Valentine's Day Goodies

Well, Valentine's Day is approaching quickly. We have two class parties a year, and Valentine's Day is one of them. In true Not very fancy style, I send home a note about a week before the party telling parents how many kids are in the class and to have their child sign their valentines and leave the 'to' part blank. I also tell them they are welcome to send a healthy snack on the day of the party. I usually have at least 10 kids bring candy. One time I had a mom send granola bars because she was trying to be healthy. During the party we pass out valentines and candy, then I let them choose 2 treats to eat in the class. We eat and I play some music or put on some videos. Lest you think they feel deprived, I'm often told it's the best day of their life. 

Before I tell you about my creations, did you notice my new blog button? Still made by me rather than someone who knows what they're doing, but I think it's an improvement. :)

I'm most proud of these Valentine's Problem Solving Task Cards. There are 3 sets of 20 cards with recording sheets and answer keys. I tried to include all the problem types identified in the CCSS, and I included some problems with money, but only dealing with whole dollar amounts. I just want them to get used to seeing how dollar amounts are written. This product is aligned to CCSS.

In the easiest set the numbers are pretty low. The first problem has them solving 6 + 6.

Here's the second set. Now the first card has them adding 9 +3, but everything else about the problem is the same.

This is a page from the third set. Now they have to add 18 + 18.

This little dollar deal has been pretty popular. There are two levels of difficulty for each skill. No prep! This product is aligned to CCSS.

And now for my FREEBIES:

Primary version:

Sort addition facts according to whether they are greater than, less than, or equal to 14.

Intermediate version:

sort equations according to whether they are less than, greater than, or equal to 14. 

 And last, but not least: a following directions activity:

Please leave some feedback. 

If I can get 20 comments on a freebie, I'll make the others free-for-a-day.

How does your class celebrate?

If you found this post to be interesting or fun, I'd love for you to connect with me!

Five for Friday

Once you start making your own hamburger buns, there's no going back.

my tech discovery

This is probably not a great revelation to many people, but it was to me, so I'm sharing just in case. I heard that many people save all the slides in their Power Point presentations as png files. Obviously to do this one at a time would take forever. I knew there was a way to convert all the slides, but I could never get it to work. I finally figured it out! And just for fun I made a tutorial. (I'm on maternity leave, so I spend a lot of time sitting around holding a baby and playing on my computer/phone. Usually I wouldn't have time for this.

First you go to file and select "Export" and "change file type."

Choose the file type you want. In this case: PNG, and click save as.

This is where I made my discovery. I found I had to save to my pictures folder. I'm not sure why because when I save an object as a picture I don't have to do this. When I didn't choose the picture folder (which was not selected as the default either) I was only getting one slide to save and getting an error message. Click save and when prompted "all the slides"

And now there's a file in the pictures folder with all the slides as PNGs.  Please tell me I'm not the only one who didn't know this?

With Valentine's day approaching I've been working on some new creations. First is a math practice dollar deal focusing on addition and subtraction.

I'm also working on these fun Valentine's Day math problem task cards. There are 60 problems including all problem types. There are three sets of 20 cards at three different levels.  They will be discounted for the first 2 days, so stay tuned and follow my store so you don't miss it. They would be great for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd.

I am loving Instagram! (I know I am extremely late to this party.) Clearly, I am having way too much fun with these photo editing apps. I've been participating in this #foursquarefridays hosted by First Grade Buddies. Join us!

This week my #foursquarefridays is #mommybragging 
1--He picked up that litter on his way home from school and threw it away. Third time this week!
2--That's a prize he earned in kindergarten.
3--Here he is showing off his #100thday hat
4--He got breakfast ready for the whole family
#teachersofinstagram #teacherbloggers #teachersfollowteachers

Three Cheers for Tacky--and a freebie

This post contains affiliate links.

Somehow I was unfamiliar with Tacky the penguin until just recently. 

I don't know how this happened because I know and love other books Helen Lester and Lynn Munsinger wrote/illustrated. Last week I read Three Cheers for Tacky to my first graders. Tacky doesn't quite fit in with the other penguins. He has a very hard time learning the cheer. In the end, Tacky's unique rendition of the cheer makes it more interesting, and his team wins. The others learn that Tacky is an odd bird, but he's a good bird to have around. My students loved this book. I looked around online, and found an old post from Primary Graffiti with a link to a video and some free activities. Next week we're going to do some more activities and read some of the other Tacky books. 

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