BubbleGum Ideas --Chewing and Learning

So we do Accelerated Reader at our elementary school.  We have school point goals each quarter.  The 1st graders work hard to do their part, but with their books only worth .5 per book...it's really a small part.  I create my own goal chart in my room with flowers that work their way up the vine -- to go along with the progress flower on the computer program.  The kids love it, I love the simple way of keeping track of their goals...it's a win-win.

But the school rewards are kind of odd sometimes.  This quarter the school reached the school-wide goal and so they get to chew bubblegum!  The principal delivers it to our rooms....the kids love it, but I want it to be a bit more fun and meaningful or rather memorable!

This year I decided to turn the bubblegum into a mini theme for the day.  Here are a few ideas and things I found to do that day.

Here is a fun math bump game with the bubblegum theme. I found it on TpT:

Here's the writing project I'm going to do....How to Blow A Bubble: 

Then of course I had to get this Opinion Writing Activity too....Should Bubblegum Be Allowed in School?  There is no such thing as too much writing...right?

This next one on TpT has a combination of math, science and art.   It's a clever approach to bubblegum chewing..

My 1st graders are going to have fun while they are learning on bubblegum reward day this year!  It might just make it fun for me too!  If you don't have a bubblegum reward day at your school...maybe these are good reasons to give it a chew and ponder it.

Tech Tuesday -- FreeTech4Teachers

I got lost in this technology website by Richard Byrne because it is literally an endless treasure blog of ideas!  I am a bit of a techno geek....but I still have so much to learn because I teach in a part of the country that is still behind the tech pace of the modern world.  We limp along to try to keep up...but we have a way to go.

So most of what I learn is on my own time.  Free Technology 4 Teachers is a wonderful blog with tips for all grades and all ages.

Just the first couple posts I read got me excited to try some new things.  Word Clouds...love those!  Creating your own Jeopardy game board?!  LOVE IT!  And as a parent, there is the coolest, parent friendly app out there called PHOTOMATH.  You just take a picture of your child's high school math problem and it will show you the steps to solving it!!  NO WAY! I will be trying this out on my daughter's homework to see if it really works!

SALE DAY! Here's a little football fun!

Enjoy some great resources for your primary students.  And if you purchase them this afternoon, you can get them all on sale!  Everything in my store on TPT and TN are on sale for 12% off today!  It's a Seattle Seahawk day, so I am having a 12th Man Sale!

For 12 hours....from noon today through noon Monday, you can get 12% off your purchase of any item in my stores.  So head over to either of my shops and enjoy the deal....no, you don't have to root for the Seahawks...but it's ok if you do :)  UPDATE:  Neither site will let me choose 12%...so you will actually get 15% off! Woohoo...Lucky you!

Primary In IDaho on Teacher's Notebook    
or    
 Primary In IDaho on Teachers Pay Teachers

Here are some examples of what you can find....

My Ten Frame Math has been very popular.  I wasn't smart and fancy and put a link in them to the second one I created...

 But there is a Ten Frame Math #2.  It extends the first one in a nice progression for those that want to give your students a bit more practice with missing numbers.  It is a nice transition to getting them to think about subtraction.

And once they start to have a sense of numbers and what addition and subtraction are...then it's the perfect time to move into my new creation.   It's called Building Houses and Number Bonds.  I used them throughout 1st quarter with my 1st graders and it was a very helpful addition to the non-existent math curriculum we have right now.  It made for a wonderful transition into subtraction facts!

 At this time of the year, it would still be helpful for resource students, Kindergarten students, Homeschool students, or those who are still just a bit behind.  The number bond pages are great for homework or entry task pages as well!

Here are two other things I would like to highlight for the sale....

My Fun with Facts Coloring pages.  My first graders love doing these...they don't even consider it math because they get to color!  (I have an easy bunch this year that LOVE to learn!)

And besides math, my other true LOVE in teaching, is writing!  I love to have my first graders write.  They do it from day one in September and we write a couple times a week.  Our new Language Arts adoption has a writing component in it, but sometimes they have a difficult time drawing from personal knowledge to write on those topics.  So I fill in with things they know and love to talk about...here is a great winter one about Snowmen.

Day 64 Made for 1st Grade

I chose Made in 1st Grade today because of this cool way to practice math facts.  It is an idea Diane and Kelly, two teachers from Wichita, Kansas created.  They have it posted on TpT.  They have 230 other items in their store for your use throughout the year.  Math facts are always a bear to master for many 1st graders and I am so excited to use this in my class next year.

