Friday Game Day... with playdough!

I have a love/hate relationship with play dough.... I love using it in my classroom, but I hate making it! Maybe I've just got really weak arms, but I find it SUCH a work out to mix and cook the dough! Finally I've found a recipe that I really like, and it seems a bit easier on the arm or maybe I'm getting stronger? (I can hope right?!) Anyway, the recipe is here.. I love it because it lasts really well - we always run out of dough before it goes bad.

So, for today's game, I'm going to share a variation of the traditional Roll and Draw games, instead using play dough. The great thing about this game is it is so easy to differentiate, you can use it to practice number recognition, two digit addition, doubles, bonds to 10, times tables... the list is endless! It is also really easy to set up, you just need to get the play dough out, grab some dice and you're ready to go!

The game works best (I think) in pairs or groups of three. Each player will need some play dough and the group will need a die to share as well as a game card (or you can write the directions on the board if you'd prefer). 

Click here for a copy of the game cards that I've used. :)

I've used graphics from Ashley Hughes and Scrappin Doodles

This game card only needs a 1-6 die... it's designed to practice number recognition (1-6)

Player one then rolls the two dice and adds the number together. They then find that number on the Playing Card and make that body part for the bug. The next player has a turn and the game continues until someone has made a complete bug... they are the winner!

You can easily change the creature you are making to fit in with your current theme too... a snowman, a face, a farm animal, an alien, a fish... anything will work.

A fun and easy game, which is great to practice a range of skills, and best of all.... kids love it!

I've linked up with Kindergarten Works to share Kindergarten teaching ideas... head on over to find some fantastic teaching ideas especially for the little ones :)

A nifty behaviour management tool!

Yesterday at staff meeting, a couple of my collegues shared an interesting behaviour management tool. It looks really handy, so I thought I'd share it with you too :) (Actually, I was on the website's Facebook page today and it has over 10 000 likes, so you might already know about it, and I'm just a bit behind the eight ball!)

The site is called Class Dojo - it's an online behaviour management tool... a really interesting, fun and practical one! 

Basically it's a 'points' system, that allows you to allocate points for behaviour (you can choose to have positive or both positive and negative), which can then be displayed by having the website up on the Interactive Whiteboard or class computer.

I've taken a screen shot of the demo on the site... Hugh's not really in my class!

 You can set the criteria that kids can earn points for, or just use the ones they already have. Apparently you can also download an App for smart phones and ipods/ipads which is fantastic for when you're not in the classroom. The program also lets you collect data on student behaviour and displays it is a range of graphs... great if you want to collect data on how your kids are going!

I haven't tried this program in the classroom - this week I've started a new role at my school. I'm going to be our school's Numeracy Coach for the rest of the year so I won't be in the classroom with my little Receptions. I'll definitely keep it up my sleeve for next year though! 

If you use it in your class already, I'd love to hear how you find it :)

Friday Game Day.... Tower Addition

I hope you've had a great week... I can't believe it's Friday again!

I might have chosen (ok... did choose!) this game because it uses unifix cubes... I bought this cute clip art from Mel at Graphics from the Pond in the sales this week and was looking for an excuse to use them! ;)

This week's game is one that's really handy to reinforce counting and addition skills... It's great to use at the beginning of a lesson as a bit of a warm up.

To play, you just need a die, a heap of colour blocks/counters or unifix cubes and something for kids to write on - I usually give them their little whiteboards to work on. When I've played it with older kids, I've sometimes given them calculators as well so that they can double check their answers.

To start with, everyone takes five unifix cubes (or three, ten etc... Depending on how easy or difficult you want the game to be) and makes their tower. As a class, we then roll the die (1-6 maybe to start with, but you could use a 1-3 or 1-10-depending on how difficult you want the game to be) to allocate each cube a value.

Then each person works out how much their tower is 'worth' by adding the value of all of their cubes... the person with the highest value tower is the winner! I find kids really get into this game... you can also play it where the person with the lowest tower is the winner. Just a hint... make sure all the kids have their towers built before you assign values to the colours... otherwise you'll get some 'strategic' players who purposely choose the high value colours! ;)

Rainy Day Writing

We have had a pretty dry Summer and Autumn so far in S.A... not much rain at all! We were due for a bit of rain earlier in the week (though it didn't turn into much) so I thought I'd read a couple of books to my class about waiting for the rain to come. The books we read were....

 'Big rain coming' by Katrina Germein and 'Here comes the rain' by Clare Good (I couldn't find a nice piccie of the book - my copy is plastered with library stickers.. not a pretty photo either!) 

We talked about the different signs that the characters in the books looked for to know that it is going to rain, and we talked about how we know it is going to rain too. I popped on the BOM website, and pulled up the rain radar for our area... luckily there was rain due that morning!

