A little of this and that

A few weeks back I had a conversation with Deanna Jump about witchy fingers...You know, the little pointers that students slip over their  fingers to help with 1-to-1 matching. She mentioned that she used little lights instead. I acted like I knew what she was talking about (ha!) and after a little research, I found them on Amazon for super cheap.  Click below to find them.

Laser Finger Pointers

I will say this, they took a LONG time to get here.  They were shipped out of Hong Kong and I suspect they  did not take the short cut.  Anyhow, they finally arrived and my sweeties were excited! 

Last week I had the chance to see Debbie Diller again.   She talked about supporting "math talk" by adding math talk cards. So I whipped some up... why did I not have this at this station before?   They worked REALLY well!

Thanksgiving Math Work Stations-Common Core Aligned

Thanksgiving Math Work Stations-Common Core Aligned.

I am often asked how I introduce the tasks that I have at my stations. Even though my Peek at my Week shows a week worth of activities, I really do not change every station on Monday.  I would be looney tunes and I would lose so much time.  I introduce them through out the week.

For example:  On Thursday we do a sort as a whole class as a follow up to our shared reading poem.   After we finish our poem, my kiddos meet me over at the pocket chart station area.  As a group, we sort the cards. Then place those SAME sorting cards in the pocket chart area with the response page.  I also swap out the task cards if necessary. 

When my students go to this station, they are already be familiar with the cards.

On Friday we do an additional sort in the poetry station.
You can see more about this by reading this post.

 Finally, I had to share this cutie pootie picture from our math journals today... LOVE!