Math next year is going to be even crazier than this year because of common core...so I can use all the help I can get.

Is anyone else a victim of having an adopted math curriculum that doesn't match the standards in the common core, yet their district isn't purchasing anything new so you have to work from scratch?  Yup, that's the boat we are in up here in North Idaho.  It's just that money is tight and it's not a year for adopting math...so we are hunting, creating, borrowing, sharing and praying for resources to help our students master the standards.

Actually part of me doesn't think that is all that bad...it helps re-invigorate our teaching and I love trying to find ways to help my 1st graders have their "a-ha" moments of understanding.  So when it is time to finally adopt a new math text, we will be sure of what we need and what we want and make a better informed decision!

If you have some great resources or links for 1st grade math...just leave a comment and let me know!  The best way to be awesome teachers is to share with each other!  That is exactly what got me started on this challenge of finding 365 teaching blogs to share!

Day 59 Fun in Room 4B

Elizabeth teaches math to 4th graders in South Carolina.  Wow...getting to teach just one subject and not having to enter the nightmare world of Junior High.  That doesn't happen much around here.  Primary teachers such as myself must be a Jack of All Trades and must be a bit ADHD to teach...skipping from subject to subject all day.  My dream would be to focus on one thing/subject for more than 30 minutes!

Silly me...back to Room 4B.  What is the B for?  I have never had a letter with my room number...is it a two story school?  Hmmm...dang...there goes that ADHD problem again.  See, teaching one subject at a time would really help with that.

Fun in Room in 4B is a fun blog.  Elizabeth combines humor with WBT (Whole Brain Teaching), the Common Core and adds a big dash of clever ways to teach those hard abstract skills to her students while making them easy to understand.  She spent most of the last couple months working on Fractions and Decimals.  Regular 1st grade fractions aren't an easy skill for some 7 year olds...but then when you start teaching equivalent fractions to 9 year olds...many of them start shaking and then when you ask them to change them into decimals...well their eyes can roll back into their heads and they are down for the count!

Elizabeth has some fun games and activities that get her students moving and thinking and best yet, understanding those hard skills.

 Elizabeth has made two versions of her Poke game.  One has a Valentine's theme (below) while the other one (above) is her non-holiday "ipoke" version.  Very cute and clever games to get your students practicing and using the skills you may be teaching.  You can find both in Room 4b's TpT store .

 Here is a close-up of the actual game cards.

Students just understand things better when they are moving...you must try this fun activity with your students:  

They are acting out the decimal number line.  They look like they are dancing don't they?  I think she should name it the Decimal Boogie! 

Here is the full description on her blog post {here}

At some point Elizabeth taught or teaches something other than math...I found this really cute "Poet-Tree" unit on her blog as well.  You can also find it in her TpT store.

Day 38 Dots of Fun Clip Art

Yesterday I posted a blogger named Tammy Ferrell. She is a teacher who teaches by day and designs clip art by night :-)  Maybe it's that way...whenever and however she sneaks in the time we are lucky.  She has some great clip art and backgrounds.

She has these freebie backgrounds right now to download....

Here are a couple of my favorites that I popped into my shopping cart on TpT and am now waiting for the next big sale day :-)

I'm always looking for pictures to go with my compound words.

Everybody needs more time, don't they?  Great clocks and they are in black and white too which makes my printer at home very happy!

Dice...I love dice.  I love finding ways to teach with them every chance I get!  Now I can make activities with these too!

Visit her stores on TpT and TN and see what treasures you can find!

Day 31 It's About Time Teachers

January is almost over so it's time to start thinking about all the fun that February brings.  One of my favorite days in February is the 100th day.  Not because that means that we are more than halfway finished with the year --which seems just crazy to me-- but because it is so fun to see the students so excited about a number!  Moving from 2 digits to 3 digits is amazing...awesome...wonderful...in the eyes of a 1st grader.  Perhaps that's why I have stuck with 1st grade all these years.

Today's blogger is Barb.  She has the blog called: It's About Time Teachers.

Now there are many meanings behind that title, but for Barb, she collects clocks and knows a lot about dusting and winding them I would assume.  She must have a big collection because she has had more than 30 years of teaching experience.  She has seen phonics come and go and come back again. She has taught with Dick and Jane, Dr. Seuss and everything in between.  I am sure she has seen more versions of the Standards than any teacher deserves to see in their lifetime and all her kids have learned regardless...because she teaches!