Just as we were looking at the radar image, the rain started falling outside! Talk about lucky timing!! We went outside and looked at the colour and shape of the rainclouds and talked about the 'signs' of rain that we noticed. 

When we came back in, we talked about what we liked to do in the rain, and wrote about it.

(The graphics I've used are c KPM Doodles and Ashley Hughes)

Some kids had a go at writing by themselves, some cut and pasted the beginning of the sentence, and I scribed the rest for them. they also drew a piccie... sorry I don't have any photos, but you can download a copy of these Rainy Day Writing sheets here :)

A fun lesson, and a lucky one thanks to those lovely rain clouds... hopefully we get some more soon!

A Domino game for Friday Game Day!

Friday Game day again! (Actually it's Saturday but better late than never right?!)

 

A little while ago, I saw an absolute BARGAIN on dominoes... I think they were something like a dollar a pack, so (naturally) I just HAD to get a class set! They are a great addition to Maths Tool kits - there's so many ways they can be used. Today I want to share a really quick little game that's great for practicing number order (and it's really easy to adapt to use for addition/subtraction skills too).

You play this game in pairs, each player taking half a pack of dominoes. The dominoes are placed face down, and at the same time, each player turns over one of their pieces. The person that turns over the piece with the most dots then takes both domino pieces. If both players pieces have the same number of dots, each keep their own and the game continues. 

Players keep on turning over dominoes until one person has all of the pieces... they are the winner! Sometimes I put a timer on and the winner is the person who has the most dominoes when the buzzer rings (especially handy for when you just want a quick 5 minute filler game).

It's a pretty easy game to differentiate too... you could have the person with the least number of dots collecting the dominoes, or ask kids to add the dominoes together and call out the total, or even have kids find the difference between the two halves of the domino.

If you give it a go with your class, I hope they enjoy it :)

First day back!

Having termly intakes of Receptions has its benefits (especially the small class size in term 1!) but it does make for a pretty full on first week of term - every term!

We had a big group of newies this term, so this first week is really going to be taken up with getting them settled and finding our grove again. We read that lovely little book 'The Kissing Hand' on Monday - it's such a lovely way to talk about first days and how the kids are feeling. I actually ordered a copy online for my daughter at the beginning of the year (for when she started Kindy) and was going to use it with my class then but Australia Post was a bit too slow for that!

My class really enjoyed the story... we did a couple of activities related to the book to start off the term,

After reading the story, and having a chat about how we felt staring school, the kids drew a picture of how they felt and we wrote a sentence to go with it. The newies got this copy....

While those who have been at school for a term had a blank template, where they either wrote a sentence themselves, or cut and pasted the words to make a sentence.

Here's a finished one....

Here's a copy of this activity, I've included all three variations :)

Sorry for the short post today... my mind is a bit frazzled from such a busy week! I'll be back for Friday Game Day soon :)

Autumn Roll and Cover

Well, term 2 starts next week which means that my holidays are officially over *sigh* I really love holidays in Autumn, the weather in South Australia is beautiful... a lot cooler than summer but still with mostly beautiful sunny days - Autumn is definitely my favourite time of year!

I've been busy organising and planning for next week, so my mind is well and truly back into school mode. This year is the last year of termly intakes, from next year, all Receptions will start at the beginning of the year - I'd  love to hear if that's what you already do... how do you find it?

We will be having a new group of brand new Receptions starting on Monday which means we're in for a busy week (or two!). Our theme for 'Discovery Time' (structured play sessions) is Autumn, and I'm planning on starting the term with 'Autumny' Maths work as well. I thought today I'd share a little Roll and Cover Maths game that we'll be using.

I've made two different board games, one for recognising the numbers 1-10 and one for addition to 12. To play, the kids will work in pairs with a game board. They roll the die and cover a number with a counter... the person with the most numbers covered at the end is the winner.  

(You can download the boards here)

I used graphics from Fun Classroom Creations (on TPT) for this little game 

The 1-10 game board is pretty straightforward... the kids just need to roll a 1-10 die and then find that number and cover it.  I'm hoping this will be ok for my newies... I'm planning to buddy them up with one of our older Receptions, who can show them the ropes. The second board has numbers 1-12. For this one, the kids will use two 1-6 dice and will add the numbers then cover the total. 

An extra extension that I've got in mind for any kids who are challenged enough will be a subtraction version. they can use the 1-10 game boar and use a 1-10 die. they roll the die, then subtract the number from 10 to find the difference. they then cover that number on the game board. I'm not sure if we'll need this one, but I like to have an extra extension just in case!

Have a great week!