Five For Friday and a Freebie!

Ahhh, at last a beautiful spring day here in Mundelein, Illinois! I should definitely be outside enjoying this weather, but I suddenly got the urge to blog this evening and share what we've been up to this week in math and literacy!  I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for my 5 randoms for the week and FREEBIE FRIDAY with Teaching Blog Addict.  

  

1. Our little 2nd graders have been working hard on learning about money!  I always love teaching this unit and helping our little friends learn about how money works!  Some of you might remember, but for those who don't, I am a special education teacher that works with a group of identified SPED students in Carrie's class. So many of my products are focused on grade level Common Core Standards with modifications and differentiated activities for my student's needs.   Below you get to see our whole class having fun playing "MONEY TRIVIA."  Students worked in tables to help their teams win each trivia question.  Each table had an "ANNOUNCER" (speaker for the group), we had one TRIVIA READER (she had to decide the responses were correct--with teacher support at times, of course!), and then we had one TALLY FAIRY who kept track of the team points.  Students had a blast working together and reviewing some basic concepts about money!  

2. I worked with a small group this week on coin identification.  Wowsers, this was a very difficult concept for my friends!  We made money flip books, playing SPIN IT to WIN IT!, watched youtube videos, and played some interactive games online to help us learn our coins! 

You can get my MONEY FLIP BOOK FREEBIE here

or

My MONEY MADNESS pack here. 

Here are some of the videos my students enjoyed watching to help them learn about coins! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb-w3rqRoJ8 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ARNqyQ0CuY  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SGDAMKtHTE 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq3tVrTFcKk 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5Uo_4Vd3Fw  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glGTuowt2Ko 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq6rTT8RmzY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6A651vHK1o 

Here are some of the interactive games my students enjoyed: 

Simply, click on my COIN tab on my DRAGGO account. 

http://draggo.com/ckramer/math

 3.   COIN VALUE MATCHING (Nickels and Pennies) and MONEY PROBLEM SOLVING WITH QR CODE TASK CARDS.

Students practiced matching values with coins using nickels and pennies.  Then the past 2 days my friends have gotten an opportunity to use their problem solving skills with some QR code task cards.  This is still a difficult skill for my friends, so I did a lot of scaffolding along the way… : )  But with support, they were all successful.  Students loved reading the task cards and finding their name in the story problem!  I always love to see how excited they get about problem solving when their name is in the problem…cracks me up! 

For My MONEY MADNESS pack click  here. 

 4. INFORMATIONAL WRITING 

 During literacy center time, I had my friends work on some fun informational writing activities.  Students have been learning about animals and their habitats during whole class instructional, so I have been having my little friends practice some informational writing about animals.  Today students got to log into their RAZ-Kids accounts on the iPads and find a non-fictiont text about animals.  Students got to listen to the story, records their reading, and answer the multiple choice questions at the end.  I have loved watching my students blossom this week and take more initiative in their independent work.  It's never easy finding the "just right" material for my little friends because they are often distracted, forget what to do, don't ask for help, etc.  This whole "independent work time" is still something we area always working on! : )  Anyhow, students got to write an informational writing piece about their animal  book after reading.  Students completed a little brainstorming sheet and then used this information to write their informational piece. Students referred to their criteria for success to make sure they included all of the parts of the informational writing piece. 

Click here to have this *FREEBIE*
5. My Gardens are finally blossoming!  It's about time we had some spring weather around here in the good Chi-Town (Mundelein), IL!!  Last summer my mom planted tons of plants to help us build some more gardens in our front and backyard!  I am so excited to see them all finally starting to grow this past week!  I can't wait to see how they turn out!  We still have a lot of work to do to fill in between the plants, but it's a start!  

Hope you all enjoyed my 5 for Friday and my Freebies!!  Make sure to link up!  Can't wait to see what you've been up to this week!