A Couple of Spider Things


I have a few spider games in my resource collection. 

Spider Web is one of them.

This game is played with a small group of students. Each student has a game board and counters/chips. Two dice are rolled and the numbers totalled. 

A little clear plastic container works perfectly for throwing two dice.
 I recently revised this game and it now includes brighter game boards, a new worksheet and cover page!





  
Thinking of spiders and strategies for addition helped me to create this 'print, play and paste' for double numbers. You can find it for FREE in Google Drive by clicking on the image below:



Have a wonderful day!

Families


My daughter and I had fun making these origami people. She ended up making lots of the people in our family and enjoyed talking about how we are all different, yet the same in many ways.



Each has their own little personality.

These are great to make with kindergarten as the origami is very simple, and once you have gone over the steps a few times with your students, they will be making them all on their own in no time! Here is how the basic shape is made - excuse the wonky numbers!











Then you can add details with markers, paper pieces and craft supplies. 


We read a book about Families from our home library. I purchased a set of 'global community' books from Scholastic Book Club a few years ago, and they are wonderful. I use these in the classroom all the time during my HSIE lessons, they are great for showing students a variety of people, places and communities.


While talking about people, we took the opportunity to play a game I recently re-worked - "Number Line". A basic number game set that will help students with counting, numeral identification and forward/backwards number sequences to ten.


It would be great to have this number line up in the classroom permanently for a few weeks, and have it in a position where the cards can be manipulated. Pegged onto a line with clothespins/pegs is ideal. Practice counting - forwards and backwards and identifying numbers that come before/after.


You can take one or two cards away or flip them over and ask students to identify which number is missing.


The file also comes with a worksheet for students to complete after the activities.


You can find this printable resource in my TpT store HERE.


Have a great day friends!

Teddies and My Maggie

 
Our "Teddies" game has been revised and we have been busy playing it today. My daughter quickly matched the mother bears with their matching set of babies.
 
 
I asked her to make matching sets with plastic teddy counters.
 
 
We then 'counted on' from the Mother Bear' number, with the counters to make a total of ten. I asked my daughter to point to the numeral and say it, and then continue counting as she placed each counter down. So for this one, she said "8... 9, 10". We then discussed how it takes just two more teddies to get from 8 to 10.
 
 
We read a few teddy themed books from our home library, including this one 'A Bug, a Bear and a Boy Go to School'. She is doing so well with her reading, and read this completely to me!
 
Here is a little paper craft she made also, just cutting out shapes from paper to make a teddy.
 
 
 
I have had quite a few people ask me how our new puppy is going. She is doing SO well! I thought I had been blessed just to have two delightfully behaved children (for the most part!) - now I have a well behaved puppy in the family. She is a doll I tell you!
 
Here she is - she is just about to graduate her 'Puppy Preschool'. The final test this week will be if she can sit on command - and then she will get her very own certificate!
 

 
You will notice her little sleepy eye. That sleepy eye is the whole reason we have her now, and not in 2 years time as planned. The pet shop we just happened to stop by one weekend informed us that she was on sale, as nobody wanted to buy her. She was 12 weeks and they would have liked her to be sold by 8 weeks. I was not waiting around to hear what would happen to her if she was not sold! She was ours, lazy eye and all! The vet has told us she is perfectly healthy, but will not win any beauty contests. We beg to differ!
 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by, I would love you to have these Teddy Bear cuties for free by hopping over to my TeacherspayTeachers graphics store. You can find them HERE
 


Scrappy Summer for Oklahoma


I had a lot of fun making this set of 'scrappy kids for summer' this week. 

I donated it to the fundraiser for Oklahoma that is happening on TpT. Click on the image below to check it out. It has been  included in a packet of resources for grades 3-6. 


If you purchase a K-2 bundle for this fundraiser, I would be very happy to offer you my Scrappy Summer set for free - simply purchase one of the K-2 packets, leave feedback for your purchase, and then email me with your TpT user name (frogspotblog@gmail.com). I will verify your purchase by checking for your feedback and will then email you the set. It may take me a day or so to get to the emails, but I will make sure they are sent as soon as possible.

Thanks for stopping by!


FREE Pencil Tub Labels

We needed some tubs to help sort pencils. I just had to make some with my new scrappy friends on them. I'm sharing them with you from our store - for FREE today!

