Happy Tuesday everyone! We finished up our study on Martin Luther King Jr. and the impact he made on our country. The kids really seem to "get" his importance (as much as can be expected from 5 and 6 year olds). Here are a few snapshots I took. The lower right one shows students dancing to one of our "new" favorite songs we found on youtube after we made our MLK hats... You gotta hear it -- it's awesome. Trust me - even your little ones will be bobbing around happily! We also topped off our study by watching an amazing movie called, "Our Friend, Martin". You can actually watch the entire thing on youtube. I will say there are times in the movie they use language that I wished they didn't. But, overall the kids LOVE the movie and see things that really happened 50 years ago. It shows those events in real life clips and also in cartoon form. It's an hour long.... Please watch it BEFORE showing it to the kids. It isn't inappropriate - just things you want to be able to explain (like the use of the word negro). It is an awesome movie though and help young children understand how life was not the way it is now. Kids from today travel back in time and meet Martin Luther King Jr. in different parts of his incredible life. We used lots of stuff from my "Celebrate MLK Day!" pack. You can find this unit HERE on TpT or HERE on TN. In addition to our study of MLK Jr. we also had a "Shape Party"! Woo-hoo!! Who doesn't love to party and eat? I sent home a sheet requesting that children bring in a particular shape of snack food. If you are interested in see my letter HERE IT IS (I promise it's super un-fancy, but it does the job!) We include both 2D and 3D shapes. As you can see we had LOTS of goodies.....oh and shapes :0) As a class, we went through each kind of item that was brought and categorized it. Is it a 2D shape or a 3D figure? Then, we would determine exactly which shape or figure it was. Can you tell which shape category had none???? (Someone forgot to bring their shape snack until later in the day :0) Are there more spheres or cones? How many cubes and cylinders altogether? Then, we PARTIED!! They got to choose up to 20 items, but had to count on their own! It was TOO much fun! I love using food (sparingly) to motivate and drive home how learning is applied in real life. I know that some teachers are not allowed to teach using food. I think that is a shame. I understand about obesity and allergies. I've had children with allergies and simply do what I have to do to ensure they aren't getting anything that could hurt them. This year I don't have any kiddos with allergies so it's been pretty easy to use food -- and totally fun! Can you use food in the classroom?

We introduced fractions greater than one by modeling them with pattern blocks and writing them as a mixed number, and also as an imprope...

FREEBIE!!! I have created a 20 question quiz to assess students' mastery on understanding improper fractions and mixed numbers. The students will also be expected to convert between the two. There is a four part math task, visual models, and computation practice. There is also an answer key include...