Wednesday, June 7, 2023

5 more ways 100 charts help you teach math

Recently I blogged about some of the unusual ways I like to use my 100s chart and 100s pocket chart, this week I have a few more ideas to share - thanks for joining me!

Before we talk 100s charts, let's talk about a $100 prize!

GIVEAWAY DETAILS:

Prize: $100 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card

Giveaway Organized by: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher)

Co-hosts: An Apple for the Teacher, The First Grade Lunchbox, TheBeezyTeacher, The Froggy Factory, Homeschool Style-Katie Ring, It's a Teacher Thing, Jackie Crews, Angelica's Resources, Lockwood's Little Learners, Mrs. Wennings Clasroom, Kamp Kindergarten, Mickey's Place, Simone's Math Resources, 1stgradefireworks, Research Based Teaching Tools, Asa Jomard - Think Dive on TpT, Autism Journey - Angie S, Sweetie's, April Pickett- Teach Travel Read, A Teacher and her Cat, Paula's Primary Classroom, CrazyCharizma, and Penley's Pointe Educational Resources.

Rules: Use the Rafflecopter to enter. The giveaway ends 6/13/23 and is open worldwide.

Are you a Teacher Blogger or a Teachers pay Teachers seller who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your store and social media? J oin our totally awesome group of bloggers!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck in the giveaway! Now, let's talk about hundreds charts!

Double digit addition and subtraction with regrouping.

Yes, you can practice it on a 100 chart!

These spring pictures are easy to create using addition and subtraction within 100 (mostly with regrouping, but there are a few problems without regrouping so you can differentiate and include students who aren't ready for that step yet). Simply print the problems on colored paper - each page is labeled with the color - trim, and have students complete the problems! See how we've completed the problems, then turned the paper over to put the answers on the back?

When we put the completed cards into the hundreds pocket chart we create a picture:

Digital hundreds charts

Hundreds charts don't have to be made of paper - it's easy to assign digital 100s chars that students can complete on a device from anywhere! Absent students can complete their work digitally, and if the copier is broken, you still have your math practice ready to go. There's no need to grade either - a picture appears to let students know they got it right. Win-win-win!

Combining multiple skills

This is my new favorite! I've recently started making my hundreds pocket charts with different skills, then bundling them together. Why? Because of the amazing flexibility for differentiation!

For example: I'm tutoring siblings, one entering kindergarten, the other entering 2nd grade. Mr. K is pretty good at reading 2 digit numbers, but needs a little more practice. Ms. 2nd grade has numbers down, but struggles a little with numbers in base 10. By pulling out the light blue cards for him, and the dark blue and white cards for her, they were able to work together to create this whale picture.

Another of my students is fairly good with base 10 blocks, but really needs to practice addition and subtraction with regrouping. I knew she'd enjoy making this pocket chart, but 100 addition and subtraction problems would be too many for her - so I pulled the green cards from the addition and subtraction set, and the blue cards from the NBT set, and she practiced both skills just the right amount.

Think about how often you need to differentiate math skills for your students, or to review a skill with a child. Now it's easy for everyone to get individualized skills practice while working together with their peers of all abilities!

Murals

Get your whole class working together to create a BIG picture, like these awesome murals!

This America the Beautiful mural is made of 30 hundreds charts - and each one is differentiated 3 ways, so you can take a group of students and have them work together at their own levels to create amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesty - from sea to shining sea! (Don't have 30 students? I bet you have some fast workers who will be thrilled to do more than one!).

Let's also remember to Bee Kind to each other - this mural is made of just 12 hundreds charts, and includes matching kindness notes to make a lovely back to school / end of year / Valentines Day / Random Acts of Kindness Day bulletin board. Just like the America the Beautiful mural, it comes with 3 levels of differentiation. Do you have more than 12 students? Make more than one mural and spread that kindness around!

Texas state symbols

Okay, I'm kind of cheating here. You already know that hundreds charts can be used with a lot of different themes. Why not combine them with social studies or science themes to increase the time students spend thinking about state symbols, animals of the Chinese Zodiac, or what different kinds of bears look like?

