Math Wall Ideas

Seeing math vocabulary, pictures, examples and items around the classroom lets the students know just how important math is.  Not only that, but I think it also gives students a place to refer to if there is a question and they are too afraid to ask.  Here are some ideas, pictures and examples of how teachers are incorporating math into their classrooms.

The Teacher's Wife has this Math Wall at the front of her classroom for the students to refer to easily.  BTW if you love the Math Wall banner, she has included a free download of it.

Mrs. Cooper's Patriot Place uses this bulletin board as a calendar place.  I love the phrase written across the top:  Every Day Counts!

Check out Teacher Bits & Bobs Mighty Math Board.  The 9 cards you see to the right side of the board are concepts the students review daily.  The cards are laminated and the problems can be changed out daily.  Love it!  If you love it too, swing by her blog to grab your own free set of cards!

I don't have a link to this picture, but here's another concept using the common core as a math wall.  I would laminate all the strips you see so that you could easily wipe of the information or change it out on a daily basis.

If your goal is to have your studnets pass off their math facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division), you may want to set up a bulletin board like one of these. 

Poppin' Through Our Math Facts comes from Teacher Web.  Once all the students have mastered their facts, they are treated to a popcorn party.

Having A Ball With Math Facts from Peace, Love and 1st Grade.

To accompany this bulletin board, this packet from Made For 1st Grade would work perfect!  It is $8.00 on TpT and works for addition and subtraction mastery.

When I taught 3rd grade, my class used the Olympics as a theme for passing off times tables.  I will save that for another post.

If you have a word wall specific for math words only, here is a free math wall header you could use from Classroom Freebies.  Unfortunately, the words aren't included.

No worries though. First Grade Fanatic has got you covered with these free first grade common core math vocabulary cards.

Teaching Symmetry

Check out this symmetry self portrait bulletin board from Pineapple Paintbrush.  Each child is half photograph and half drawing.  I am sure the kids would love taking part in this project!

Along the same lines of symmetrical art to display, this idea was found on Pinterest, but I am unable to access the site it came from. 

These kindergartners put paint on half of a sheet of paper, folded it in half and created a symmetrical monster.  To take it a step further and incorporate another subject area, I think for 1st graders or older, you could have the students write a story to go along with their monster.

This was a 6th grade math/art lesson involving the students' names.  Definitely too hard for my 1st graders, but such a cool idea!

An easier name project might be this one that comes from Getting Messy With Ms. Jessi.

Using Bendaroos and letter blocks, kids can discuss which letters of the alphabet are symmetrical and which ones are not. 

This idea is from Homeschool or Bust.  For her older children, she took the idea a step further and had them make fractions.  Letters that are symmetrical: 14/26, which can reduce to 7/13.  Continue thinking of fractions that could challenge an older group of kids.

I got a kick out of this possible art/math idea of creating symmeTREE from Step Into 2nd Grade with Mrs. Lemons.  I love the play on words. :)

She also did a bulletin board similar to the first picture on this post, only the students had to draw the other half to a school staff member.  Too funny!

Recent Spelling Activities

I thought I would take a break from my teacher appreciation door decoration posts to fill you in on what spelling activities we have been working on in my first grade classroom.  Recently my grade covered the OU/OW words.  I grabbed this activity from Babbling Abby at The Inspired Apple.  Where do I start with her?  Her talents totally inspire me to become a better teacher!

My kids wrote an OU and an OW sentence and illustrated each (as seen above).  I made a cow and mouse poster, which are now displayed in my room for the students to refer to.  Later in the week, I had my kids write about a time they got an OWie.  Trust me when I say that EVERY child has a story about that!! 

The kids enjoyed writing their stories, but even more so, they loved illustrating their hurt bodies and putting a band-aid on their owies.  I am going to have to stock up on cute band-aids just for this writing activity!

I didn't use this "My ouch story" paper, but it definitely a cute one to use! 

You can grab a copy of the paper at What the Teacher Wants.

Here are a couple of Owie stories from my students:

 And here are all of them, proudly displayed on the hallway bulletin board.

I came across these perfect little posters (via Differentiation Station) to reinforce R-controlled words (OR, AR and IR/ER/UR).  This is just one of the 3 posters, so head on over to grab all 3 for your classroom.