So like me, Barb's mind is thinking 100th day too.  She has a fun post with 100...yes, 100 ideas for what you can do on the 100th day of school.  Now nobody is going to get through all 100 things...but I'm sure you can find quite a few to help you through your 100th day of school.

And for those of you who have already had your 100th day because you must have year round school or something along those lines...just file this one away in your folder on your computer or pin it on Pinterest for next year!

Day 28 Step Into 2nd Grade

Teachers have lives that extend past the walls of the classroom or the building it is housed inside. Students and their parents (and sometimes your administrators) forget that Teachers have families and friends and social lives.  Yes, there are some that can go home at the end of the day with only their purse on their arm.

But most of us leave with a full bag or two or three of things to do at home.  Of course this is on top of making dinner, doing the laundry, keeping the house clean, unplugging the toilet, feeding the chickens, going to the grocery store, watching your children's sporting events and helping them with THEIR homework, giving your husband some one-on-one time, calling your friend or mother (so they know you are still alive and well), paying the bills that are stacked in your inbox or on the desk....

Then comes the grading papers, writing lesson plans, calling a few student parents, finishing your coaching duties for the extra stipend at the high school, and THEN if you have free time... you start creating some lesson plans to sell on TpT or TN or Etsy or surf the blogosphere for ideas to make you better at what already consumes most of your waking hours.

Oh my goodness...by then it is midnight and there is sleep to be had...though occasionally I wonder if it would ever be worth it to stay up all night.  The house would be quiet. Nobody would be asking me to do something...I'm just slightly tempted...but then I remember that I have 1st graders waiting for me at school each morning and the lack of sleep will only give them the upper hand that they deep down have been waiting for -- kind of like when the substitute walks into the room -- they are poised to strike!

Mrs. Lemons at Step Into 2nd Grade reminds me of two things...that teachers do have lives outside of school and that sometimes that life can be tough!  But we still come to school every day with a smile on our face and excitement for teaching our charges what they need to know with creativity and enthusiasm.  Mrs. Lemons will inspire you with the struggles she has had the last few months but that with the Lords help, she and her husband continue to start each day with hope!

While you are being inspired by her personal struggles...be inspired by her creative units she has created.  I like the freebie math center she has posted.  My 1st graders are getting close to being able to do this one.  This quarter we start to dive into strategies for adding double digit numbers.  If you do it right and you do it well...you can end the year with many of your 1st graders being able to do double digit addition with regrouping.  It's all in the Number Sense...and making it fun of course.

Spending money?  They love this idea!  With supporting money posters on the wall, most of my 1st graders will be able to do this.

Candy, cookies, cupcakes?  Well that will get their attention for sure!

This center is a FREEBIE on her blog.  If you want more centers relating to money, she has a whole unit on her TpT store.  

Perhaps add it to your list of things to purchase this weekend at the big sale!

Day 26 Swamp Frog First Grade

 Yep, I fell into the black hole for awhile...I finished my report cards and my last conference.  It was weird this year.  I actually thought I was ahead of the game, ready to have my report cards done well in advance of the conferences...but no it was not the case.  I was still getting a couple of the report cards printed just hours before the parents walked into the room!

It was a combination of troubles.  The first being sick kids.  It's really hard to assess kids when they aren't there...or when they are there and they still don't feel good :(

The second hurdle in my way was the huge Cheer and Dance Competition I was organizing at the high school.  I am so thankful that I had the parent volunteers to help me through that last couple weeks before the big day otherwise I would have really lost it I think.

The third hurdle I had was the 4 hours of sleep I was getting every night for a week.  Thankfully the 1st grade germs merely bounced off of me. Perhaps I was moving too fast for them to catch me :)

So something had to give for the week...and it had to be my computer time.  Not that I wasn't on the computer.  I did find some awesome ideas on some amazing blogs throughout the week.  Because of course in the middle of everything else we have to redo our math assessments to tie more closely to Common Core.  Not during the summer after spending a year teaching with the new standards....but WHILE we are teaching...because we are teachers and we have endless hours of free time :)

Sorry...still shaking off the report card grumpies for a moment there....

The big push in 1st grade is number sense.  We want our students to understand that the symbol 5 equals five of something.  And then further on we want them to understand that 35 represents 30 of something + 5 of something...and so on.

Playing with numbers can be fun.  Lots of little sparks are igniting in their heads as the connections are being made.  Some days my class is full of fireworks...while other days it's a bunch of misfires.  One of the struggles some of them have is equivalency. (1.OA.7  Understanding the Meaning of the Equal Sign)

They have trouble coming up with two ways to make 10 other than just flipping the two numbers. Which doesn't really show they understand equivalency between facts...just that one fact.  So I found this fun and creative way to get the right synapses firing.