Hundreds charts are so versatile, and so much fun. Is it any wonder I love them so much? I hope you found new ways to use them as you read today!

Have a great day,

Paula

Thursday, April 13, 2023

One of the Best Math Teaching Tools I Rely On

What can you use to teach children not only numbers but also how to add, subtract, count mixed coins, understand numbers in base 10 and more? It's one of my favorite math teaching tools: a simple 100 chart!

I've used 100 chart mystery pictures to help my students learn numbers to 100 for a LONG time... since the mid 90's, but this year I've come to see more and more possibilities. Download a blank 100 chart AND a mystery picture in this FREE resource, then keep reading to learn new ways to use them!

Counting

What do you do when your students can count to 20, but can't consistently count beyond that? You count to 100 while looking at each number you say, to support their developing number sense! You can count to 100 with Jack Hartman, in more than one way, or with Finny the Shark in Super Simple Songs. Do your students prefer a hip hop beat? Try Harry Kindergarten I Can Count to 100! Give your students a blank 100 chart (like the one in the free resource listed above) and have them stand up, move their bodies, and point to the numbers along with one of these songs. This is a great time to walk around and evaluate how well each student is doing, and to help them get back on track if they're struggling.

The next logical step is to take away the music video and have students point and count to 100 without the visual and audio support. Can they do it? They know how to count to 100! Not quite? Keep practicing, they'll get there!

Recognizing and identifying the numbers

Even if students can count to 100 while pointing to each number, do they REALLY know the numbers, or just rote order? We can find out by mixing it up! This is when I start using 100 chart mystery pictures, like the one featured in the free resource above, with my students. I do this in 2 very different and distinct formats: pocket hundred charts and printed hundreds charts.

Hundreds chart mystery pictures used to only be printables, a mystery to discover by coloring by number, like these images below (yes, there are a kazillion):

When I started making hundreds chart mystery pictures very few of them were differentiated. Sometimes I could find them with a choice of a numbered or completely blank 100 chart, but even that wasn't a guarantee - so I started making my own, with options for students with various skill levels. Almost all of my printable 100s charts come in 3 versions:

Level A: fewer squares to identify and color, larger text, and the numbers usually in order.

Level B: 100 squares to identify and color on a pre-numbered chart. Number clues in random

order.

Level C: 100 squares to identify and color on a completely blank chart, with number clues in

random order.

My students loved them, and so did other teachers, so I made 100 charts for a LOT of themes! (These aren't all of them).

Later I realized that 100 charts are also wonderful for other skills besides numbers - but I'll get to that!

My real brainstorm invention was:Pocket hundreds chart mystery pictures

Pocket 100 charts have one incredibly important feature that printed mystery pictures don't have: they can be a small group activity! I believe I was the first person to make these awesome math centers! See how they work in this short video pin!

Hundreds pocket charts are awesome for a hands on learning center, and I LOVE that students can work in small groups and help each other to solve them. Pocket chart versions are also great for those students who don't like coloring, or don't have the fine motor strength to complete a whole page of coloring. It's wonderful to listen to students try to guess what the mystery picture is as they work, and if anyone puts a card in the wrong pocket its an easy fix - unlike trying to get colored pencil off the printed page on the worksheet versions!

The more I used my 100s pocket charts, the more I realized how many ways I could use the larger space for each number that the pocket chart provides:

whole class or small group instruction focused on different features of numbers to 100. (count by 10s' or 5's, looking at decades such as all the teen numbers or all the 30's)
Numbers represented by base 10 blocks
Numbers represented in expanded form
Numbers represented by mixed coins
Numbers represented by addition, subtraction, multiplication and division
Mixed review of lots of math skills in a bingo format,
Why stop with numbers? Mystery pictures can be used to color by letter, or by sight word!

Let's explore some of these ideas further:

Numbers in base 10

Like so many skills, this one takes some practice to master, so why not practice in a fun way that our students will enjoy - as a mystery picture!

Have you seen a numbers in base 10 printable 100 chart? There's so little room in each square, so the only way to make one would be to have clues on multiple extra pages. If you need 4 pages per student for a printed version, and have 22 students, that's 88 sheets of paper for ONE math assignment. What if you could let every student for years use it, and only needed about 10 pages? So much better!