I printed them out, backed them with construction paper (to add more color), laminated and have all 3 currently hanging in my classroom.  I can't tell you how often I see my students looking at these as a reminder of how to spell a word.
Last week our words were "double o" words.  As spelling practice one day, we used Froot Loops for the OO's. 

 You can grab your free copy from First Grade Wow.

I told the kids if they were able to all get 100% on our spelling test, we would celebrate by having a cOOkie & bOOk party! 

Put the word party with anything, and the kids get excited.  Apparently this trick worked, because EVERY SINGLE STUDENT got 100%!!  I was so proud of them!
I found these "You are one SMART cookie on TpT for $1.00 if you are interested, otherwise I am sure you could create your own little sign.

This time of year I find to be the hardest because the kids are all so ready for summer and things get a little crazy!  With that being said, this time of the year is also my FAVORITE as far as what my kids are capable of doing and what we teach.  I will be sad to let these cute kids go in a month, but for now we are still learning while squeezing a little fun in too!

Fun with Geometry

What a CrAzY week month it has been so far!  (Notice the lack of posts!)  This week along with the 100th day of school, I had my yearly principal evaluation.  My principal said he wanted to sit in on 2 - 30 minute lessons, one for math and one for literacy.  I always try to throw some kind of integrated activity into the mix, whether it be math with art, writing with art, writing with math, etc.  You get the idea.  Anyway, I thought I would share with you what it was I chose to do.
Lesson 1 (Math)
In the chapter of math, which we just finished, we have been learning about 2-D and 3-D shapes so I wanted to do a lesson that would reinforce what we have been learning about.  To start out, I read the story The Greedy Triangle. 

In case you are unfamiliar with this story, it's about a triangle who becomes dissatisfied with his shape and asks to be transformed into another shape.  He goes from being a triangle to a quadrilateral, from quadrilateral to pentagon, from pentagon to hexagon and so on until he becomes a decagon (10 sided figure).  Eventually he realizes that he was most happy being himself, the triangle.  Because I knew that some of the words would be unfamiliar to my students, I made this anchor chart to look at before reading the story. 

We discussed how a quadrilateral is any 2-D shape with 4 sides and drew a few as examples.
After reading the story I told the kids that I was going to give them about 10 minutes to create a snowflake using only the 5 die cut shapes provided.  They could use a triangle, hexagon, square, rhombus (a fancy word for diamond), and a trapezoid to complete their snowflakes.  (I found the idea on A Place Called Kindergarten).  I told them they had to be as unique about aking their snowflakes as real snowflakes are and that they needed to fill up the whole 8 x 8 blue construction paper square.  The kids did a great job at not only creating their snowflakes, but also being UNIQUE! 

Once they completed their snowflakes, I gave each student a chart where they filled out how many of each shape they used.  We then graphed the shapes used by the class to determine which shape was used the most and which one was used the least.  The kids had fun with this activity and it was a good variation from using only the math book all the time!!
Here are a few more shapes ideas which could be used for a math lesson:

3-D shape poem from Lil' Country Kindergarten

Why not teach your studnets about 3-D shapes but taking a snack break! 

Idea from Busy Bees

Mrs. Plant's Press also had some super ideas for teaching her kindergarteners about 3-D shapes!  She also suggested using food to teach, but I love her anchor chart!

Make a shape collage like the one found at Miss Renee's Kindergarten Pad.

FREE shape poems from TpT!  Thanks Skipper's Jungle!

A shape flip book foldable by Kindergarten Crayons.

100th Day of School

If you are an elementary teacher, primarily grades K-2, you know just how important the 100th day of school is!  In my classroom we keep track on a 100's chart how many days we have been in school, including adding a popsicle stick to the ones pocket and then bundling at each 10.  Trust me, my kids KNOW when the 100th day of school is!!  That crazy day just happened to fall yesterday and can I just say how sad I am.  The reason you ask?  I thought I was totally prepared with my camera for some good pictures for our class end of the year video, but in truth my camera's memory stick was not in my camera and would not work for me. :(  Here are 2 pictures that I snapped today of projects that were left in the classroom...
One project was to make a classbook of what the kids would buy if they had $100.  Some of the answers included a horse, a limousine, a truck, and a fancy place to live, but this student must be thinking more of the future!

 We made these hats (which now I can't remember where they were found.  Let me know if you know.)