Swamp Frog First Graders has a fun manipulative way for her students to learn equivalent equations. This week I gave it a try...and it helped many of my students.  We did it in class first and next week they will take it home and use it with their homework page to remind their parents what an equivalent equation is too :)


Here is a picture of the project/activity she did with her class.  You have them make the snowman first.  I love when they make their own manipulatives.  It makes the activity much more meaningful than just a photocopied sheet -- one of my biggest complaints of the Saxon math program.

She has the snowman template** on her blog post and she also has a recording sheet -- both of which are freebies!  

Thanks Swamp Frog!

**you will have to supply your own marshmallow counters though :-)

She has a beginning TpT store (like me) as well with more math freebies on it.  Check it out.

Day 22 Tonya's Treats for Teachers

 Tonya must think that all of us teachers like ice cream...ok, so maybe it's true....

But on her blog, Tonya's Treats for Teachers, she has treats that won't make you have to take an extra trip to the gym! She is from North Carolina...a state that did not have it's proverbial head in the sand and has been tackling the move to Common Core for much longer than the state of Idaho. When I need help with Common Core, I am always finding resources and references that link back to North Carolina.

Tonya teaches 3rd grade and she has fun ideas on her blog.  She has a Teacher's Notebook store as well as a TpT store.  If you are looking for some great math resources...she has been making a lot of those lately.  She has a huge unit on fractions that she is almost finished with.  I saw some pieces of it and it's clean, organized, and beautifully done.

I also liked this multiplication freebie she has...very visual.  I could probably even use it for my 1st graders at the end of the year.  I linked the post...just make sure you go down a little ways into it to find it.  It looks like this:

Have you followed my blog yet?  Don't miss the next best blogger I find tomorrow!

Day 18 Wild About Fifth Grade

I teach 1st grade. I don't know about the other 1st grade teachers out there...but I get the funniest responses when I mention that I teach 1st graders.

"Wow, how can you do that?"

"I sure couldn't do that!"

"Better you than me!"

"Isn't that exhausting?"

"I'm glad you teach my 6 year old, cuz I sure couldn't do that all day!"

There are a few things that make it tough...For instance,  I don't particularly care for the untied shoelaces (especially the little boys who walk in and out of the bathrooms with them untied -- ick!).  I could totally do without the nose picking --  really I have like 8 boxes of tissues around the room!  Then there are the occasional potty accidents.  And this time of the year, it is just amazing the amount of time it takes them to put on and take off their snow suits before and after every recess...

But I love teaching 1st graders. I can't imagine teaching any other grade.  I almost had to do just that this year....I almost had to teach 4th grade...or even worse, 6th grade!  I say that in good humor because I have taught both grades...they aren't all that bad...but I really like teaching the little ones in 1st grade.  Everything is new and exciting.  And when they learn how to do something, they think they are so proud of themselves!

But I will be honest...the main reason I love 1st graders is that...they are still shorter than me!! :)

In my inbox today I got an email from Melissa in Michigan.  She is a 5th grade teacher (more power to you!) -- and hopefully taller than most of her students!  She wanted to be included in my blog hop challenge...so I visited her blog.

Melissa is Wild About Fifth Grade!  Her blog was started last fall and she is doing really well already.  She has hooked and linked and pinned and TpT'ed a number of useful tools and units already!  Now I don't teach the advanced math that a 5th grader will need to know but I sure could have used some of her units to help my two girls when they were in 5th grade struggling to visualize those abstract math concepts.

Welcome to my 365 Blog Hop Challenge Melissa...you are my first upper grade blog!

Keep up the good work!

Day 12 Teaching with Hope

I love the title of Hope's blog: Teaching with Hope  We all have to have at least some hope to be a teacher, don't we?  We hope our teaching will stick, we hope the kids do well next year and beyond, we hope that the principal doesn't call another meeting after school, we hope for a few more hours in each day, we hope that summer gets here soon, but not before we have managed to fill those little ones heads with everything they need to know before then!

She is a 3rd grade teacher in Oregon...welcome fellow Pacific Northwest Teacher/Blogger! There don't seem to be as many of us as there are from the southeast.  Perhaps their days are longer and they have more time ;)  Or perhaps there is something in the water that gives them more energy to use more more waking hours and less sleeping ones...not sure :)  But if they were to bottle it and sell it on TpT they would make a lot of money -- especially from me!

