Happy First Day and Math Games :)

Hi blog buds! Long time, no talk!!! Today was our first day of school and it was FAB! I have 21 precious kiddos! They did a GREAT job learning about all of the procedures and routines! This morning, we read Wemberley Worried by Kevin Henkes and completed Abby's First Grade Survey from her Fun with Firsties unit. I adored their responses...gotta HEART that phonetic spelling! :) We also completed my free Marshmallow Toes activity this afternoon! Tomorrow, our morning activities will focus on the book First Grade Jitters by Robert Quackenbush and the PRESH Jitter Juice activities created by the awesome Abby! :) Happy First Day of School to all of you starting soon! :)

Up next in the Math Menu series...Math Games! I am SUPER sorry for the brief hiatus! :) I love some math games! I will admit, math games were not my fave in Kindergarten, but I think Firsties do such a great job with staying on task and controlling their volume during math games! :) During Math Menu, I have 4 students (2 sets of partners) playing games. Sometimes, the partner sets are playing the same game (I make 2 copies of the same game) or they might be playing seperate games...just depends on the unit!

RESOURCES ~
BLOGS: My newest favorite resources have been all of YOU! I have gotten such wonderful ideas from blog stalking! I LOVE Cara Carroll's Fraction Action and The Great Coin Collection units on TpT.

WEBSITES: Check out Vasha Rosenblum at www.mathgamesk-5.com . She lives here in Birmingham and has inexpensive ($1.oo or $2.00 a piece) games for all grade levels. I purchased the two first grade sets (14 games) for $22.00. These are good for a first year teacher or someone just starting their math game collection.

Another good site is www.k-5mathteachingresources.com. It has several I Have...Who Has? games to print out for free (you have to fill out some info for a free subscription!)

MATH TEXTBOOKS: I look through our math textbook and tear out a few copies of the game at the end of each chapter. I laminate them and use them for partner games!


STORAGE ~
I just added my new fave addition to my room this year! I got the Cubeical shelves at Target! I got 2 6 shelf units and added 12 cute fabric baskets. These are a bit pricey but sooo worth it! I used 10 of the baskets for math game storage and the last 2 for calendar storage!

Fuzzy iPhone pic ~ here are the 10 catergories in the order of our units:
Numbers, Patterns, Addition, Subtraction, Shapes, Fractions, Measurement, Time, Money, Place Value.

Coming soon...classroom pics! I will take pics tomorrow and will post on Sunday while the hubs is working his one Sunday a month!