Place Value and Patterning fun!

Well, it has been quite the busy week in first grade!  We had some visitors from St. Thomas University who came to observe some of the fun things we do at Herrera.  We finished up our TPRI testing, yay!   We continued with place value, and moved onto everyone's favorite--patterns!  We had our first fundraiser, a cotton candy sale--huge success!  

Here are a couple of things we did with place value.  I found this activity from Babbling abby....LOVES her!  Basically, each kiddoodle got 2 jumbo marshmallows, 2 rounded toothpicks, some froot loops, and a recording sheet.  We also started out writing our numbers with white boards; this gave us a little more practice before we got to the recording sheet.  Who doesn't love practice when food is involved?!  I called outnumbers, "3 tens, and 2 ones."  They had to build the number on their marshmallow-toothpick creation using froot loops.  If that was my number, they would stack 3 FL on the "tens" marshmallow, and 2 on their "ones" marshmallow.  Then, they wrote the number.  Pretty simple, and they were all successful!  The next day, we moved onto hundreds-tens-and ones.....BIG TIME(and it meant THREE marshmallows!) *gasp*

For patterns, this was pretty much review from kindergarten.  We got into growing patterns, and a few more complicated patterns.  Then, I let them build using some spooky halloweenie things from the dollar store.  I let them use the ipods to take pictures of their patterns--that's how we recorded them.  Who'd have thought that plastic cockroaches and eyeballs could be so entertaining?!

Lastly, a workstation makeover for any magnet type station you might have.  I used my build a word and sorting centers.  Usually, I have them working on cookie sheets--either hung on the wall, or at thier desk.  Today, I taped them underneath their desks (which are metal) and they were able to sort upsidedown.  I would make sure you go over proper behavior, but mine didn't have any issues--they just thought it was the best time ever!!

have a great week!  Oh yeah, is it wrong that I'm blog-stalking Farley....waiting for her October currently?