This summer I read the book Guided Math by Laney Sammons. Chapter 3 was all about using Math Warm-Ups. A quote that stuck out to me was, "Participating in a variety of brief mathematical activities during the first 20-30 minutes of the day leads students to make subtle mental shifts into the world of mathematical awareness and learning." (Laney Sammons also has a book called Daily Math Stretches for K-2 that sounds interesting, but I haven't checked it out yet!) This is why I've always tried to start my day with calendar. We practice so many important mathematical skills during calendar time. This year something new I want to try is to do a short math stretch after calendar as well. First let's talk about calendar. I am just itching to get back into my classroom to get everything set up, but my school doesn't open until August 24th! So for now, I've been trying things out in the hallway of our house. Hubby doesn't even ask questions anymore when he comes out of the bathroom and there's a September calendar hanging on the wall. He knows me well. lol. The other night I decided that I redid every single label and poster in my room to match my chalkboard & brights theme EXCEPT my calendar! Why hadn't I thought of my calendar?? So I got to working on monthly sets of numbers, month headers, and a variety of other posters I use for my calendar routine. Here's a peek at my hallway calendar display: And here's a close up look at my September calendar. (PS. I have a few blue pocket charts that I want to try dye-ing black this week... but in case it doesn't work out well, I bought a new black calendar pocket chart from Scholastic. I love how it looks!) This is what my calendar looked like the week before I left for maternity leave. Things will look completely different, but the math will stay the same! I always lead the calendar routine for the first month or so, but then my leader of the day takes over. Here's a little break down of what we usually do: *flip the number over on the calendar and count the numbers either forwards or backwards *look at the monthly pattern and make the same pattern with out bodies (clap, snap, stomp, etc.) *tell what day of the week was yesterday, today, and tomorrow *add a straw to our collection and count the straws *colour in a ten frame and count the squares *check the weather and fill in the weather graph *add any loose teeth or birthdays to the charts *sing a calendar song or watch a calendar video (such as Harry Kindergarten) We also do a calendar journal to go along with out calendar routine. It keeps all students on task and engaged with what's going on! You can read more about it {here}. Here is what I have planned for my weekly math stretches... On Monday I will read aloud a picture book that goes with a skill we are learning. I started blogging about some book ideas with my Math Book Monday series. The two large tubs in the picture below are filled with math books. I have an addiction and it's time that I start utilizing them more! lol. We will discuss the math seen in the book and usually do some sort of activity to go with it. I hope to continue this blogging series again once school is back in session! I can share more about the books we use and the activities to go along with them. On Tuesday we will do a number of the day activity. I've done this before as a math centre or activity before, but this time I created a cute set of posters that I will hang down the side of my big white board. I will laminate the cards so we can use them with dry erase markers. I created little number cards from 1-20 so each week we will pick a number, veclro it to the number of the day card, and show many different ways to represent that number! We will practice even/odd, number words, tally marks, one less/one more, ten frames, number lines, place value blocks, dice dots, counting forwards and backwards, drawing pictures, number bonds, part-part-whole, and writing number sentences! So many skills in one simple activity! I also created a matching recording sheet so that sometimes I can have students complete the worksheet as we do the posters together, or they can fill one in as an early finisher activity! (I will only be using numbers 1-20 with my students, but the pack I created has options to go up to 100 or 120!) On Wednesday we will practice our estimating! Some days we will practice estimating the amount of objects in our Estimation Station. Other days we will do some measurement activities. I have been collecting some estimation ideas on Pinterest. Check out my board below! Follow Amanda Ross (First Grade Garden)'s board Math - Estimation on Pinterest. On Thursday we will complete a "What's Next?" activity. I will have five different patterns displayed on the board and we will have to decide what two elements come next for each pattern. This activity is perfect for practicing repeating patterns, counting forwards, counting backwards, and skip counting! Plus it will reinforce shapes, colours, and sizes too! You can download a blank PDF of this activity {here}. On Friday we will do a data collection activity. Graphing isn't an outcome yet in our Grade 1 Math curriculum, but the skills that we use when analyzing the data sure is! We practice tons of counting and comparing numbers. Sometimes we will do a whole glass graph or somethings I might let them do a survey and graph activity, like I blogged about {here}. I have pinned tons of ADORABLE graphs on my Pinterest board too. Follow Amanda Ross (First Grade Garden)'s board Math - Graphing on Pinterest. You can check out any of these math products at my TpT store to help you get started! Well that's it for my math stretch ideas! :) Stay tuned for more in my daily schedule series.