Fall has returned for another season. It is the time of cooler days, changing colors, and special days. It is a great time to use fall themes for math activities. When fall arrives, children begin thinking about Halloween. They get excited about costumes, trick-or-treating, and spooky activities. Here are 2 free activities and a package of other math activities to help with practicing math skills while engaging them in Halloween fun. Click on the image above to get your free copies. Thanksgiving is another special time in the fall. Here are some activities that use glyphs for graphing. They are fun because they involve creating pictures, but they are also very useful for classifying and comparing data. They can be checked out here. Children love to play with dice. Here is a game of probability using fall and Halloween graphics to make it more interesting.
There are so many different ways to use fall themes to make math practice fun. How do you include fall themes in your math lessons?
0 Comments
One hundred years ago at 11:00 on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, (November 11, 1918), World War 1 ended. This was known as Armistice Day. Many countries observe this day as a day of remembrance for all of the people who fought for our freedom. In Canada, ceremonies are held all over the country. Over time, veterans of other wars have been included in the memorials. It is important that we teach our children about this day and what it means. Many people have never experienced war and its devastation. We don't truly appreciate the freedom that was given to us because of the sacrifice of our veterans. Many people treat November 11 as a day off. It is my hope that we can remind people to take a few moments to remember and thank our veterans. Related Posts
The Marathon of Hope began many years ago when Terry Fox was a young man. He lost his leg to bone cancer when he was 18 years old. On April 12, 1980 he started his Marathon of Hope for cancer research. He was determined to run across Canada and raise $1.00 for every Canadian. He began his run on the east coast by dipping his foot in the Atlantic Ocean. Terry ran every day for about 42 km (26 miles). Imagine running a marathon distance every day. This is hard enough for someone with two strong legs, but Terry did it with a prosthesis on his one leg. He did this for 143 days. Terry Fox was unable to finish his Marathon of Hope. On September 1, 1980 he had to stop because cancer appeared in his lungs. He returned to his home and began treatment for the cancer. He was determined to continue fighting. On June 28,1981 his battle ended. He was no longer with us, but his legacy continues on. Every September cities across Canada and worldwide run in Terry's memory to continue his Marathon of Hope. Click here to find out more about Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope. Here are some free activities to use with your students if you do a Terry Fox run in your area. I know it is very important in our schools and children still learn about our Canadian hero. Click on the image above to get your copy.
Christmas is an special time for both children and adults. You can't help but feel the excitement in the air as December approaches. Christmas lights blink everywhere, Christmas music plays in the stores and on the radio, and the Christmas movies start to show up on the television.
There are so many opportunities to use this excitement and the feelings associated with Christmas in your classroom writing. For years I did Christmas writing with the senses. When I retired last year, I still had the chance to introduce this idea one more time when I was helping out in another teacher's classroom.
Here is my blog post about what we did.
When I wrote about the writing we did, I mentioned a special gift that we were creating, but I couldn't say anything more because a parent might see the post and it would spoil the surprise.
Here is more information about what we did and how it was special.
The teacher I was working with began by showing some different Christmas scenes. Each scene was going to be the topic of the verse that would be written.
We first generated ideas using my juicy details templates. We had used them for some other activities earlier in the year, so the children were familiar with them. We began as a group and then they went to their desks and selected the words that they wanted for their poems.
I have always found that using a framework for writing helps some of the struggling writers get started. Stronger, more confident writers develop more descriptive pieces of work and use it as a springboard for future work.
Using fancy paper for the final product is a great motivator for kids. I also find that they are more willing to do the writing and add to their work if they know that it is going to be typed up afterwards. (Those that have difficulty writing often write less if they know they have to do a re-write for publishing.)
Several times in the past, I used this idea of writing about Christmas using the senses as part of a bigger idea. Parents love to receive special gifts from their children that have been made by them. The poem was all written on one page and then put onto special paper. It was then placed on the back of the "stained glass" picture. This way, it could be shared each year as the kids grow. What better way to display it than to make it part of the Christmas decorations!
Instead of making a single page poem, this time, we made a special Christmas booklet with each verse on a separate page. A special note was written for each parent to add to the back of the "stained glass" picture instead of the poem. The booklet went along with the picture.
If you would like to make your own special "stained glass" decoration and poem keepsake, check out how we did it here.
As Christmas time quickly approaches, the children get more and more excited. It is hard for them to sometimes realize the passage of time until Christmas arrives. Here is a countdown poster that can be used to help them visualize when Christmas Eve will come. Click here or on the image to get your free copy. Cross off the ornament that matches each day in December as it arrives. This can be used as a math activity as well by counting how many days have passed or how many days are left until Christmas. Here is a booklet that can be created as a class booklet or individual student booklets. It is based on the song the 12 Days of Christmas. It is a great way to be creative about gifts to share or activities to do for 12 days at Christmas time. I would love to see pictures of your booklets if you decide to do this activity. If you have any other suggestions for ways to use it, please let me know in the comments. Happy creating.
