right?!
💗❤️ so many possibilities! We explored this 💗❤️ so many possibilities! We explored this math problem in one of our live Meets today. Students worked independently and shared out at the end. We’ve been working hard to challenge our brains 🧠 and solve these types of problems in multiple ways. Some students were working on counting one to one, others were working on persevering and working the entire time, and others were working on writing number sentences.
💗We are keeping Valentine’s Day super simple 💗We are keeping Valentine’s Day super simple for online learning. Students are creating one Valentine for the entire class with whatever materials they have at home. I took some screenshots of pictures from Google for inspiration, but students can get as creative as they’d like!  When they’re finished, they’ll post them to Padlet, and we’ll read them as a class the next day. I think it will still be a pretty special day!
Last Friday we celebrated the 100th Day of School Last Friday we celebrated the 100th Day of School online! Here are a few activities from our day! 
-Students brainstormed 100 exercises... (yes 10 cartwheels 🤸‍♀️😳 and still feeling it) 
-100 day hats and colored 10 groups of ten colors
-Students made a creation out of the numbers 100 and wrote about it
-Students used foods from their home of count out their own 100 day snack mix 
-We colored and read! 
It was a good day! 💗
We’ve been learning about the life of Mae Jemiso We’ve been learning about the life of Mae Jemison who was the first Black woman to travel to space. Students were fascinated to learn that Mae was in space for 8 days, that she’s had many other jobs besides being an astronaut, and that she fluently speaks several languages. We read Mae Among The Stars , as well as Scholastic’s Digital Let’s Find Out February issue. There are also several lesson extensions/activities on the Let’s Find Out website, like the Name Rockets we created today.

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