To make my hundreds pocket charts I've sorted my cards by the color they need to be so I can print them out on card stock, then trim them with a paper cutter. Boom! Math center I can use for years! (This set makes a cockatoo).

Expanded form

I love how quickly students usually catch on to expanded form - I usually chant the problem and solution, ie: fifty plus one is fifty one - so I've only made a few charts as expanded form so far. LMK if you need one for a theme I haven't covered yet, I love to hear your requests!

Did you find yourself wondering what the picture would be when you saw this video? Your students will be intrigued too, and keep working to find out!

Counting mixed coins

Can we be real for a minute? Counting mixed coins is hard for kids! They have to identify the coins, know their value, and be able to count by 25, 10, 5 and 1 from any number, and switch between those counting forms. If you've taught this skill you know how hard it can be for many students! This year I'm using my hundreds chart to support counting coins.

How? A 100 chart makes an awesome visual support! You'll still need to teach the value of each coin, but try also counting by each amount on the 100 chart. Your students already count by 1's, so that's a breeze. What do they notice when they count by 5's (or nickels)? Try putting nickels on the 5s and 10s as they count, to reinforce the connection. What about dimes? When they count by 10s the next number is always directly below the previous one... does it work if you count on from 25? What about from 36? Do you always just go down one space on the hundreds chart to add 10? Can you count by 10s starting at any number now? Quarters are also fairly easy - they just have to learn and remember 25, 50, 75, one dollar. Not sure what I mean? Check out this short video!

Once students can count the coins separately, start combining them! I know a lot of people start with pennies and nickels because it's easy for students to count by 1's and 5's, but I prefer to start with quarters because I want my students to always start counting from the coin with the most value. Once they can count quarters and dimes, I add in nickels, then pennies.

Wait - what about counting change? Can the 100 chart help with that? Yes! This short YouTube video shows you how!

I LOVE using a 100 chart to support math learning, and I hope you've found a few new ideas about how you can use them too! Next week I'll cover EVEN MORE ways to use them - I hope you'll subscribe so you get notified when it posts. Thanks for joining me, have an awesome week!

Paula

Monday, April 3, 2023

Even twenty somethings want an Easter egg hunt!

Goodness knows I've organized my share of Easter egg hunts, for first grade, preschool, and extended family! This year is going to be a little different: an Easter egg hunt for my married twenty something year old sons. What to do?

Hatching my idea

I'll admit, my first thought was that they'd think an egg hunt is lame and refuse to get into it - which is actually what gave me the idea. There's no way my grown sons would get excited about running around the backyard for mini candy bars and plastic toys (sometimes I miss them being 3). So what WOULD they get excited about?

Important fact #1: My kids are competitive.

Important fact #2: The prizes don't actually have to go in the eggs.

Important fact #3: The only thing lamer than getting $1 in an egg is getting $1 in an egg when your brother / wife / sister-in-law just got $20.

Important fact #4: I have a lot of different kinds of plastic "eggs".

Do you see the possibilities?

The set up

I'm turning this Easter egg hunt into a competition. I have 5 kinds of "egg" so I need 5 categories. In each category I need 4 prizes (for 4 kids). The prizes SHOULD NOT be equal - to get everyone motivated there have to be SOME prizes worth working for and some that you'll catch grief about for the rest of your life. (Good spirited teasing = love around here). Depending on your family and your kids you may have all kinds of categories, no judgement on what's right for you and yours! Here's what's happening for me and mine:

Candy: large bag of m&ms, full size candy bar, mini candy bar, a single mint candy.

Fruit: pineapple, punnet of strawberries, a banana, a grape

Beverages: bottle of alcohol (remember, no judgement, you do you!), tiny bottle of alcohol, can of soda, can of grapefruit juice.

Money: $20, $10, $5, $1

Gift cards: Starbucks, Target, Walmart, Dollar Store (different small amounts)

I'll have the prizes on a table, sorted by category.

