Even More Centers for Your Classroom

It's about time, teachers, for more centers.

Today is all about math centers...

Be a Math Magician is a set of 20 math puzzles and brain teasers. These activities are learning disguised as fun. Students are honing their problem solving skills as they exercise inductive and deductive reasoning. The Math Magician tricks also promote creative thinking, as your students will need to think “outside the box.” 

Each of the puzzles makes an easy center for your math block. They are perfect for differentiation, especially for enrichment and/or GATE students. These puzzles are also useful as anchor activities, sponge activities, or challenges for fast finishers. They lend themselves well to collaborative thinking, too.

Monkey Squares are square arrays of n x n rows and columns in which n items fill the cells so that no item is used more than once in each row and column. Known as Latin Squares, they are used for statistical analysis in mathematics. If they seem familiar, they should; Sudoku is a 9 x 9 Latin Square.

Monkey Squares exercise H.O.T.S. for students in K-5.  There are a series of boards that advance from a 3 x 3 array to a 6 x 6 array.  My students beg to do Monkey Squares.  I'll bet your's will, too.

There are 20 sports pictures that children can use for sorting and/or patterning in Sports Sorts.  The pictures are provided in color and grayscale.  There are numerous suggestions for the sorts to get you started. 

Also included are task cards if you wish to prescribe your students' patterns. Of course, you could always leave the patterns up to them.  A recording sheet and a basketball court work mat are provided.

You may be interested in joining my collaborative Pinterest board, It's About Time for Math Centers.  If you would like to pin to it, follow the board, then email me with your Pinterest info @ itsabouttimeteachers@gmail.com.

Other centers you may like:

    

MORE New Centers for Primary Classrooms

Literacy Centers, that is!

Here are 3 more literacy centers your primary students will love:

Watermelon Words is a center focused on compound words.  Your students will find pairs of watermelon slices that form compound words.  The words have a summer theme.  

For the youngest learners, the task is to simply find the pairs.  More capable students can place the 30 cards facedown in a 5x6 array and then play a game of Memory.  This center includes labels for you center folder and a recording sheet.  Watermelon Words literacy center can be found in its entirety in my poetry unit, Poetry Possibilities for Summer.  Now, for the first time, it is offered as a stand alone product.

Lunchbox literacy center is another compound word center.  Students will find pairs of lunchboxes that can form a compound word.  The words in this center are all school related.  A recording sheet is included, as are labels for your folder. This center is included in my Back to School Poetry Possibilties.  It is now available as a stand alone product.  

Flying Dragon Bingo is a versatile center focusing on initial consonant blends.  You can set it up as a small group center, or use it for a whole class game.  Like traditional bingo, each player has a board.  The teacher or leader holds up a picture card.  The students determine the initial consonant blend, covering it with a flying dragon piece.  Each bingo board has the same set of consonant blends; rearranged, of course.  

This center includes 26 bingo boards, 96 picture cards, and as many flying dragon markers as you need.  Labels are provided for your storage folder.  

It's about time to try some new centers!  For even more center ideas, follow/join my collaborative Pinterest board, It's About Time for Literacy Centers.

Other centers you may like:

     

New Centers for Primary Classrooms

It's about time, teachers, for new centers for your primary classrooms.  

I've got several that are hot off the presses...

Lately I've been updating, refreshing, and expanding many of my thematic units. Hoedown! (based on the book, Barn Dance) has just been super expanded to nearly 3x its original size.  This is largely due to the addition of 3 new centers.  

Down on the Farm is a cute little center about recognizing the number of syllables in a word. All of the words are farm vocabulary and have no more than 2 syllables.  There are 2 work mats and 18 picture/word cards for sorting.  I've also included a recording sheet in case you want your students to document their work.  You can get just the center; you do not have to buy the thematic unit.

Owl and Crow Literacy Center focuses on /ow/. Students will decide whether the picture/word card has the same /ow/ sound as in owl or in crow. This center also has 18 picture/word cards, 2 work mats, folder labels, and a recording sheet.  Again, it is available as a stand alone product.

Tractor Races is a math center in which students practice number sense and 1-to-1 correspondence.  Formatted as a game, students will roll a number cube and move their tractor that number of spaces on the game board.  The first tractor to the reach the barn is the winner.

It's about time to try some new centers.  I hope you'll like these.

It All Adds Up!

A poster similar to this has been floating around Pinterest lately.  It caught my attention and piqued my interest, so I just had to create a colorful version for myself.  The message is just so powerful!

One of the reasons this poster attracted me is because I am fascinated by the value of words.  Monetary value, that is.  One Dollar Words have been a part of my enrichment program for years.  They work exactly like the charts above, except they assign cents to the letter values.  The goal is to find words worth exactly $1.  That's a difficult nearly impossible task.  So, I created clues for my students.

They absolutely LOVE $1 Words.  I run a friendly competition between classes and the enthusiasm is unbelievable.  As a result of that enthusiasm, I have written over 400 clues for the words.  And, I loved every minute of it.  If you're interested in $1 Words, check them out here.

If you would like this poster for your classroom, it's FREE in my TPT store and TN shop.

You may also like:

     

TPT Back to School Boost Sale

Have you heard?  TPT is hosting a 2nd site sale in August!  It's a Back to School Boost sale on Wed., Aug. 20.  Everything in my store is marked down 20%. Use promo code BOOST to get an additional 10% off.  Everyone can use a little boost getting back to school.

Back to School Sale on TN

It's about time, teachers, for a Back to School Sale on Teachers' Notebook.  

• 8/9 - 8/12
• 25% off EVERYTHING in my shop
• 10% extra discount from TN
• enter to win the sweepstakes

Get just what you need to start the year off right.  My shop features everything elementary.

Check out these products for Back to School:

                  

It's Back to School Time

It's About Time, Teachers, to go back to school...

... and the clock is ticking!

You can get ready for a great school year quickly and easily if you shop the TPT Back to School sale.

EVERYTHING in my store is 28% off for the sale!  Plus, my sale is extended; you can get 20% off on Sunday, Aug. 3, and Wed., Aug. 6. So, if the site is slow, has technical problems, or you just don't like standing in line at the check-out, 

you can shop before or after the big event.  

Just to be clear, the 28% off is only available on 8/4 and 8/5, the actual sale dates, as TPT offers an additional 10% off to shoppers using the promo code, BTS14.  

Start creating your wish list now!  I hope to "see" you at the sale.

Christmas in July Sale

Caldecott Books + Critical Thinking

Because I love Caldecott books and critical thinking skills, I combined them into a set of fun products -- Story Sleuths.

Here's how it works:

• Read a specific set of Caldecott books to your students.

• Post a set of clues that describe 1 of the books.

• Students have 1 week to submit a guess as to which book is described.
• On Friday, winners are announced and given a certificate.

• A new set of clues is given on the following Monday.
• Play continues in this way for 4 weeks/unit.

Story Sleuths are designed for K - 4 classes.  They are CCSS aligned.  Originally created for use by an enrichment teacher, librarian, or art teacher, they are readily usable by individual classroom teachers.

Students involved in Story Sleuths exercise many levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.  At the same time, they enjoy great literature, learn about artistic media, and participate in collaborative problem solving.  Better yet, they love these units!

Best yet . . . all Story Sleuth products are now on sale for 30% off the regular price.  Hurry!  They won't be marked down for long.

Even the bundle is on sale!!

Its About Time I joined Bloglovin'

















Follow my blog with Bloglovin