 The headband was a strip of 2 x 18 construction paper.  Before stapling the hat together, the kids had to write to 100 using tally marks.  Surprisingly, they thought it was really fun math!

If you are in need of a hat design, here is a link to a 100th day of school crown from The Virtual Vine.

Ok so this is where you use your imagination to visualize the other activities.  For a snack, I surprised the kids when they came back in from recess with a "100" on their desks made from a wafer cookie and 2 donut holes. 

We also played this math game from Making Learning Fun.  I shrunk the 2 pages down so they fit side by side on one paper and had the kids play the game in partners.  (Click the link above for directions on how to play.)

The kids were each asked to bring in 100 items that fit inside of a paper lunch sack I provided.  On the front of the bag I had stapled a paper explaining what were doing, but basically the kids were to write 3 clues of what was in the sack so we could guess.  Once everyone had a turn, we shared all the items so the kids could take home a piece of everyone's collection.  I think this was my students' favorite activity!  Yesterday was such a fun day, and one that my students had been looking forward to for...well...100 days!

If the 100th day of school is equally important to you or your students, here are a few ideas I have come across:
* Make a classbook using one of the following ideas: 
I would like to have 100 _________ , but I would not like to have 100 __________ .
If I had $100, I would buy ___________ .
In 100 days of school, I have learned how to __________ .
* Have the students fill out a blank 100's chart...good assessment tool too!
* Do 100 math problems.
* Have the students make posters using 100 items.  Here are a few I came across...

100 sugar cubes makes an igloo.

100 gumballs

OR you could use this FREE gumball printable from Plum Adorable.



100 Flowers (Idea from Circle of Quiet)

Here's an easy one you could put together at the last minute...10 hand prints!

Looking for a super cute bulletin art project?  This one was put together by Mrs. Williamson in Room 36.

Still need more ideas?  Check out my 100th Day of School board on Pinterest.  Hope you have a happy and hectic 100th day of school too!

January Bulletin Board

Even though January is half way through, you can still use this idea for a few more weeks, or store it away for next year.  One thing about me, is that I love scrapbooking, being crafty and doing art (with my students), but changing out the bulletin board may be one of my LEAST  favorite parts of teaching.  I love looking at what others do in class and display on their bulletin boards, but with everything else there is to do as a teacher, I feel it falls to the back burner sometimes.  So, with that in mind, I like to keep the ideas simple and preferably last for a month or longer.  In fact, if you look at the background for my bulletin boards, you may even notice to same butcher paper ALL YEAR LONG! lol  At least I am saving paper right!?!

I actually saw this art idea on where else, but Pinterest!  (The idea came from Oopsey Daisy.)  When I saw it, I knew I wanted to try it! 

First we read the book Snowmen At Night by Mark Buehner (great book by the way!)  I had a parent volunteer in class that day to help, so I decided it would be a perfect day for a potentially messy art project.  After reading the story, I called about 5 students over to my kidney table at a time to make their snowmen.  The other students stayed at their seats cutting their "extras" out, such as scarf, carrot nose, etc. out of scrap paper.  Truthfully, had I had any scrap fabric on hand at the time, we would have used that for the scarfs.  The kids didn't seem to notice or mind though.  I had my parent volunteer walk around the students to ask what their snowman did at night.  She then wrote their responses on a post it note so they could copy it onto their already printed out paper.  (Their paper said:  "My snowman _____________ at night.") 

I must say that I enjoyed this activity and can see myself using it again in the future, however the next time around I would like to involve more writing.  I think that by mid-year my students could have written a story to go along with their snowman, but like I said that will have to wait until next year. 

The snowmen were created by mixing approximately equal parts of shaving cream to Elmer's glue.  The students painted their snowman with their choice of a popsicle stick or their fingers onto a 8 x 8 piece of blue construction paper.  Before their snowman dried, they attached googly eyes, carrot nose and anything else they wanted to add.  Once the snowmen were dried, we backed them with a 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 sheet of white cardstock for more support.  I couldn't believe how soft and fluffy looking the snowmen dried!  The hardest part has been keeping the students from touching their masterpieces as they have been on display in the hall!  The kids were definitely proud of their projects!

Here are a few up close shots:



"My snowman delivers presents at night."

"My snowman goes sledding at night."



"My snowman feeds my horse at night."