Money and graphs

Hello everyone! :)
These weeks have been so very busy and nonstopping, my kids have decided to be awake and shining together... even baby boy seems to be too busy for a nap time! I am trying to get it together friends! In addition to my busy mommy life, I got severe allergies (thank you Texas). I am exclusively bf so medication is limited y'all and if you suffer of these great allergies, you know my pain!!!

Anyways, I would like to share with you a past blog post that I haven't post in a while. I figured I could share it with you again. It is very simple, but if you are a new teacher this might inspire you to start something with money and graphs skills :)
Before I continue, I just want to say these two topics are some of my favorite to teach! I am not sure the reasons, but I do enjoy teaching them. Especially graphing skills :)

Here we go!
1. We have been talking about money and reviewing the value of coins by making a foldable. This is a picture of my journal; however, instead of stickers, you can always use the front and back coin stamps that you can find at teachers stores :)

We also wrote word problems in our journals that included money concepts, so we wrote a list of words that refers to money

On the same week, we started talking about bar graphs and their scale. I brought three different types of candy for students to eat and to vote for their favorite to create a bar graph with sticky notes. This was our result:

I was surprised three students liked the Jelly Beans the best, I personally dislike Jelly Beans... like a lot! I only bought them to get to know their taste and apparently most of them have the same as me ;) They absolutely loveeeeeedd the skittles! I would have bought snickers (because they are my favorite candy of all!), but I couldn't bring them since it contains peanuts :(

Anyways, after finishing our bar graph and talking about strategies on how to represent information on bar graphs, I asked students to get in partners and create their own bar graph using their Chex Mix bag. I simply placed some Chex Mix in a zip lock and pass it over to each partner so they could create a bar graph to represent how many of each type they had in their bag. These are some examples of their hard work, I was so pleased to see their work and see them so engaged on this activity :)

  

Alright friends... When I did this, I was pregnant for the first time and after I reviewed this blog post, I could swear I shared the bar graph I did with my students about the sex of the baby... Apparently, I did take pictures, but I never blogged about it (LOVE GOOGLE PHOTOS FOR BACKING UP ALL MY PICTURES SINCE FOR EVER!!). So here we go!

During my pregnancy I shared with my students as much as I could about being pregnant. They all were so excited about it and so was I. we did different things, like shared names, things I felt when baby moved, some of them wanted me to let them know when baby moved so they could feel her, and some of them even used to bring me food! Anyhow, among all the above, I tried to use it as MUCH AS I COULD as learning activities. We found out the sex of the baby the day we were leaving for Christmas Break, so they actually had to wait until we were back to find out! So before we left, we had to vote (of course) whether they thought it was a boy or a girl.

My friends, I am telling you! I still remember their faces of happiness while doing this. I can't explain what it was, they just loved to talk about the baby and my pregnancy as much as I did. We all had fun making this graph. It still cracks me up that there were a few that actually thought they were twins! I actually had one student who would keep saying "I think they are twins Mrs. Nicolau!" Even when we knew it was only ONE and it was a girl. He would keep saying "Well, my aunt was supposed to have only one and when she delivered, guess what, they were twins! That could happen to you too Mrs. Nicolau!" Thank God he was not right! Having one at a time is enough, so I take my hat off to you ladies who have delivered twins or more!!! :) LOL
Anyhow, Both of the pictures above are from my two different groups. In both groups we talked about the graph and analyzed the results. I just didn't take pictures of both. I took a picture of just the votes and then the other has results of the graph.

Ok friends, that's it for me today! I will be posting about pictographs (still my favorite!) next week, so stay tuned! :) Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Geometry Foldables & Symmetry activity ideas PLUS A NEW UNIT WITH A FREE SAMPLE YOU WOULDN'T LIKE TO MISS!

Hello everyone and welcome back!
I am sure at this point everyone is counting down the days for our Spring Break and looking forward to a nice, resting, and short week! We all know that as soon as you blink, that week is over! Nevertheless, it is nice to have it off, we all need it! :)

Today, I am about to show you a bunch of pictures of different anchor charts and foldables I had made in my classroom to help my kiddos remember those geometric vocabulary words! whewwwww!!! I'm telling y'all there are so many that I really wanted kids to be able to see these not only in their journal, so I'm planning on laminating these and post them on the wall for the rest of the school year :)

We also did about three foldables to identify: lines and angles (sorry I don't have pictures), quadrilaterals, and 3-D shapes.