She created a very cute Skip Counting book to help teach those 2nd and 3rd graders the patterns involved with learning multiplication.  I used something similar to this when I taught 2nd and 3rd grades.  The visual part of this really helped some kids over the hump of connecting addition to multiplication.

While at her TpT Store...I also found this freebie.  LOVE it!  My first graders will love it too!  I know we just started using Vowac this year...but this one is a fun one for their poem book that they do at centers.  It never hurts to use more than one trick --- or poem as the case may be -- to teach a skill.  One of them is going to stick like glue!

Remember to subscribe to see what blog I find next!  ------------------------------------------------>  

It could be yours!!

Day 9 A+ Firsties

Just discovered this blogger through the linky party that 2nd Grade Pad has.  You should link up with us...you never know who might discover your blog and whose life you could help make a bit better with your awesome ideas!

Tanya is a teacher down in Texas...enjoying the tropical 48 degree weather down there right now.  (Just kiddin' with you -- it's 16 degrees here this morning and there's a herd of elk huddling in the woods outside our house right now because they are trying to stay warm -- more snow on the way this week!)

A+ Firsties is an A+ teacher blog.  She has some very clever ideas and resources that she shares.  I am in love, love, love with the money cubes she found at Lakeshore Learning.  Bummer! We used to have one of those stores over in Spokane...but it closed 2 years ago!

Now we have to do everything online -- which is why I started blog hopping and haunting the Teacher Pay Teacher store in the first place.

As my mind tends to hop around before my morning caffeine...Let me get back to A+ Firsties...Tanya also has a TpT store with almost 30 selections to amaze and inspire.  Her downloadable freebie about Abe Lincoln is a must to download.  Very creative ideas to use whole class or in centers.  I've already pinned that one!  Check it out!

Don't miss out on a single blog this year!

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Day 8 2nd Grade Pad

Pad...now that is a word I haven't heard in awhile.  Then I saw the Frog on her blog and went...oooooooooh, now I get it!  I was having a 'duh' moment there.  Haven't had my morning mocha yet!

Cynthia is from Georgia and I'm betting even this time of year they can hear toads croaking and frogs going ribbet.  Here in North Idaho...they are all asleep for the long winter under a layer of ice and snow.  I woke up this morning and it is only 12 degrees! brrr

Cynthia is a second grade teacher (I know, obvious from the title huh?...remember, I haven't had my mocha yet) and she has over 90 great items in her TpT store.  I do have to chuckle...some of my best finds regarding winter and snowmen are from the southern teachers...because of all the snow y'all have down there? tee hee  Or is it because you wish you had snow??

Cynthia has a Linky happening that you should take part in...so hop on over and check it out.

Day 5 the Seusstastic Classroom

So the official name of Mel's Blog is The Seusstastic Classroom Inspirations.   I found this blog last year when I was hunting up new ideas for Dr. Seuss, because I don't just have a Dr. Seuss day, I have a Dr. Seuss Month.  And you need lots of ideas to make it the whole month.  (March is all his...but we do take a tiny break long enough for the Leprechaun's to come out in the middle of the month.)

Hey, my birthday month is March...so I can do what I want...right?  lol Actually, the real reason is that I have seen Dr. Seuss books turn many a poor reader into a fluent one by the end of March.  He is some kind of magic to those struggling kids!

Well, anyway, when I stopped over to Mel's blog this week she had an amazing post about her Elf on the Shelf activity with her class.  It was Aaaa-Mazing!!!  I love how she makes learning fun!  You have to check out this post!  I am inspired to give it a try next year now that I will be settled into my new classroom.  (First year in a new building is always stressful--you spend half the time trying to find your feet and at the same time making sure you aren't stepping on any toes).

Day 4...It's Friday

What better blog to focus on for the first Friday of the New Year than T.G.I.F. !!

Thank God It's First Grade.

(That's what you were thinking wasn't it?  lol)

Susan teaches 1st grade in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Fortunately what she does in Vegas isn't staying in Vegas! (couldn't resist saying that).  Read through her blog and you will be delighted with her clever creations and you will be inspired with her fresh energy.

Sometimes, after teaching 17 years, I need a kick in the pants reminder to be excited about the little things.  Susan's blog does that for me.  Her blog and her writing just oozes enthusiasm -- for her students, her family, her creations and just life in general!

She has a TpT store with lots of great goodies she's created.  Head over and check some out.  There are some fun freebies as well.  Here is the Penguin Freebie I just downloaded!  Can't wait to add it to my centers this month!