Monday Mania!

Buckle up, friends!

This Monday Mania post is full of random goodness.

 

First up is our tournament of books.

Haven't heard about bringing March Madness into your classroom?

Check out this freebie from The Brown Bag Teacher here and her post all about set-up here.

(Sorry for the glare in the photo!)

The Tournament of Books header is a freebie from me found here.

 I whipped up a little freebie header for you that you can grab here.

Yesterday I told you we were taking our alternative seating to the next level.

Today was the first day, and it was a SUCCESS!

Although we have always had free range seating during Math Work Stations and Daily 5 choices, we still had assigned seats.

Honestly, I'm not quite sure why!

Now our chair pockets are gone and our supplies are located in a different spot, but we didn't really even notice a difference! I've always allowed students to sit in a chair or at the carpet while instructing, so it just made perfect sense to let go of the assigned seats.

Throughout the day, I only have three 15-20 minute time slots where we're actually working whole group. The rest of our day is spent in small group instruction for Math and ELA.

 We removed 7 desks and chairs- so much less crowded!!

If there is a time when students need to all be on a level surface at a desk (Art is held in our classroom), we have 4 chairs at our Writing Center and Math Station and 6 chairs at our Small Group Table.

Our Math and ELA interactive notebooks have relocated to buckets on the center table, along with pencils and some general supplies.

 

Our notebooks have relocated to the check-in bookshelf.

20 notebooks fit perfectly, but I have a feeling I'll have to use the middle shelf next year!

 Switching gears, again... I told you it was Monday Mania... All.Over.The.Place.

Our data has shown we need intervention with our Math Facts.

Luckily, we have TpT and the wide variety of amazing resources to peruse and find something that fits for our kids!

I found this unit and just knew my kids would love the space theme, and I loved the magnitude of resources included!

Here's how I set up our facts mission.

 

The fact rings are from 0-12.

I copied 2 of each fact group and put addition on the top row and subtraction on the bottom row.

The class graphs are record keeping and data tracking to show where each student is during their mission.

 Once a student has mastered their addition or subtraction mission, I will take their picture using one of the adorable photo props included in the unit and hang it above the corresponding graph.

 In efforts to conserve paper, I made 2 copies of addition and 2 copies of the subtraction Rocket Racers. I laminated the actual cards students will "race" with and bound them with a ring. The self-checking cards are placed into sheet protectors in a three prong, 2 pocket folder.

 I placed these in our Math bucket and they are set to race!

 Yesterday we read The Luckiest Leprechaun and completed this craft from my Shamrocks and St. Patrick's Day unit.

For the background, I just used butcher paper and streamers for the rainbow and pot of gold.

(side note, I realized at about 8:00 Sunday night I didn't have enough purple or pink streamers! I improvised and just used butcher and construction paper. It works!)

 Have a terrific St. Patrick's Day!!

I'll be back to share our leprechaun measuring fun! :)