A week after those 2D and 3D shape vocabulary, we were talking about Congruent figures.
The following foldable is what we did when looking into congruent figures.

  

Then, we started talking about symmetry and that's when all the fun started! I showed my students a quick video online about lines of symmetry first. After the video, we wrote a really quick the concept of symmetry and did two simple illustrations to represent it.

After that quick journal post, we did a hands on activity. We used white cardstock, we folded it in half and write our name on the crease side. Then we trace a line around the letters to give it a shape and cut it around making sure we followed the line we had traced.

When we opened the cardstock we had to think about what figure we can create, making sure it represents a vertical line of symmetry.

I was so happy with my students' work, they all came up with GREAT ideas! Here are some pictures I was able to take :)

 

 

 

Last, but definitely not least! I wanted to show you my new unit!! The title is "Welcome to Texas and the Wild West Y'all!" for a very specific reason!
I live in Texas, so one of our Social Studies TEKS are to teach about the symbols and our State. So I wanted to have a small Social Studies unit. However, I also know that not all grade levels go in depth for some of these activities and that the Rodeo is a BIG DEAL here in Texas. Soooo I decided to combine Social Studies, ELA/SLAR, and Math in a whole unit! :) That means, if you are not from Texas, but you would love to have a fun and interactive theme unit about the Wild West, this unit is also for you!!! As usual, the unit comes in English and Spanish.
Here is a preview of what the English and Spanish versions look like! Just remember that both version are exactly the same! The only difference is the language used :)

Click on ENGL or SPAN to read more details on the product

To give you a little peek of the unit, I created a FREE SAMPLE. On this Sample I included BOTH the English and Spanish versions :) On this sample, I included a mini booklet to use after a Rodeo field trip and a colored puzzle for the Texas Pledge. Both Social Studies and Wild West theme included!
Here is a preview of what this freebie looks like!

Click HERE to download your FREE SAMPLE

Well my friends, that's all I got for you! I hope my post has been useful to you and that you can try any or all of these activities with your class!

Anchor Chart for Math, Temperature, and a Science Unit About the Sun

Hello everyone and welcome back!
Today I want to share with you a unit and some activities I was doing with my kiddos around this time when I taught 3rd grade. This is an anchor chart for Math and a unit for Science that you could do at any grade, so stay with me :)
I only had the chance to take a picture of the anchor chart I prepared for a rotation (we started boot camps for STAAR) that had to do with patterns on a table. At 3rd grade we look more than just addition, but my students were used to just look on the side. So I created this anchor chart to show them and remind them (for the 40th time, sounds familiar?) to always look both ways when finding a pattern on the table.

During instruction time, we got a chance to talk about temperature. We did a quick foldable which contained a thermometer and the importance of finding the scale. We only did thermometer three days because we also had to review for our unit test. 

In Science, we had different activities and important facts to learn about the Sun.

The first day I showed several videos and we did a short/simple booklet containing facts about the Sun. This is a very simple booklet that you can use at any grade level. I used them for 3rd grade, but I had a teacher in 1st grade who also used it and she was really happy with this unit :)

         

 

The second and third day we did a model of how the earth rotates around the Sun, and the Moon around the Earth. We also did an experiment to represent the Solar Flares. Very simple demo and the kids LOVED IT!

I apologize for my loud voice and my accent! ;) lol

We have been watching videos and seeing presentations about the Sun. So the last days we did a small craft about the Sun. My students created this cute craft and had to cut the different Sun's rays. There were about 12 rays that were mixed up with TRUE and FALSE facts about the Sun. They had to glue only the TRUE facts on the Sun and discard the FALSE facts. I also included blank sun's rays in case for those younger grades that are not at that level yet :)

If you would like to check out my unit, please click on my Fun in the Sun activity Mini Unit. This unit contains all activities in Spanish and English. It contains the booklet, the experiment sheet with instructions on how to do it, and the Sun craft (including blank rays in case you just want the craft itself AND the rays that contain the TRUE and FALSE facts).

