Calendar Patterns

Young students love the comfort of a daily routine in their classroom.  One of the most universal routines is a morning meeting with calendar activities.  Lots of math concepts are inherent with calendar activities.  But, have you every incorporated patterning?  

Once September rolls around, I like to subtly introduce patterns on the calendar.  To do this, I provide apple cards for the calendar -- 

As the calendar starts to fill with apple cards, someone always notices that they make a color pattern.  Gotta love those "Aha!" moments!  Once that realization has been achieved, my students have a new challenge at calendar time:  predict what color the apple will be today.  

My first graders really get into this.  So naturally, I have to up the ante with the next month.  October brings autumn leaves --

The first few days of October are such fun as the children try to predict what the pattern will be.  By the 5th of October, the pattern becomes clear.  However, I'm not finished with the predictions...  Now my students have to predict such details as what kind of leaf it is, which direction the stem will point, is the leaf right side up or upside down...  

Common Core Standards are being addressed.  Visual discrimination is enhanced. Teaching time is being maximized.  Students are engaged and having fun.  Try it; you'll like it!

You can get both of these sets of calendar cards for FREE in my TpT store or TN shop.  If you like adding more content to your calendar activities, I have another product that offers icons for the entire year. 

Update 7/2015:

I have just added a new product that provides Calendar Icons in a forest friends theme.  Check it out!

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Sneak into a New School Year - Pt. 3 Math Centers

It's about time, teachers, ... to talk about math centers and math activities on Sneaker Day.

No Sneaker Day would be complete without including a graphing activity. Whole class graphs are fun and easy. Line your students' sneakers up in front of the class and ask them to name some attributes they notice.  Use those suggestions or one of these:

• brand
• color (all 1 color, 2 colors, 3...)
• size
• closure (laces, Velcro, slip-ons, ...)
• high tops/low tops
• special features (lights, sequins, pumps, ...)

After you complete 1 or more whole class graphs, you can easily make this activity a math center. Small groups will graph their sneakers, only.

Have each child measure his sneaker using unifix cubes. Ask the children to take their tower of cubes around the room in search of another child with the same number of cubes in his stack.  You have the opportunity to observe and note how children determine if their towers are the same length (counting, comparing side by side, 1-to-1 matching, …). If the activity is going well, extend the assignment to find someone whose sneaker is longer, shorter, 3 cubes longer, 2 cubes shorter, etc. Again, after teaching the task, this activity can be extended by making it a math center activity.

Another math activity for Sneaker Day is patterning. Have your students make crayon rubbings of the soles of their sneakers.  Use the rubbings for creating patterns of footsteps. The rubbings can also be placed in a math center. There, students can sort them according to various attributes you specify. Older or more advanced students could use the rubbings to create categories of their own making.  

Venn Diagrams are another activity that could be modeled to the whole group and subsequently placed in a math center.  

There are more activities for Sneaker Day to come, so sneak back soon.

Easter/Spring Freebie

It's about time, teachers, ... for Easter.  To celebrate the arrival of spring and the Easter bunny, I'm filling your basket with Easter/Spring Patterns & Sorts.  

This unit is best suited for Pre-K -- 2nd grade.  However, the letter cards can be used as a fluency exercise for older students.  Challenge them to make as many words as they can using the letters in Happy Easter, Happy Spring, April and/or egg.  A recording sheet for this is included.

The letter cards could also be used by pre-readers to do letter sorts; sorting by color, upper case/lower case, short/tall letters, and vowels/consonants.

Easter/Spring Patterns & Sorts includes a printable page that combines color word review with identifying patterns.

There are 18 color picture cards that can provide patterning practice and/or sorting practice.

You can find this FREEBIE unit at either my TpT Store or in my TN Shop.  So hop on over and scoop it into your basket. 

Mad about March unit FREEBIE

It's about time, teachers....for spring!  At least we can hope.  Yesterday there was snow on the ground; today it's 66.  Gotta love March weather in the heartland!

Speaking of March, I have launched my thematic unit, Mad about March, for primary grades. You can find it on TpT and, now, on Teachers' Notebook.  The unit includes ELA, Math, HOTS, and music curricula.  The ELA activities are:

And here's a FREEBIE from the ELA portion of the unit:

The math portion of the unit includes:

If you like what you see, blow on over to my TpT store or  my Teachers' Notebook store.