Math Madness Wednesday: Telling Time

Happy Hump Day!  It's time for another Math Madness Wednesday with Krista from Teaching Momster!  This week's topic?  You guessed it...telling time!

I have quite the love/hate relationship with time.  It is such a difficult skill for many students, yet it is so necessary for life.  When thinking about life application of math skills, time is a pretty easy skill to create transfer goals for.

There are a lot of things that need to be understood in order for students to accurately tell time and understand how the clock works.

Student Need-to-Knows for Telling Time:
• Skip Counting by 5s and 10s and even 15 to move fluently around the analog clock.
• Skip counting on off decades. ie.  12, 22, 32, etc.
• Long hand vs. short hand on a clock (and why we have two different hands)
• Definition of elapsed time and the purpose of knowing how to calculate it (yes, I brought up elapsed time! UGH! I know!)
• How to read an analog clock.  With so many digital clock resources, students can become dependent on looking at a phone or a digital watch, but digital clocks still exist.

So, how do we practice telling time in a fun way?  A game of course!  After students have figured out how to discern the difference between a minute and hour hand and how to determine the minutes around the clock, they need practice, practice, practice.  Here are two games that will help students practice telling time to the hour and half hour and also to five minutes.

TIME to run!  I hope you all have a great day!

How TO:esday: Getting back in shape

I admit it...I'm an interval runner.  And when I say interval runner, I don't mean I do run/walk intervals during workouts. I mean I run for weeks or months at a time and then stop working out for weeks/months at a time.  I'm either off or on.  This Pinterest picture is so me...

 

I have to start over Every.Single.Time.  Ugh!  So I decided to start over yesterday.  My interval this time?  9 months.  Embarrassing, but true.  I leashed up my dog, put on my running shorts, and turned on some Beyonce tunes. I had absolutely no expectations for this run, other than to run.  I am grateful that my goal was just to run.  

Some of you may be saying, why not do couch to 5k, or go for a 30 minute walk?  Well, I played soccer most of my life and into college, and running is all I know.  I will take my baby or dogs for a walk, but I don't think of that as a workout (my own personal issue!).  So, how far did I get?  1.25 miles!  I can think of my workout in two ways:

1.  Yuck!  Only 1.25?  I ran a full marathon 2.5 years ago, and I can only run 1.25 miles now?   Self Talk: Get it together, Mary Beth!

2. Awesome!  1.25 miles!  Self Talk: You haven't run in 9 months and have the most beautiful baby to show for your time off.  Give yourself a break, and be grateful you made it a mile.  This little sign is my reminder that whatever I do is better than sitting on the couch.

  

Here's to getting better Every.Single.Day with diet and exercise.  Oh, and losing this baby weight might be some motivation too! 

 Gotta run!

Mentor Monday: Teaching Resources for Teaching Poetry

Twitter!  I know, some of you are thinking, not another social media plug!  No, no.  I'm talking about Twitter because it's where I find a lot of my resources, personal professional development, and advice in my professional world.  To be honest, I don't use Twitter as a social media outlet, but as a professional media outlet.  The only things I post or retweet are related to professional development or current books I'm reading.

So to kick off my post about Teaching Resources for Teaching Poetry, it's only appropriate to share a great resource I've gathered from following ReadWriteThink on Twitter.  First, I love this website.  Second, they tweet great things throughout the day.  Third, they have a LOVELY poetry calendar to help with poetry!

This is the tweet I saw last week, and I instantly favorited the tweet so I could go back to it as a reference.

So, onto the calendar that they shared.  It has a different type of poem for each day.  Once you click on the day it pulls up resources for you!  Wahoo!  Why recreate the wheel when there are already resources for you?!  Click on the calendar below

Also, I have a resource that I originally created for a Poetry Club at my elementary school (can you believe students wanted to do a poetry club!?).  However, it is a great resource for any Poetry Unit taught in the classroom. It highlights 7 different poems and coordinating lesson ideas with mentor text ideas, classroom posters to help students remember them, as well as differentiated writing paper.  At the end, students create their very own Poetry Journal.

Alrighty, well happy poetry to all.  For those of you returning to school this week, make the best of every day!  Gotta run. 

Five for Friday!