How to play

Each person is allowed to collect 1 of each kind of egg. They're going to want to bring it to me quickly - because first come, first served. You got an egg for the money category? First person gets the $20. Second one gets the $10, etc. Give me the egg, grab your prize, go find another egg! The faster you are, the better your prizes! Slow poke wins a grape, $1, grapefruit juice, a tiny gift card, and a mint - not a terrible prize, unless your brother got $20, a bottle of booze, a pineapple, bag of candy and $15 Starbucks card!

The twist

Of course there's a twist! There's one more egg, and it's a doozy. After everything else is said and done the person with the golden egg gets to switch prizes in 1 category with ANYONE else!

The outcome

I can't wait to see how this plays out! I think - hope - they're going to love it. It would be great if they said something like, "You're the best mom in the world and I love you to the moon and back!" I won't hold my breath on that one, but maybe, just maybe, I'll hear "Thanks mom!" and get a couple of big hugs. THAT'S what I want for Easter. Wish me luck!

Paula

P.S. What other categories popped into your head? LMK - maybe I'll add it to our fun!

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

An awesome giveaway that will make you jump for joy!

It's been a hot minute... year... since I blogged, but I have the BEST reason to get started again - a giveaway! I've teamed up with other awesome teachers to offer you the chance to win a $100 TpT giftcard!

Prize: $100 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card

Giveaway Organized by: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher)

Co-hosts: An Apple for the Teacher, Mrs. Wennings Clasroom, Peas in a Pod, The First Grade Lunchbox, Lockwood's Little Learners, Simone, Chocolate 4 Teachers, TheBeezyTeacher, Teacher Gameroom, Autism Journey - Angie S, Oceanview Resources, The Froggy Factory, 1st Grade Fireworks, Paula's Primary Classroom, Angelica's Resources, Sweetie's, Believe to Achieve by Anne Rozell, It's a Teacher Thing, and The Homeschool Style-Katie Ring.

Rules: Use the Rafflecopter to enter. The giveaway ends 3/13/23 and is open worldwide.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Are you a Teacher Blogger or a Teachers pay Teachers seller who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your store and social media? J oin our totally awesome group of bloggers!

Since we're talking about luck in early March, I have to share my latest resource: The Farmer and the Giant Potato.

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, it's the story of a farmer who finds a giant potato and needs the help of all the family to get it out of the ground. With a script, popsicle stick puppets, flannel board pictures and headbands for the retelling, it's been a student favorite. Check out the video on YouTube!

Here are a few more of my favorite March activities:

Thanks for stopping by, and Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Sunday, January 9, 2022

A simple recipe for amazing preschool success with your little ones

What does it take to make an outstanding recipe - whether the traditional kind for food, or a recipe for something much less tangible, like success?

I would argue that all recipes need ingredients, and better ingredients will usually yield better results. Of course, there has to be a method for putting those ingredients together, and surely almost every recipe needs to be carefully seasoned.

A simple recipe for amazing preschool success with your little ones

My ingredients for preschool - beside the obvious preschoolers and adult carer - would have to start with books and music! So it was this last week, when we focused on learning the letter J.

One of the wonderful things about children is their energy, and rather than fight it, I figured we'd expend some of it by dancing and singing. We exercised to 100 with Jack Hartman's Count to 100, and did the Tooty Ta with Dr. Jean - because no kid can resist sticking out their tongue and bottom while they dance (who can)?! We sang Hello My Name Is Joe, adding actions until we could barely stand, and ~~worked on vocal modulation~~ sang loudly and quietly with John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt while jingling our bells. Were the kids worn out? NO! Were the teachers? Yes, yes we were, but it was only 9:30 am so we kept going.

Do you see the huge pile of jewelry in the box shown above? We put it ALL on and JUMPED JOYFULLY in jewelry. By the time we were done the kiddos were ready to sit down for a few books (and my exercise ring was closed for the day)!

Jump Frog, Jump is a great book for an energetic group - the pages alternate between story line and exclaiming "Jump Frog, Jump!" We held our bodies still on the story pages, just waiting to explode our arms up into the air as we shouted at the frog to JUMP! (Little ones can't still for very long, but by alternating still and moving we're working on self control.)

