Valentine Heart Math

I took my favorite aspects from other Valentine heart math activities I’ve seen and made this. These Valentine heart math pages were created for 3rd grade and include graphing, ordering numbers, finding the median, arrays, multiplication, and division.  The colors are based on Sweettart Hearts (which, by the way, are safe for kids with peanut allergies but may contain egg… at least that’s their nutritional info right now, February 2016).  You can download this as a as PDF or as Word doc if you want to edit it and make it work for you.  :)

PDF:Valentine Heart Math PDF

Word document: Valentine Heart Math Word Doc

Los-res previews:

 

Halloween Questions

I reviewed my school’s Halloween costume policy with my class two days after their millions of  questions about our canned food drive (see post below).  Knowing that they would have a ton of questions about Halloween too, and not feeling like devoting 20 minutes to answering all those questions, I told them, “I will not be answering questions at this time.  If you have a question, please write it on a post-it note, and I will get back to you later with an answer.”  I have 28 students, and I received 24 questions.  The summary of the school policy is no violent or frightening costumes, and I told the class to ask if they were unsure if their costume would be considered violent/frightening or if the clothing with it would be school-dress-code-appropriate.  These were some of my favorite questions from my students who are clearly very conscientious.  :)

“I have a wig and glasses. Does the wig count as not seeable?”
(One of the guidelines is no masks that obscure vision)

“Are you allowed to bring a doll, a stuffed doll?”

“Can you wear overalls with your costume? And ear headband?  Or bow ties that are grey?”
(Can anyone guess this adorable, non-scary costume?)

“Can you do your hair fancy?”

“Is Cindy Lou Who scary?”

Baltimore

Today my class’s student council reps were announcing information about a canned food drive that starts at an event next week and goes until the first week of November.  As usual, the class had more questions that you’d ever think would be possible.

My favorite one was: “Well, what if you’re gone somewhere next week, like Baltimore, do you just ship it or something?”

It took all of my self control to not burst into laughter.  The sweet little student council reps looked over at me for the answer, and all I could do was shake my head “no” while fighting a smile.

I thought, “Surely this child must be traveling to Baltimore, otherwise, why would he ask such a random question?”

So I asked him.

Nope.

He’s going to Florida.

April Fools! (2015)

Here’s the joke I pulled on my students today… and the one they pulled on me!  (Sidenote: I learned today not to pull the same joke 2 years in a row… 3 of my students informed me first thing in the morning that they knew what I did last year because my former students told them.  I swore them to secrecy, and thankfully, they obliged.)

I passed out a foil covered plate to each table with directions to not touch it yet.  As I did that, I told the class that I thought they did really well with our standardized state test last week, so I made them all brownies in celebration.

When every table had a plate, I let them peel off the foil, and…

April Fools!  It’s brown Es, not brownies!

But then I pulled out real brownies that I really and truly baked for them…. so it was a nice joke.  :)  (Don’t worry, nutrition police, they were small brownies and I didn’t let the kids eat them until after lunch)  After this all transpired, I heard a few students saying they were going to plan something “to get me back.”  I said, “To get me back for making you real brownies? Some thanks that is!”  ;)  One student asked for permission to play a joke back on me.  That kid is thinking – covering his bases so he can’t get in trouble!  Haha.

Lo and behold, they DID plan a class prank during recess and were pleased as punch with themselves.  They got the whole 3rd grade in on it – they switched around their class line up spots and were all squatting down on the ground, eagerly waiting for us to come out and get them.  As the other teachers and I walked out, they jumped up and yelled, “APRIL FOOLS!”  With a little more chaos than normal, we got inside, where they kids kept asking, “Wasn’t that GOOD, Miss C??”  “Were you surprised??”  They also informed me: “It all started with kids from our class!  It was so-and-so’s idea and then she told a few people and we just spread it around!”  I told them that yes, I was surprised and so impressed that they organized it all, and that I’ll definitely remember that one.  Then came my favorite comment from a student: “It’ll go down in history, for sure.”

