Desk Organizer {Freebie Signs}

I found the last red plastic spinner in the dollar spot in Target a couple of weeks ago and decided to turn it into a pen catcher on my school desk, keeping everything sorted.  This replaced 4 mugs with sorted pens...  I attached the little signs to the edges using binder clips at home, because my glue gun was at school.... guess what?  It's been sitting on my desk for days now and I never used the glue.  I did push back the inner metal hinge of the binder clip before filling with my markers, but I realized that for me, I want to be able to change this out when needed.  I may grow tired of these signs and change to something else...doubt it, but it may happen... Anyhow, it's working for me and I wanted to share the tags if you need something like this too.

2 versions, both the perfect size for a little container.  Hope it helps!  

Snowman Fraction Art {Adding Fractions}

We've been working on adding fractions this past week, and since I need to make fractions fun or else I was going to scream, we used our circle fraction manipulatives to make quick little snowman pictures.  

Some kids' pictures were simple, while others were more advanced (and then we introduced adding unlike fractions).  All in all, it took 15 - 20 minutes of our day but they were able to have some fun with fractions.    

Hope this helps!  

The Easiest Art Project for 100th Day

100 days of school... Looking back over the past months, time seems to have flown by.  Of course I don't realize how fast they've flown until the 100th day milestone approaches.  

When I taught primary it was a big deal on the 100th day.  We had a special home project, we spent the entire day working with the number 100 in math, science, writing...  With my big kids though, we have so many other things that we are in the middle of that usually we can't spend the entire day stepping away from our novel, math lesson, science lesson, but it's still important for me to recognize 100 days together. 

Friday was an extra busy day, so we could only fit in a few activities:

Morning Work - Quick Write "What would you do with $100?"

I was pleasantly surprised to hear how many of the kids would save their money or give it to charity.  

Math Check:

Equivalent Fractions, Mixed numbers, Improper Fractions, Adding and Subtracting Fractions - all involving denominators of 100

First Grade Reading Buddies:

We always get together with our buddies on Friday mornings, so we spend the time together getting to help them with their 100th day activities.

Creative Art Project:

I printed out the number 100 on a piece of copy paper, and fit it 2 per page.  I used to sit for an entire prep period using the di cut machine in the library, but this is honestly faster and the kids are capable of bubble cutting out their numbers.  From there they take the numbers and view them as shapes, creating pictures of anything they wish (as long as it's school appropriate - haha). 

Here are some of their creations:  

I did bring in donut holes for the kids as well...  because donut holes are always fun!