As February ends.....

My camera is not the greatest, but the pictures do give you the

idea of how much the students like Flashlight Friday.

It's like they are getting away with something....

Do you remember taking a flashlight and hiding under the covers

so that your parents wouldn't know that you were reading?

That's what it is like in the classroom....

It's so lovely to watch the kiddos fully immersed in their books!

An even more engaging activity was taking Fruit Loop cereal

and laying out enough to cover 100 circles,

then stringing those cereal circles onto a ribbon,

to make a necklace.

They were so happy to do this (and there was the added

bonus of having to count to 100 AND work those little fine 

motor muscles at the same time!)

Outside in our hallway over the coat cubbies, are the students'

writing about what they could not do on the first day of school

that they can now do on the 100th day of school.

HOORAY!

We are really focusing on putting small groups together,

or taking a large group and making it into two smaller groups.

These plastic plates are helping the students think of those numbers 

as part-part-whole.

They worked on telling stories about the numbers on their own first,

and then sharing their stories with another student in the room.

It might have sounded like this:

I have seven Santas.  My mom has three Santas. 

(there would be 3 and 7 in the smaller compartments of the plate)

When you put seven and three together, there are 10 Santas.

(the two groups would be moved into the larger compartment,

to show the whole number)

Shrove Tuesday!

Thanks to the wonderful mommy who came in and made these delicious

pancakes for us.  (AND AN EXTRA BIG  THANK YOU TO THE

PARENTS WHO OWN HEADQUARTERS RESTAURANT FOR  

MIXING UP AND DONATING THE BATTER TO OUR SCHOOL!

Here's what 100 little pancakes look like!

Our question to answer was 

"Can a Grade One class eat 100 pancakes?"

The answer was "Absolutely!!"

We asked that question because the wolf tries to fatten up the 

chicken for his stew by leaving her 100 pancakes, 100 donuts, 

and a 100 lb. cake on her porch.

The students paired up and read this shortened 'rebus' version

of the story.

After recess, the students went on a hunt to find the 100 chicks from the

story that were hiding around the classroom.  The real challenge was to

put those little chicks onto the 100 board when there were no numbers on the board.

I was really impressed with their thinking.  I heard these great conversations:

I put the 45 there because I saw 40 at the end, and then I counted these empty boxes

41, 42, 43, 44 so I knew that the 45 needed to go here.

I put 67 here because I know you count like this:  65, 66 and next would be 67.

I put 21 here because you count down like this:  1, then 11 and then it would be 21.

All those mornings at Calendar work is paying off!!