All posts by lspady

Pigs Will Be Pigs

Spady Blog, Uncategorized

I love children’s books that teach math concepts!  One that I used today is called, Pigs will be Pigs by Amy Axelrod, pictures by Sharon McGinley-Nally.  I work with a couple 1st graders once a week and I found that using books like this provide a way for us to talk about vocabulary in addition to a math topic.  The topic in this book is money so I created a quick chart.  Here is a .pdf of the chart.

PwbPWe first wrote the name for each bill and coin.  Then, as I read the book, students kept track of the money the pigs found by making tally marks on the chart.  When I finished reading, the students counted their tally marks and we found the total.

There are several ways to extend this book.  Here are a few ideas…

  1. Talk about the presidents, monuments, and other items on each bill and coin.  Here’s a nice reference about coins in circulation.
  2. There is a nice interactive read-aloud on You Tube that poses questions throughout the book.
  3. The pigs go to a restaurant in the book and the menu is printed on two of the pages.  Have kids order a meal and calculate the total.  Or, give them a certain amount of money and have them order meals for their family.

What are some children’s books that you know of that teach math concepts?  Please share!

Geography Bee Practice Links

Geography Bee

geoBee

Geography Bee qualifiers should use these links to prepare for the school Geography Bee!  Good Luck!

 

This is the official Geography Bee site.  A daily quiz is posted and you can take it by clicking on “Take the Quiz” on the top menu bar.

2. World Country Facts: http://www.theodora.com/wfb/abc_world_fact_book.html

This site contains facts about the countries of the world.

11. Where is That?  Funbrain Game: http://www.funbrain.com/where/index.html

12. Geography Quizzes: http://geography.about.com/library/quiz/blpreviss.htm

Communication Activity

2nd Quarter Communication, Concepts

CommunicationActivityTry this simple activity with a friend…

1. Draw a picture on a piece of paper, but keep it a secret from your friend.

2. Without showing the drawing to your friend, try to give detailed instructions so that your friend can re-create the drawing without actually seeing the picture.

3. When you’re finished giving instructions, see how the original drawing compares to the one your friend made based on your instructions.

4. Switch roles.

This activity can be done with Legos or other materials.  In the picture below, the student is writing out instructions for his partner who will be given the individual pieces for the object.  The partner will try and build the object based on the written description.  What kind of words would you use to describe the object in the picture?

IMG_4392

2nd Quarter Update

Spady Blog

Wow…where has the time gone?  We’re well into 2nd quarter and things are busy, busy, busy with Spelling Bees, Math Competitions, and Seminars.  Coming up soon…Geography Bees!  Here’s what we’ve been doing the past several weeks…

At the end of October, students learned about Dichotomous Keys and even created one of their own with candy.

DichotomousKey

We read the 13 Days of Halloween by Carol Greene and the Hillside girls came up with their own lyrics…take a listen! 13DaysofHalloween

Halloween.inddOur concept for 2nd quarter is “communication” and we started by  brainstorming all the different ways we communicate.

Throughout the quarter, students will be working on a research project related to communication.  We’ll also continue our weekly Wordly Wise lessons.  The Westgate 4th graders are really interested in programming and have done some exploring with Tynker.  We’ll test out a few different programs and let you know our favorites.

We welcome your comments!