It is hard to believe that it has been almost 100 years since World War 1 ended and 71 years since World War 2 ended. That means that most of us who are alive now never knew what it was like to live during war time. Most of our veterans have left us now and we only have stories and their memories to remind us of all that was sacrificed in order for us to have our freedom today.
It is very important that we share those stories and memories with our students so that we never take for granted what we have been given. With all the glorified movies and video games presented to us, we don't really understand the pain and anguish that was caused for families and the nightmares that our veterans had to endure.
When we think of Remembrance Day and Veterans Day, we should think about what we have gained from their sacrifices. We need to teach our children about the meaning of Peace. Not only do we need to talk about it, we need to model it. Many children live in situations that are not necessarily peaceful. School should be a safe place for them where they can feel at peace.
Many families have relatives or friends who are in the service now, or who served in some of the more recent wars and battles around the world. We need to think about them too. They are fighting battles that aren't even their own to give others freedom and a safe place to live.
I am retired now, but while I was teaching, I spent a lot of time on this subject because I felt it was more that just a one day thing that we recognized every year. Here is a blog post from last year that shares some of the things we did in the past years. It also includes some special video clips that I would play for the kids.
I had the opportunity to work with another teacher 's class last year and share this special topic with them. Here is the recap of that time.
Thank you for taking the time to reflect on this important moment in time.
Here are some other posts that might be of interest from some my teacher friends. As we approach November 11, we focus on peace around the world. Children often feel that they can't do much to make a difference in the world. This is where we can help them to understand that they are the key to peace. In the movie Pay It Forward, a class was challenged to come up with a change they could make in the world. This is when the idea of paying it forward was made popular. One boy's idea had the potential to change the world and make it a better place for many people. Doing acts of kindness is a perfect way for children to help make positive changes in the world. Friendship is one way of sharing peace and spreading positive feelings. What better way to remember those who fought to give us peace than to spread peace to others through friendship.
As we get closer to Christmas, thinking about giving instead of getting is another way that we can spread goodwill and cheer to others around us. We have been blessed with many things. Here is hoping that we can help to bless others by sharing peace and kindness. Halloween is an exciting time for children. They get caught up with the ideas of costumes, scary stories, carving jack-o-lanterns, and of course trick or treating. Using these themes make learning more exciting. Learning about numbers, patterns, basic facts, and graphing can all be more fun if they involve themes. Here are some Halloween math activities that will add some spook fun to their learning. This scaffold framework is a great one for Halloween time because it is a time when kids allow themselves to think about wild and scary things that can happen. My students love to make up silly sentences. This is a set of Halloween themed parts of speech cards that they can use to mix and match for some hilarious sentences. Here are a couple of pictures from last year. What kinds of Halloween fun do you do in your classrooms? I would love to hear about them.
In Canada, Thanksgiving comes in early October. This is a time for thinking about others and for being grateful for all the blessings we have. I feel that it is important to focus on giving rather than receiving, and this is a good start to preparing for the Christmas season that will be upon us before we know it. I love to use themes when presenting Math and Language concepts because they allow for many connections in real life. Real life connections are necessary if we want our students to be able to apply what they learn and find it meaningful. Here is a sample math and language activity that I created using Thanksgiving as the theme. Click on the image to get a copy. If you would like to try some other Fall/Thanksgiving activities, check out my Fall/Thanksgiving bundle. Fall is a great time for preparing for special days and activities. School is back in session and the routines are getting established. Now it is time to get down to the academics. Math is tough for some students, but by using games and activities, they often get engaged and learn without realizing it. This allows for more enjoyment and better retention as well. Here are some task cards and glyph activities that have been successful in my classes. The addition task cards are great for practice and review. The glyphs are fun to do and it is interesting to see what the comparisons are when they are done. I always make sure that the names are not seen so that we can make the comparisons using just what we see in the glyphs. The pumpkin glyphs require coloring, and the turkey glyphs require cutting and pasting. I often would make a bulletin board display in the hallway later so that other classes could try to do some of the questions. Probability games are always a hit in my class. This is a great way to teach probability and also to reinforce the concept of odd and even.
Give dice and tally sheets to each student. Roll the dice and keep a tally of each roll. Check the results after 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 rolls. The students will be amazed at how the results change as the number of rolls gets higher. When they get good at using 6 sided dice, increase the difficulty by using 10 or 20 sided dice.This is a collection of odd and even tallies that can be used for fall or during the Halloween season. All that is needed is some dice and a tally sheet. There are different themes to choose from. Click on the image to get your free copy. |
About Me Charlene Sequeira
I am a wife, mother of 4, grandmother of 9, and a retired primary and music teacher. I love working with kids and continue to volunteer at school and teach ukulele. Categories
All
|