100th day fun!


We celebrated our 100th day of school a yesterday, and we had tons of 100th day fun!  I have a few pictures and activities to share with you.  It was such a busy day that I didn't get pictures of everything, so I'll share the things that I did get pictures of.

I made this 100th day sign to hang on the door.  The kids LOVED coming in through the paper.  


We began our day by making our 100th day collections!
 


We asked each student to bring in 100 items.  We encouraged them to bring in small items that could be glued to a sheet of paper, such as pasta, cereal, cotton balls, etc...  We had a wide variety of items that included soy beans (that's a new one!), cereal, popsicle sticks, q-tips, and more!  All of my students except 2 brought in something, so I just had some extra cereal on hand for those who needed some.  



Then they used glue to put these items on a number 100 on their paper.





Then we made 100th day hats!

We use 10 strips of paper and I have my students draw 10 pictures on each strip.  You could also do stamps, stickers, or other small items and glue them on the hat as well.  

They made sure to count the number of pictures they had drawn on each strip before moving onto the next strip.

The hats take awhile, but they look so cute when they're finished!



Then we glue the 10 strips to a sentence strip, attach a little piece of paper that says "100 Days Smarter!" and I staple their hats together. 

Voila!  A 100th day hat!  
(You can see them in this picture, because of course, I forgot to take one!)


Another project we completed was 100 day gumball machines.  We used 10 colors of paint to put 100 "gumballs" on a plate.  We attached a red trapezoid at the bottom, and we had a gumball machine!



It was kind of fun watching the kids put the paint on their plates.  Some of them put their 10 dots in neat rows, while some of them just painted willy-nilly all over the plate.   

I was there to help them make sure they had 10 dots of each color and also for paint control! 

We also made necklaces with 100 fruit loops.  I've made these in Kindergarten and first grade, and the kids LOVE them.  In Kindergarten, they used 10 of each color (obviously with some repetition!)  So they may have 10 red, 10 yellow, 10 purple, etc...  In first grade, we did 20 of each color, and they used 5 colors.  

Of course, I don't have a picture of the necklaces, because I was busy helping students and I didn't get a single picture, but you can see them in this picture below! 

The last activity of the day that we did was our 100th day snack.  Check back and you'll see how I manage the madness that is our 100th day snack!  

Happy 100th day of school!

Making Shape Creatures!


We have been working on shapes at school, and I determined that our math program, Engage New York, doesn't do nearly enough to help my kids learn their shapes.  I also wanted to make learning about shapes fun and hands on.  I wanted them to find shapes in the world around them and use shapes to make things too.  I feel like we don't get the opportunity to let our kids be creative enough with our current school climate, so I was really excited to let my kids just have the opportunity to be creative!

So I decided we were going to make Shape Creatures!  

I used our Ellison die cut machine to cut out a ton of shapes on construction paper.  We have a few dies that have different sizes of squares, triangles, circles, and rectangles.  We also had some larger sized Ellison shape dies, so I cut out a bunch of those as well.  I put a ton of shapes in a basket at each table, and provided each student with a big white piece of paper for mounting their creature.  You could also use a die cut machine, such as a Silhouette or Cricut, or just cut out shapes the old fashioned way.    

Once I got all the materials prepped and ready, I just let them go to town, using as many shapes as they wanted.  I also put some scrap papers out just in case they wanted to cut out shapes for arms or legs or hair or whatever.  This is totally against my Type-A, has to be in control of everything, personality.   

But I let go. 

And they got creative!







Once they finished making their creatures, they counted how many of each shape they had used on their creation.  

Then they filled out a sheet with how many of each shape they had used to create their creatures.

 Then they decorated their creatures with some crayons to create lips and hair, if necessary.

I love how unique each one is!  

 



 

I love how easy this activity is to prepare!  Just cut out some shapes and let them go to work!  I loved watching them be creative with their creatures.

Looking for more shape activities?  I have many more activities for flat and solid shapes in this shapes pack.



Fun with Shapes in Kindergarten


Each year, after we learn about properties and numbers, we dive into shape fun.  I think it's the perfect time to learn about shapes- it's fun, and even the struggling kids enjoy it.  I enjoy planning activities to let the kids work with both solid and flat shapes.  We use manipulatives and play games and just generally have fun while learning.

We use Engage New York for our math program, and it's definitely not my favorite.  It doesn't hit certain areas very hard, such as shapes, which is a topic Kindergarten students love.  So I have to supplement with some other things I've found or used before, so that I can make sure my students really understand whatever concept we're studying.  We do fun activities in centers to give them hands-on experiences with whatever we're learning.  And the same goes for Shapes.

For example, I really love these Pattern Block Puzzles from our old math program, Investigations.  I pulled them out to let the kids experiment with filling in the pictures with different shapes.  And if they used too many hexagons, I made them fill in that space with other shapes.




 Another fun activity we did was make our own pattern block pictures.  They made the pictures with pattern blocks, and then they used paper pattern blocks to glue their creations to the paper.  Then they got to draw things to add to their pictures, such as clouds or eyes, to make them more realistic.

They made people and trees and flowers.

I love seeing how creative they can be!  


We also played a little game called "Shapes Spin and Cover."  There is a flat shapes version and a solid shapes version.  The kids spin a spinner with different shapes on it, and they have to cover an object on their board that is the same shape.  The first one to cover their board wins.


They also loved this "5-in-a-Row Shapes game.  You use a regular 6-dot die for this game.  The kids roll the die and cover a shape that has the same number of sides as the die they rolled.  They cover the shape.  The first player to get 5 in a row wins. 

I like this game because there is a little bit of strategy to it.  If you aren't careful of which pieces you cover, you won't win, because you can't move the piece once you've set it down.  So you have to choose which shape you are going to cover, since there are multiples of each shape on the board.


Another great game I pulled out from our old Investigations curriculum is called "Build the Hexagons."  The kids roll dice with shapes on it, and they have to fill their hexagons with that shape.  They have to figure out which shapes will fill their hexagons without anything overlapping or not fitting within the bounds of the hexagon.  This is a great way to see which shapes fill a hexagon that are not hexagons.

(I found a freebie of this game from Shari Sloane at www.kidscount1234.com.  Just do a google search for "fill the hexagons" and it should pop up.  I couldn't find a link on her website to download it from, but if you search, it pulls up!)



I noticed that some of my students were struggling with understanding if some objects were solid shapes or flat shapes.  So I made some sorting cards so we could practice sorting shapes by different attributes.  The kids all got a shape card and they got to come up one at at time to sort their picture and tell me why it fits in that category.

We did this several times. 

We sorted by shapes.

We sorted by whether or not a shape is a solid or flat shape.  We also sorted by curved and flat sides, rolls or doesn't roll, and stacks or doesn't stack.  We did this as a whole group, but you could also do it as a center.


You can find the "5-in-a-Row Shapes" game, the "Spin and Cover" game, the sorting cards, and MORE in this shape activity pack available in my store.