Sharp and Dull Pencil Labels

Just print, laminate and attach to your cups or tins, ready for students to sort for you.

I've included a 'blunt' label for Australian and UK classrooms - also 2 skin tone options for each label.

To make smaller labels, print 2 or 4 to a page or use the print-scale-ratio options in your print dialogue box and select for example, 60%
Pencil Cup Labels

Addition Snake and Add On

 
 
I had the privilege recently of visiting a school that had purchased many of our resources from eBay a few years ago to kick start their small-group number program. It was very cool to see the games being used in multiple classrooms. It also gave me some motivation to start 'reworking' some of our original collection. Fresh graphics for some and bonus pages, like worksheets and cover pages.
 
Addition Snake was one of our original eBay games. We gave it a fresh new look and added some pages. It is a great game to play when you are first teaching students to 'count-on' in addition. The totals can be no more than 10 (if you use a 6 sided die) and the students get the visual support of the dots on the die. They can say the number on the game board and 'count-on' the dots.
 
If you would like to take a peek, head over to TpT and find it HERE
 
 
Another great way to help encourage counting-on is to play a short game with your class. Use equipment from your 'Core Drawers' - a ten frame and a set of numeral cards. Pick any of the ten frame cards and display it for the students.
 
 
Now simply leave the ten frame number up (in this case, number 4) and then flash numeral cards randomly at your students. Call the number as you go. Students are then encouraged to repeat the number you have said and then 'count-on' using the ten frame as a reference. So in the above example, you would call 5, they would say "5, 6-7-8-9" and emphasize the nine.
 
 
This is a very simple, but powerful way to help students begin to process the counting-on strategy. You can squeeze it into the few minutes that you have between lessons or as an ignition activity prior to commencing your lesson.
 
Thanks so much for stopping by!


Snap It Up!

What a week! It's been green. I have had a sick little man in my house and it has not been much fun at all. Green really. On all fronts. I managed to get some things done as I also had a sick hubby in the house, off work for a few days. Somehow I have managed to avoid the bug myself. Touch wood!

A few crocodile themed resources appeared this week - it all started with a doodle and some paper craft.. Well actually, it started because we only had green paper left in the craft cupboard. It matched my green week all round. My daughter LOVES to do paper craft, and when the 'what are we going to make today' question came... 'no more frogs we decided' - let's do something else green! A crocodile! Here they are hanging in her play room.


A paper craft file then ensued. This file can be used in your classroom to create similar crocodiles and even add a 'Summer Snaps' page to the bottom - your students can draw some things that they are planning for the summer break (whenever that may be for you). Just print the shapes and run them on green paper and your students will be ready to create a crocodile of their own!


I made this fun crocodile game called 'Snap it Up' to 'print and play'. 

 This was inspired by the crocodile doodle I drew early in the week.

Your students can learn the 'counting-on' strategy for addition with this one. Find it at TpT HERE


My daughter was bursting to come home and tell me about the 'doubles' she has been learning this week at school. So we invented a game together:

Snap the Crocodile!

You need
1. A dish of counters/chips
2. A plastic toy crocodile
3. Some blank 'twenty' frames
4. A standard six sided die


Place the crocodile on the dish and each player has a twenty frame game board.

Take turns to roll the die. When you have rolled, double your number and take the corresponding number of chips. Put them on your twenty frame (we just used two ten frames from my Core Drawers).

The first player to reach twenty can 'Snap the Crocodile' (grab the crocodile) and win the game!


I finished the week by heading to Officeworks and re-stocking on coloured paper. Hopefully I can find my more colourful creative mojo again!


Thanks so much for stopping by! Hopefully I will be back with more soon!

Bingo Books at Breakfast...Dinner...or Under the Desk at School


My daughter and I are loving our new 'Bingo Books'. I can get dinner cooked. She has something to 'do'!



Just print out the pages.


Collate them and staple them across the top.

Then cut down to make individual books!


Each book will have different pages, so a different winner each time!


I call out random numbers while I am making dinner preparations, and my daughter traces the number if she sees it on her page. If she 'wins' (she has not clued in yet that she always wins!!) she scores a Smartie! She wants to play over and over again!