Differentiation Station Creations

Learning Ideas, Teaching Resources, Free Printables

More Snowballs and Letter Fun!!

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I had a ball today with my daughter and her friends playing “Snowball Toss” and making letters.
 
“Snowball Toss” was a spur of the moment simple game.  I had a Styrofoam container from an extremely large egg carton!  I think I bought 5 dozen eggs from BJ’s.  Don’t judge 🙂
 
I wrote all the uppercase letters of the alphabet in the divets.  We got a few snowballs (pompoms) and I taped my laminated lowercase letter feet to the ground.



The girls threw the “snowballs” at the letters to find out which letter they splatted with their snowball.  Once they found the letter, they identified the letter and the sound and hopped to the matching lowercase letter.  Lots of movement and lots of fun!
After we finished hopping and throwing “snowballs”, we discussed the different shapes of the letters.  We got out foam popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners (Wikki sticks work better, but I couldn’t find mine).  We threw the “snowball” and found a letter.  At that point, the girls had to decide if the letter was made of straight or curvy lines.  They used the popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners to make the letters and then we sorted the letters into “straight” and “curvy” letters.  Using the two different types of materials, to build the letters, really helped to visually separate the different types of letters.
The lowercase feet we used are from my preschool and kindergarten unit: “Put Your Best Foot Forward”.  If you can’t tell, I LOVE active learning 🙂


 

Salt Dough Fun!

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I love Christmas!  I love the smell of cinnamon baking in the oven.  The cinnamon in our house was from salt dough ornaments, not cookies.  We baked about 20 batches of every shape imaginable.  They smelled delicious, but tasted “disgusting” according to my husband.  They looked so realistic he had to have a bite 🙂

This past year, my mom found a kissing hand cookie cutter.  It is the shape of hand with a heart cut out in the middle.  It is adorable. 

 

Every morning when my son gets on the school bus we hold up our hands and do the “I love you” sign.  He waves through the window and tells my daughter and I, “I love you” through the window.  It gets me every time…

So, when we cut out the kissing hand it made perfect sense to make the hand say “I love you!”  Everyone got to paint their ornament with their own sense of style and we had “priceless” presents.  Guess what everyone is getting for Christmas???

I thought these would be adorable for preschool or kindergarten.  What a beautiful memento for parents to hold onto.  Now making that many salt dough ornaments is kind of a pain, so I tried to think of an alternative that is not as messy or time consuming.

 

I traced my daughter’s hand on a piece of foam.  You could have the kids decorate the foam to put their own style on it.  Cut out the handprint and use a little bit of sticky tape to tack down the two middle fingers.  I put a magnet on the back and it is a cute little present.  You can dress it up as much or as little as you want.  It is a quick and easy way to say, “I love you!”

The recipe I used for the salt dough was:
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water
I kept pouring in ground cinnamon until it was the color that I wanted.

Directions:
Mix the salt and water in a bowl.
Slowly add the water, continually stirring.
Knead the dough until it is smooth and no longer sticky.  This took me between 10-15 minutes.
Roll out the dough and use cookie cutters to make your ornaments.
Place dough on cookie sheet and use a tooth pick to widen a hole big enough for a string.
Bake 325 degrees for 1-2 hours.  It depends on how think you make your ornaments.
After the ornaments cool, paint and decorate your ornaments.
Varnish the ornaments after they are completely decorated.
String them up and put them on your tree!

Snowballs Everywhere!!

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Yesterday we got a lot of snow!  I’m not that fond of the cold, but I LOVE snow!  There was a snow day and my kids spent all day in snowsuits sledding and rolling around in the snow.  Fun!

Anyway, I have snowballs on the brain.  I have been working on a snowball addition set over the last month.  I used part of it as my FB Frenzy product last weekend, but there is so much more.

I am really excited about these games and activities, because they get kids up and moving and having fun.  I used them with some of the kids I tutor and they were in love.  One of the activities is working on a snowball number line.  This allows students to put the numbers in the correct order, all the while discussing greater than/less than.  After the number line is built, it allows students to visually and kinesthetically add the numbers.  They are physically counting on and moving their bodies the appropriate number of spaces.

Here is our number line that we built together:

We used the anchor chart to demonstrate the addition sentence 5+3 and 3+5.  One strategy that we have been working on is counting on from the largest number.  We found the largest number with our “Snowy Kid” wand and then physically knocked on the largest number.  I’ve found that having students actually “knock” on the number helps to lock the number in their brain.  It adds a kinesthetic movement to the addition process.

After knocking on the largest number, we counted on and hopped forward 3 more spaces.  We talked about the differences in counting on from the largest number or using the smaller number.  The students concluded that both times they came up with the same answer, but they needed to “count on”  less spaces when they started with the largest number.


 
When using the class number line, you can have students use a personal number line and small wand to do the same thing from their seats.  This allows you to monitor all students’ understanding of the concepts.
 
We found our answer!
 
Using personal number lines and small “snowy kids” wands.  The wand was laminated after I cut the hole in the middle.  This allows students to really focus in on each number.
 
 
Who doesn’t love duck tape!?!
 


 
We had a “Snowball Fight” with our number lines and wands.  The snowball fight is “war”.  We split the addition cards in half and each “threw out” a snowball.  Whoever had the largest sum got to keep the snowballs.  The winner was whoever had the most cards at the end of the specified time. 
 
 
 
This is a super easy game to play with whatever you have on hand.  You could even crumple up little pieces of paper with addition sums on them.  Students would “throw out” their snowball and whoever had the largest sum would win.  The person with the biggest pile of snowballs wins!
 
I had a “Snowball Fight” with my preschool aged daughter, using most of the same materials.  Instead of the addition cards, we used the snowball numbers.  We “threw out” our snowball and found our number on the number line.  She would find her number first and then decide if my number was greater than or less than her number.  She had a ball!
 
Hope everyone is having a wonderful week with or without snow 🙂
 
"Snowball Addition!"



Brand New Blog and FB Frenzy!!

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I am so excited! This weekend is a HUGE weekend for me. It is the beginning of my brand new blog and the December Facebook Frenzy. The FB Frenzy is an amazing event, where you can hop from FB page to FB page and download freebies from a bunch of amazing teachers. This time around the loops are separated by grade and subject. My freebie is part of the 1st grade Science/Math. Don’t miss this fantastic event! I spent part of my Friday and I plan to spend today downloading and sifting through all my goodies 🙂   My page is: https://www.facebook.com/DifferentiationStation
Here is the map for the 1st Grade Science/Math:

 
 
 Thanks for joining me for my new blog!  I am so excited to share my teaching ideas and resources with you.  Stay tuned for lots of freebies, giveaways, and fun!

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