Catching up....on Easter and 3D Shapes!

I'm so sorry!  I really wanted to post this last week, you know, BEFORE Easter! 

Well, we decided to get away this long weekend up north to a lovely resort in Muskoka and things just got so busy....next thing you know, it's already Tuesday!

I hope everyone had a restful and enjoyable long weekend!

 

Here are some pictures of what we were busy doing and learning about last week.

 

My kids just LOVE centre activities that involve playing games (yes, they are a little competitive, I have to admit!).  Here the students each chose which colour egg they wanted to pick up.  We set the timer and they had to pick up as many of their coloured eggs as they could with the tongs.  Looks easier than it was!  Then they recorded their answer in the egg.

 

This was a perfect activity to introduce students to the concept of addition and subtraction and get them familiar with reading those math symbols.  They had to roll both dice and either add or subtract that many cubes from their basket.

 

The students were unscrambling those mixed up sight words. 

(TIP:  I always keep a chart of the possible sight words close by for the students who need a little extra help!)

 

You can find all of the above activities and LOTS more in my Easter Literacy and Math Activities unit.

 

We have been learning about 3-D shapes for the past 2 weeks.  Oh my word!  My students can tell you everything, I mean EVERYTHING about 3-D shapes....how many faces, corners, points each shape has, if the shapes roll/slide/both....yup, everything!

They all loved this unit so much it was hard to tell them we were going to move on to something else!

 

We used these small geometric shapes I from Lakeshore a few years back to build tall towers.  We made towers that could stand and talked about what makes a tower not stand.  I photocopied pictures of the 3-D shapes onto different colours of papers for the students to easily differentiate which ones they wanted to use and glue down to their paper.

 

I brought in a full box of realistic objects for the students to sort and group according to shape.  I just loved listening to their conversations for the rest of the week with their peers:  "Oh, look!  The pencil is a cylinder!" and "Wow! The door is the shape of a rectangular prism!"

Isn't it great when students can apply their knowledge to everyday life!?!?

 

I made a ramp (using the lid of a paper box carton) and rolled and/or slid each 3-D object down.  We discussed how flat faces make objects slide and rounded faces make objects roll.  Then we tried it ourselves just to be sure!

 

I just love using my teaching partner, Mrs. Parisi's, Math Wall Posters!

Here are the 3-D shapes posters (I forgot to take a picture of mine, so I had to use Mrs. Parisi's picture).

You can find these amazing posters here.

 

Here is a little freebie I have posted on my TpT store.  If you didn't already download it, you can get it free here.

I like to have students apply their knowledge and sort pictures of various 3-D shapes.  I just used my pocket chart to turn it into a quick and easy centre!

 

This week my student teacher, Ms. Bucci, started our Dinosaur unit.  I already have lots of pictures so I'll be sure to post again later this week....it's definitely one of my favourite units to teach!