Teacher's Take Monterey

I had the amazing opportunity to join a load of amazing teachers to take over the city of Monterey for the day. We had an amazing scavenger hunt with friends new and old and at the end of the day we met up for dinner at Tarpey's getting to know more teachers, and winning some great prizes.

Here are some photos from this amazing event. #teacherstakemonterey2017

                                         

I won a giveaway prize complete with a Yeti and some Verra Bradley swag

                                     

                                                

The 4 amazing ladies who put this Meetup together

                                               

                                         
                                                

                                     

                                    

                                        

This is the awesome swag everyone got at the end of our amazing day.

Trying to give my students the best

Long time no blog, OYI! Teaching life has been busy. We have been learning and growing, and having fun along the way.


I give my all for my students and I want to give them the best life can offer. Thank goodness for sites like Donors Choose  who make asking for help easier and possible. If you've never heard of Donors Choose, basically you think about what you want/need go shopping through the online website they work with, and tell the story of just how much you love your kiddos and how the items you are asking for would help your amazing students.

Here is a link to my project. If you feel so inclined to help out by sharing my project or donating, my first graders and I thank you so much

Mrs. Rapp's Donor's Choose Project

Not the best

 I am not the best blogger. It honestly slips my mind with everything else I am working on.
If you want to keep up with what we're doing in the classroom make sure you are following me on Instagram here: @mrs.rappsclass I update that multiple times a week.

 I will do my best to post here. I WILL get better. HA!

Getting Better...Slowly Plus a Math Game

Ok so I am slowly getting better at this blogging thing. I post a lot more on my teacher instagram, and do my best to pop over here with my little posts but it doesn't always happen. So if you want to see more from me, make sure you are following me on instagram. 

I bought a new game that I wanted to share with you. It's great for primary and upper grades to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts. It's called Mobi.

*This is not sponsored. I found Mobi on uncommongoods.com and thought I'd give this a wirl.

This game reminds me of Scrabble. You create a number sentence and build off of it. It's fun, it's hands on and it really gets the kiddos thinking.

Since I am teaching first grade I have pulled out all of the multiplication and division tiles (multiplication on one side and division on the other).

It comes in this cute little whale and all the pieces come in two separate ziplock bags inside. 

Here's an example of how the game is played. SO MUCH FUN! 

Making 10

Making 10

We've been working on ways to make 10. I bought 2 ice cream sets  and put a number on the top of each scoop. The cone says 10 on it. The students needed to come up with different scoop combinations
that equal 10. This little friend of mine came up with a 3 adden cone to make 10. 

Simple but oh so fun. I usually have them record their addition sentences as they make them. Today we had a few minutes to kill before we got ready to go home so I just let them have at it. 

Addition Connect Four

Addition Connect Four

 What a fun way to practice your math facts. All I did was write on each of the little pieces different addition sentences. On one side I would write it with the larger number first and on the reverse I would write it with the smaller number first. For example: 2+3 = 5  what a fun way to practice your math facts. All I did was write on each of the little pieces different addition sentences. On one side I would write it with the larger number first and on the reverse I would write it with the smaller number first. For example: 2+3 = 5 and  3+2 = 5.

  Then the standard rules of connect four apply. They pull out a little piece say the number sentence, tell the answer to the number sentence to their partner, and if they get it right they get to use their piece. If they get it wrong it goes back into the bag. Then we just have to try and make four in a row.

 There are so many different ways you can play this game. You can have all of the little pieces that they put into a row add up to a certain number, you can use subtraction, or multiplication, or division.

 You can make this game more challenging for your kids who need extra stimulation, and you can also make it as simple as what we are doing now for those who still need a little extra help.


 My students have asked me for a subtraction version, and a version for all of our star words. Those are in the works once I can get my hands on some more Connect Four games for cheap.

Teacher finds!

It has been a busy first few weeks of school. We are learning our classroom routines, how to solve problems between peers, and recalling all of those kindergarten skills that seem to have been forgotten over summer.

 This three day weekend I got all of my teacher prep done on Friday night so I could enjoy the rest of my extended weekend. I found some great little deals for my classroom that I'd like to share with you today,  as well as share with you a few things we've been doing in the classroom.

 These simple little dry erase boards with primary lines on them from the  Target Dollarspot have been such a huge success. My students love using them to blend out and spell words. 

 I bought a super simple stopwatch to time my students with their reading for fluency, and it's really great even for students to use. It's very simple with only three buttons start stop in clear. I also bought a digital timer to use for various activities during class that is magnetic.

 Buzzers. Do you have buzzers? If not you should get some it makes any learning experience that much more fun. There's something satisfying about hitting the buzzer and hearing a silly sound  that makes answering addition sentences listening for rhyming words and other activities more fun. 

We were learning ways to make 10 and I used the book called 10 Little Fireflies ( I think that's the name of it ) ,  this print out of a mason jar and little yellow fireflies. Each time one of the kids in the book how to firefly we would catch a flyer flies well and write a number sentence and that would let us know how many fireflies  there were all together.

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 I got this cute little Caroline Gardner pencil case to put all of the random pens, markers, pencils, paper clips that usually end up in the bottom of my purse. This little pouch will stay in my purse to keep all that contain for when I have to take my correcting, and other prepped things on the go to work on. It's the perfect size and fit in small purses as well as my large ones. 

This cute butterfly basket I found it target for $6.34. I thought it would be perfect to put some of our reading pillows in to store them.

 Each year my students and I study lifecycles of plants. We usually do pumpkins in the fall and other plants in the spring. I found these great pumpkin shaped box 643 dollars in the Target Dollarspot. This is where we are going to record all the information we learned about the lifecycle of a pumpkin, before we take our field trip to the pumpkin patch. 

Just like with the buzzers you need to get some flyswatters as well. Amazon has great deals for bolt flyswatter's. Here we took our flyswatter's in some colored true and false paper to practice some math facts. I would shout out a math fact and they would have to figure out if the math fact I said was true or false by slapping the correct piece of paper.