Happy Friday!  For some it's a bit sour since it might mean the end of your Spring Break, but for others it's signaling the start!  Either way, it's Friday and time for five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

#1 on my list today is that my baby boy is 1 month old today!  What a perfect celebration on this gloomy, but glorious Friday!  He has brought us so much joy and is absolutely perfect in every way, no really, he is!  I mean who could resist this? :)

In Indiana business over the last few weeks is that we are the official first state to DROP OUT of the Common Core State Standards.  Whatever you feel on this topic, it's a bit frustrating that we've started implementing them and then we'll need to make adjustments.  The new set of standards has to be approved by July, and the sad part is that they are very, VERY similar to CCSS.  In my opinion, why the big fuss when there aren't any significant changes?

Did you know that it's Math Awareness Month?  What better way to celebrate than with a math Freebie!  This will be free through Wednesday, so feel free to share with others (and leave some feedback, too!). 

This is a picture of my bracket!  Can you see that I still have 2 teams left - and I'm a Big Ten fan?  At this point, I'm in the lead in my March Madness league and there is no way for anyone to catch me!  I can watch the games this weekend and just enjoy them...and also know that I have money coming my way!

And finally, I wanted to leave you with this thought for the day.  I hope you all are smiling today - it's Friday!

 I'm also linked up with Freebie Friday, so hop over and enjoy some other great Freebies!

Gotta run!  Enjoy your weekend!

Math Madness Wednesday: Money, Money, Money!

Who doesn't like to talk about money!?  I'm joining Krista from Teaching Momster to discuss some tips and tricks for teaching money this week.  I'm including things that can be used at home with your kids, too because I think money management is so important.  I can't wait to see what others do for this topic, too

Of course, I like to start with a mentor text, or at least have some books available at different math centers.  A classic is The Berenstein Bears' adventure with making money.  What I like about this book is that it gives students a purpose for knowing how to count money, earn money, and use money, but it's presented in a fun, humorous way.    

   

This next book, Money Mama & The Three Little Pigs is featured at the website Prosperity4Kids, and explains to kids the concept of 10/10/10/70.  10% giving, 10% saving, 10% investing, and 70% spending.  Although this concept could be challenging for kids, this book gives an excellent visual and explains it in a kid-friendly manner.   

Technology Connection: A+ Allowance App

Yep!  There's an app for that too!  This FREE app allows you to set up chores or jobs and assign dollar amounts to each one.  What I love about this is that it's designed to be used at home, but I think it would be fabulous to use with a classroom economy!  No more keeping track of money in student desks or having to check the board for how much each job is worth.  It can all be done through this app.  The best part is that at the end of the week it automatically divides it into the 10/10/10/70 concept to show them how much should go in each category.  What a great concept and visual for students to start learning!  

And finally, here is a counting money I have...Who Has? game.  The game progressively becomes more challenging with the coins becoming mixed up in the second half of the cards rather than organized from greatest to least.  It's only $1.50, and the kids will love it!

Even though it doesn't have to do with money, I also wanted to celebrate National Math Awareness Month. I made a new game this week and it's FREE for the week!! Hop over and enjoy!

 Alrighty, gotta run for the day!  Happy hump day!

April Currently and Math Awareness Month Freebie (no joke-it's Free!)!

Happy, happy April!  Man, I've been waiting for this month for a long time.  Well, maybe I've just been waiting for the weather associated with this month for a long time!  I'm starting the month off with Farley's wonderful Currently and celebrating with a math freebie for Math Awareness Month!

I think a lot of people can complain about the weather, but we're finally celebrating warmer temps here in Indy this week!  Woohoo!!  Because of the crazy weather and enormous amount of snow days, our district has actually extended the school day by 14 minutes to make up three snow days.  Teachers now go from 7:56-3:55.  They added 4 minutes to the start of the day and 10 minutes to the end of the day.  Some districts around us actually added 50-60 minutes to the day to make up the hours of 4 or 5 snow days.  Our district will now get out on June 4th, although I'm home until I head back in July!  Love that I get to hang with my baby boy for that long!

And now for the math FREEBIE!  If you've read my blog before, you know that I love math!  What's better than Math Awareness Month then?  I've created a math game for 3D shapes to celebrate the month.  Who knows, maybe if I get motivated, I'll offer a different Freebie each week in celebration!  Any games you'd like to have?

I hope you all enjoy the Freebie!  Don't forget to leave some love if you download it or share with others who you know might be able to use it.

Gotta run...remember, I said I was going to take advantage of the day!