After our stories were done we worked our fine motor muscles gluing jewels onto a letter j. I had fine plans for making a jack-o-lantern uppercase J another day, but... some days you follow the recipe, and other days you improvise. It's all good!

This week we'll be focusing on letter K. My music playlist includes Katalina Matalina, Old King Cole, Kookaburra, and Polly Put the Kettle On. We'll be reading about kangaroos and koalas, making a letter K craft with a kangaroo and song, and crafting adorable koala headbands.

K is also for kittens, kisses and Kente Cloth, and we'll read about them all. We'll reach into my letter K box to find a king, keys, koala, KitKat and chocolate kisses. I have a karate outfit that the kiddos will take turns wearing, and we'll look for chocolate kisses hidden in the toy kitchen. In case that isn't enough, I'm super excited to have downloaded all the alphabet songs from HeidiSongs, so we'll be singing and dancing lots of letters!

If we go back to the recipe metaphor, I'll finish by adding a helping dollop of outside time and free play, and seasoning liberally with joy and love. I'm pretty sure our recipe is going to be amazing!

Sunday, January 2, 2022

How the "Champion of the World" Conquered Sight Words

Are you a big sports fan? How about your students? Whether it's football, baseball, basketball, skating, soccer, tennis or something else, chances are someone in your classroom LOVES sports!

I'm tutoring a first grader who is BIG into sports, and realized the key to keeping him engaged in sight word practice is right there: baseball, football, soccer and basketball. I did what teachers have always done - went looking for just the right resource to help him master his sight words. I didn't FIND it, so I MADE it:

Each sight word card includes an image of a child involved in a sport, from karate and canoeing to gymnastics and lacrosse, there are LOTS of choices. I made cards for letters, pre-primer, primer, first, second AND third grade words - who knows how far we might go with this fun theme?! - and made it a game because if it feels playful we're more engaged and for longer.

To play: He gets a chance to read each word, if he gets it right he puts it through the goal and scores a point. If he misses a word I get to keep it - unless he gets an extra point card and uses it to "steal" my words by reading them. I don't get to read anything unless he misses, so I end up with very few word cards in my hand. Clearly the game is rigged in his favor, and there's an incentive to focus on any words that are missed because he might still get another chance to get them from me. There is nothing more satisfying to a kid than winning a game against an adult!

My student loved the soccer goal, and he loved the basketball goal, and we have practiced sight words, scoring goals for each word he reads. He informed me one day that he was "The Champion of the World" at our game. (Score a big win for me- he WANTS to practice reading with this game AND he's mastering new sight words!)

Then he asked about a football goal. And a baseball field - with just baseball player cards - please? I guess you know what happened next:

Now I'm trying to think of a way to incorporate making and using a paper football (here's a video I found that shows how to make one, and another video with the rules) as a reward for doing well with this sight word game. If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Reading sight words is wonderful of course, but we need to read and understand them in sentences, paragraphs and whole stories, not just in isolation. More sports themed learning to the rescue!

Each of the 18 sentences and matching pictures in this set is heavily focused on preprimer and primer sight words - and sports vocabulary, of course! By limiting how many sentences we work on at a time I can change the degree of difficulty. Since I'm working 1-1 with my young sports fan we do these on a table top, but they also work really well as a literacy center in a pocket chart - and take up very little space in a busy classroom that way!

Soon we'll switch over to winter sports sentences, and since we're also reading transportation themed sight word readers we'll read and match sentences about cars, trucks, fire engines and more. I can keep this up for as long as it takes him to master reading!

So who's winning in this game? Is it the "Champion of the World", for scoring more points than teacher? Is it me, for achieving my goal of increasing his reading fluency and skills? No dear reader, it's better than either of those scenarios, it's a great big win-win!

Saturday, November 6, 2021

30 Fantastic Free Early Elementary Resources You Can Download and Use Today

This week I asked a group of teacher-authors to share their best FREE resources for November for preschool through first grade, and boy, did they come through! Browse through the list, and if you find something that looks promising, click on the picture to go right to the source! I hope you find some amazing resources to help YOU to make November awesome!