Hear that, history textbook writers?  April 1, 2015: the day some 3rd graders pranked their teachers by lining up 3 feet away from their normal line-up spot.  :)

Hey Girl Teacher (#3)

While under recent assessment/report card stress, I did a little Google search to see if there were any new “Hey girl teacher” memes for motivation or entertainment.  Here are a few that I liked.  :)

Why, thank you, Ryan.

This would a great back to school gift! Definitely going to use it in the future.

Hahahaha…. I say this about a million times a week.

“Y-O-U-‘-R-E means you are. Y-O-U-R means YOUR. ” -Ross

If You Found A Pot Of Gold…

I found this St. Patrick’s day math worksheet last year with this little side bar question asking: “If you found a pot of gold, what would you buy with all of the gold?  Draw or write about it.”  These 8 were among my favorite responses this year.

So apparently you can BUY the position of president? Actually, sadly, you’re not too far off, kid.

Sweet little cafe. Although some windows might be nice.

Having your barn animal friends that close might SEEM like a good idea now, but I think you might change your mind after you realize the barn animal friend smells are also super close by.

The positioning of the rooms in these mansion drawings CRACKS ME UP. Please notice the best part of this one in the upper left hand area: MEAT STORAGE.

The positioning of the rooms in these mansion drawings CRACKS ME UP. The closets for each bedroom are conveniently located several floors above the rooms in this mansion.

Legit drawing of a helicopter.

So little. So simple. So cute. I love it!

Awww, what a little sweetie!

Informational Writing 2015

I was dismayed to see how little I’ve posted this year.  My class is lovable and entertaining and great, I just haven’t taken the time to blog funny stories!  Sharing pictures of student work is easier, and hopefully still entertaining for others.  The captions/names of the photos highlight the parts of these informational writing pieces that I found funny.

I have a friend who reads exclamation points as sentences being yelled! She would be yelling a lot here! Also, I’m glad this writer advised against high heels for basketball! I was going to wear my high heals for the next game I played!

Friend 1: “Hey you want to play basketball?” Friend 2: “Ehhh I’m not up for full on basketball, how about just 1-third basketball?” Friend 1: “Oh okay great! I know just what we need.”

The truth comes out. He wrote this piece because….

Brush your cat with a what? Head to tail and tail to head? Doesn’t that undo the head to tail grooming?

This student made a great attempt at leaving their reader with something to wonder about in their conclusion. Not exactly what I meant by that, but A for effort.

During an act of… what?

And Russel Wilson is HUGE (not), so a lion is REALLY HUGE!

This is the same student who suggested wondering about Motzart in another piece. I like this suggestion even better!

Apparently I’ve got a LOTR fan here.

I really wish I had a video clip to illustrate this “pibit” move.

FACT: Bears eat beets. Bears beets Battlestar Galactica. (Apparently we need to work on the skill of “having information in a paragraph all relate to each other.”)

Strange, but adorable.

Classified Staff Appreciation Week

We recently had Classified Staff Appreciation Week.  I put up a list of all the classified staff at our school under the doc camera and had my students write thank you notes.  This was the funniest one of all.  I made the student add the word “probably” after asking, “Have you talked to our custodian and he has personally told you this?”, to which the student admitted, “No.”

And in our custodian’s defense, he never sighs or has a bad attitude about his work; he’s fantastic!

Optional: Draw a Picture

To entertain both the students and myself, I put this optional “draw a picture!” question on a quiz.  These were a few that I particularly enjoyed.

Seahawks Multiplication Paper Chain

If you’re in Seahawks territory (or are a fan somewhere else), this is a fun way to let your students make a decoration AND have it be educational!

Each student gets 6 blue strips and 6 green strips of paper.  Students write one multiplication fact per strip (for mine, they did it for whatever level they’re currently working on mastering in our  Timed Multiplication Challenge). I let them write things like “Go Hawks!” on the other side of the strip if they wanted to.

Tape or glue together like a normal paper chain, and voilà!  Educational and decorational.  :)

Edit/update: A smart colleague of mine had the idea of practicing spelling words on these.  You could also do addition or subtraction or division facts.  Or… write a paragraph, with a sentence on each strip.  Or a poem!  So many ideas!

PS: The 3rd grade CCSS math standard for this is: CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.OA.C.7