Halloween Adding and Subtracting No Prep

Halloween is coming up fast and my grade one's are working on their adding and subtracting skills.  Because most of them have poor printing skills, I made these simple pages so they would only have to cut and paste (which is a much easier skill for them).

Bright Ideas October

I'm so excited to be linking up in the Bright Ideas link up.

It's been awhile since I did one.

This month I thought I would share with you how we count to 100 during our calendar.

It starts with 3 different sized cans.

You can decorate them however you want.

I've covered them in construction paper before but this year I decided to cover them with tissue paper and Podge them.

 I then wrote "ones" on the smallest can, "tens" on the middle can and "hundreds" on the largest can.

 I then use straws to count.  I just bought a cheap box of straws from our local Walmart.  One year I found florescent ones that were bright and colourful.

On the first day of school I take one straw and tell the children that we will be counting the number of days that we have been in school.  To do this, we will put one straw in our can every day.  I have each child pass the straw to a friend while they repeat "one".  The last person puts it in the ones can.

On the second day we add a straw.  I get the children to once again count the straws to a friend.  They pass them to their friend while they repeat "one", "two".  Again the last person puts them in the can.  I have cards with the numbers 0 to 9 in the can and change it according to the number.

When we get to 10 straws, I explain to the children that 10 straws are too many to fit into our ones can.  We have to bundle them up with an elastic band and move then into our tens can.  Once the straws are bundled, I have the children pass the bundle to friend while counting "ten".  The last person puts the bundle in the tens can.

Counting continues each day with the children starting with the bundles. 

For the picture below, the children would count "ten", "twenty", "twenty one", "twenty two", "twenty three", "twenty four", "twenty five", "twenty six".

I also start by saying, "how many straws are in a bundle?"

Once we get 10 bundles, they of course are too big for our tens can and must be moved to our hundreds can.  We then also celebrate with a 100's day party.

How do you count to 100?

If you enjoyed this post, please consider following my blog, facebook or TpT store.

For more bright ideas from my fellow

bloggers, please browse through the link-up

below and choose a topic/grade level that

interests you. Thanks for visiting!

An InLinkz Link-up

Hometown Tragedy

On September 21st our small community was rocked by the death of a 12 year old boy in freak accident at his home.   He was the same age as my youngest son and my son was supposed to be on the same hockey team as this child (we had turned down the position and went with another team).  My son's team and his team are still closely linked.

His funeral was Thursday.

Being in special education, this wasn't the first funeral for a child that I had been to.  Often our students are medically fragile, are more susceptible to viruses or pneumonia, or just don't have a very long life expectancy.  Since I started teaching 25 years ago, I think I've lost 30.  I imagine them running through the Pearly Gates with legs that now work, and voices that now sing.  Their souls free from bodies that kept them in pain and prevented them experiencing everything they wanted to.

This was different.

This shouldn't have happened.

This was a freak accident that on any other day, would have turned out differently.

So as a team, we went to the funeral.  They wore their jerseys over their suits.

My children had never been to a funeral before, let alone, one for a friend.  Neither had any of the children on his team.  They served popcorn for the children and they could pick up a bag as we entered the big gym attached to the arena.  It seemed fitting to be held at the arena.  I mean, that's where we spend 90% of our free time.

They had photo slide shows.  My son was in several pictures as they played on the same team a few years back. His coach spoke, his teacher from last year spoke, and finally the family spoke with stories and happy memories.  The senselessness of the situation could not be missed but the Reverend who spoke emphasized to the children that life must go on and they can't be afraid that the same thing will happen to them.

There were lots of tears.

There were lots of laughs.

His hockey number is now being retired and it has been painted into the ice on pad 1.  The organization had stickers made up with his name and number that all the players will wear on their helmets.

This is something that the children will never forget.  This is something that I will never forget.

Tonight give your children an extra hug and tell them that you love them.

Happy Fall y'all blog hop

This hop is hosted by my friend Stephanie at Mrs. D's Corner!!!

I cannot believe that today is the first day of fall.  Where did the summer go?  I can't complain though.  It's been a beautiful September and it's still supposed to be beautiful this week.  

Because of the beautiful weather, the leaves really haven't started to change yet.  Even so, there are still signs of fall around.

After Halloween last year, I had my boys throw our pumpkins out into the back lot (we live in the country) and this is what happened.

A Pumpkin!

With no work on our part, we ended up with one small pumpkin.

It's just starting to turn orange.

I had never really examined a pumpkin plant before so we decided to do some investigating.

The first thing we noticed was that the pumpkin leaves were BIG.

And the stems are PRICKLY.

Who knew?

They were too prickly to pick so we decided to find some other leaves.   

We found a variety of leaves that were different sizes, shapes and colours.

We then decided to do some leaf rubbings.

We took the paper off our crayons.

We put one leaf at a time under white paper and rubbed the crayon across it.

This is great fine motor work. 

We got some stunning pictures.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  I made a little word game freebie that is perfect for fall.

Head on over to my friend Dianna at Sassy, Savvy, Simple Teaching for more fall ideas and a freebie.

September Woes

I can't believe that September is half over.  September has kicked my butt for sure.  Trying to set up my class, update some products and keep my family rolling has wiped me out.  Hockey has started up again and I have no time for anything.

So I apologize for not posting more and I hope to get my groove back soon.

In the meantime I've updated a few of my farm resources with new fonts and graphics.  If you have already purchased them, please go and download the new version.  If you haven't got them yet, I've bundled them together and it will be on sale for only $12 for the next couple of days.