Thank you for stopping by my blog today! I am busy, busy, busy working on a new unit, so I hope I get to blog next weekend, at least a couple paragraphs!
Have an awesome week and see ya next time! :)

Our Week in a Nutshell and a quick Science Giveaway!

Hello everyone!

I am trying to post every Friday, but last weekend just seemed to be impossible! so here I am today, trying to post really quick to tell you about my last week on Januwary and what we have done with my kiddos. I will try to post on Sunday or later on today for this last week. I am posting this early because school had an early release at the last minute because of this cold weather we are having....

On the last week of January, there has not been much going on due to the weekly boot camps that we are doing for grades 3-5. We are preparing for Benchmark days!!! We do rotations once a week in each grade, so we have been working really hard on getting these kids ready for testing. I am telling you, these rotations are exhausting! Especially when you have a baby in you! LOL I honestly, I have been blessed that my "Pollita" (little chick), as we call her, has been awesome during the day. I think she loves the fact that I move so much throughout the day (because I'm technically rocking her), that she saves the kicking and moving until I sit down during conference time, driving time, and eating time! ;)

Anyways, I was on charge of reviewing patterns in a table or in/out tables. We did a short matching game, which students received a table and a rule. They had to find the correct pattern who had either the table or rule that matched whatever card they had. I only had the chance to take a picture of the anchor chart I prepared for this rotation:

During instruction time, we got a chance to talk about temperature. We did a quick foldable which contained a thermometer and the importance of finding the scale. We only did thermometer three days because we also had to review for our unit test. 

In Science, we had different activities and important facts to learn about the Sun.

The first day I showed several videos and we did a short/simple booklet containing facts about the Sun.

           

  

 

         

 

The second day and third day we did a model of how the earth rotates around the Sun, and the Moon around the Earth. We also did an experiment to represent the Solar Flares. Very simple demo and the kids LOVED IT!

I apologize for my loud voice and my accent! ;) lol

We have been watching videos and seeing presentations about the Sun. So the last days we did a small craft about the Sun. My students created this cute craft and had to cut the different Sun's rays. There were about 12 rays that were mixed up with TRUE and FALSE facts about the Sun. They had to glue only the TRUE facts on the Sun and discard the FALSE facts.

I would like to make a quick giveaway with my Fun in the Sun activity Mini Unit. This unit contains all activities in Spanish and English. It contains the booklet, the experiment sheet with instructions on how to do it, and the Sun craft (I am including blank rays in case you just want the craft itself AND the rays that contain the TRUE and FALSE facts). The first three people that comment on this post will get this pack for FREE! Ready, Set, Go!! :)

Take it easy.. grab a Freebie!! :) Place Value and Penguins Craft

Hi everyone!!! Soooooo... How was your first week of school?!
Well, mine wassss... Oh boy! what a mix of behaviors and new challenges!!! The first two days were like my students ate a bunch of knowledge over the break and I couldn't have enough of it!!! You know one of those days that you want more and more of it... Then, everything went who knows where! They were tired and when that was not an issue, they were being "too social"... It definitely didn't feel like a short week...
However, we got a chance to review some place value skills, finish up our TEK of earth's changes (we started before the Christmas break talking about volcanoes), and do some area skills.

We didn't get to do much with Earthquakes and Landslides, but just writing facts and doing a demo of an earthquake. However, I did incorporate the skill of Cause & Effect since I heard from my co-teacher that our students need more of this concept :)
So here's a picture of an anchor chart I did in order to incorporate it:

Because I feel that I have not been doing so well on creating new products, I decided to post my latest games and activities as Freebies. Who doesn't like to get stuff for free?! I know I DO!! :)

So here is my first creation, perfect for a winter theme! It is a Penguin Craft that can go perfect with any writing, list of facts, or anything that you would like to!

Click HERE to take you to my TPT product...

Also, this is the activity that I did with my students on the first week we were back from Christmas break. We did a place value review up to Hundred Thousands place; However, I created this product so younger grades can also use it. For more information on how to use this activity, download my product on my TPT store.

Click HERE to take you to my Place Value product...

Well it's time to finish that load of laundry my friends! I hope your weekend has been restful and peaceful! Always wishing you a good school week!! :)
Thank for stopping by my blog, stay tuned!