It is almost Earth Day!  A great day to teach students about caring for the planet, recycling, etc.  Also, a great reminder for us as teachers to save paper and recycle that huge pile of graded papers that has a way of piling up!

I created Earth Day Math Activities for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade!  The worksheets are all Common Core aligned but can be used in any classroom.  Each packet covers a variety of skills including word problems, comparing numbers, graphing, etc.

Click on each grade level to see the Earth Day activities.  Scroll down and enter your email address to get the Freebie!!!

I have used Eureka Math for the past few years and I like to teach math in small groups.  I have students rotate between 3 activities: Eureka lesson with teacher, math centers, ST Math (click to read about how I use ST Math).

I love this system- I think you can really target what each group needs and push students to learn more.  But, the transitions can be a little tricky or time consuming.

It seems like the second half of Eureka Math Kindergarten is all about number bonds, addition, and subtraction.  So I created a warm up routine that was no-prep and practiced these skills!

Every time a group transitioned to my rotation they immediately made a number bond about the students in their group.  This gave me a few minutes to help the other groups get settled or to reset my materials.

This was a great prompt because the groupings changed every day and the students could be creative!!!

Some common groupings in my class were:

• Boys and Girls
• T-shirt and Sweater
• Sitting up and Laying down
• Hair bows and No hair bows
• Shorts and Pants

Once students finished the number bond they would write an equation to match it.  This was an awesome time to differentiate.  Some students wrote the part-part-whole equation but others were able to write the whole fact family!! This helped develop conceptual understanding of how parts and wholes go together in addition and subtraction equations.

This also led to many great teaching moments!  As you can see in the above picture one of the equations is wrong: she wrote 3-7=10.  We talked about how it was awesome that she went above and beyond to write multiple equations (yay for risk taking!!) for her number bond and then solved each equation to find the one that was incorrect.  She was able to explain that she should have started with the whole number when subtracting and correct it herself!  I love helping students to think through the concepts behind the mathematical principles and encouraging them to take risks and try tricky problems.

Some days (depending on timing) we had each student share their number bond with the groups, sometimes they shared with a partner, and some days I just picked one or two students to share.

This was a very engaging warm-up, the students got very creative in their groupings (rides the bus home and is a pick-up)!  It was also easy to differentiate based on the abilities of each math group.  Scroll down to get your freebie!

I have made a printable version of this math warm up!  It can also be used as a challenge problem for early finishers!  

You can use it as a paper and pencil activity or laminate the papers and use with dry erase markers so it can be used many times.  

If you don't have math groups you could have students make number bonds of the people at their table, the members of their family, etc.  Get creative!

Teachers Pay Teachers and Pinterest are filled with Easter activities but have very few Passover activities available.  As someone who grew up celebrating Passover and not Easter I feel like there should be more Passover activities.

I made a packet of Passover worksheets for kindergarten, first, and second grade.  There are Passover math worksheets and Passover literacy worksheets.  The worksheets are Common Core aligned but can be used in any classroom.

I hope these worksheets make more students feel included in the cultures celebrated in the classroom!

​Put your email in below to get the Passover Freebie Worksheets!  Check out the full product here.

Spring Break is great break to gear up for testing and end of year activities.  Plus, then the countdown to summer can officially begin!

I wanted to make it as simple as possible for teachers so created packets of Spring Break worksheets by grade level!  Each Spring Break packet is filled with Common Core aligned ELA and math skills so all you have to do is print and stick in backpacks on the way to enjoy your spring break!

I have a Spring Break Worksheet packet for Kindergarten, First Grade, and Second Grade!  Click on the pictures to see the full Spring Break pack.

Enter your email below to grab a free sample!

HAVE A GREAT SPRING BREAK!!!

Somehow I think teaching in the spring feels like there is so much to teach and so little time and like time is passing very slowly.  I like to fight the drag by using seasonal resources that liven up our classroom routines.

​​Now that Mardi Gras is over I am moving my attention to St. Patrick's Day! 

For Math I made some No-Prep Worksheet packets!  There are packets for kindergarten, first and second grade.  Each packet includes 20 worksheets tied to grade level standards.  These are so simple to use and could work perfectly in homework, morning work, or your math lesson!