Math Archives - 1+1+1=1

May 22, 2013

Show Me! Cut, Count, & Glue Video

Cut, Count, and Glue Video

I have been asked for years to record videos of me teaching my young children. Many moms have emailed me sharing how uncomfortable early childhood learning is for them and that if they could see it in action, it would help! Honestly I never really did it because I don’t think what I do is anything special. But then I started thinking about how much it would help ME to see upper grade subjects being taught by some of you! I know how it feels to be out of my comfort zone too!

So for those of you who are totally out of your comfort zone with this early childhood stuff, I am going to try to do better and put together some videos showing a few minutes at a time with Ladybug. She is currently 4 years old {just turned four in April 2013}, and working through home preschool with me. Please know that I am not posting these because I think I have it all figured out, but to humbly share in hopes that a glimpse might help someone out there.

Our first video together uses the printable entitled Cut, Count, Glue which is found in many of my printable packs. Some packs have up to the number 5, and some to the number 7. If your child is younger, just cut out the grid to only show the number you want to work on. The printable shown in the video is from the Gymnastics Printable Pack, and looks like this…

I took a few video clips during about 5-10 minutes of working together and edited them together with captions for you. I hope this helps you see how early learning skills are exposed so naturally through the use of fun printables, toys, activities and just simple discussions with your child.

List of skills we touched on…

number identification
counting
ordinal numbers {1st, 2nd, etc.}
Positional words
What comes next, before, after?
same/different, most/least, how many?
basic addition language
1:1 correspondence {touching one at a time as you count}

You can also see when she is “done” at the end of the video, I didn’t push her any further. We had been going for awhile, and I sensed it was time to stop. This is a delicate balance, knowing when to stop with a young child, as to not wear them out, but also knowing when to push them gently through tasks that are a bit challenging. I do not always get this right, and we have tears in our home when I push too hard. Our learning time does not always look like I was trained in early childhood development! There are days I would be ashamed to record a video.

I hope this glimpse helps even a few of you to gain confidence as you teach your young tots at home.

Are there any other topics or specific printables you’d like me to create a Show Me! video for? Leave any ideas in the comments and I will add it to our list!

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Filed Under: Preschool, Show Me, Videos Tagged With: Math, Preschool, Show Me, Tot School, Videos Leave a Comment

October 31, 2012

Ideas for Using ~ Roll & Graph

I get questions frequently about certain printables I offer, from moms wanting to know what they are intended to be used for. In honor of these questions, I am doing a series of blog posts, based on the printables I get the most questions about! If there is a printable included in a Preschool Pack, Tot Pack, or others, that you have wondered about, let me know in the comments and I will add it to my list of future posts!

Today I am going to share ideas for using Roll and Graph Printables

I am certainly not the only one to offer these, they have been around for years. I offer roll and graph printables in a few locations on my site, mostly within theme preschool packs.

I use the 1-5 graph when tots are just learning, this is what ladybug is using now. I move up to the 1-10 graph after confidence with a 1-5 graph. Ladybug began enjoying this activity around age 3 and now at age 3 1/2 it is one of her favorites. Krash, who is 6 1/2 still loves these and participates often.

The cube printable just needs to be cut out, folded and taped together. I print mine on fast draft using cardstock, the cube is usually worthless after the unit is over and difficult to store, so I don’t put a lot of effort into making the cube perfect. We throw it out when the unit is over for the week{s}.

Almost all of my theme packs have a roll and graph activity, just browse around here!

You can also find TONS of dot fun activities on Homeschool Creations, 2 Teaching Mommies, and more.

Here are a few of my ideas of how to use these printable in a variety of ways! If you have more ideas, leave them in the comments!

Dot Paint is just perfect for these and tots love it {usually}! In the beginning, I have her roll the cube and find the matching graphic on the sheet. I then point to where she is to mark and emphasize the number of dots she has.

It doesn’t take long for a child to learn where to mark on the graph, and this is a fabulous skill to have at a young age, making the basic graphing skills learned in Kindergarten and 1st grade so simple!

Ladybug loves to pull out many colors of dot paint and make her graph a piece of artwork, sometimes I don’t allow this, sometimes I do!

Krash likes to select a “winner” before he starts and cheer for that graphic as he marks his page. Ladybug just likes to fill up her entire page, and will keep rolling until she does!

A little take turns game is another awesome way to use these printable, teaching valuable game-playing skills with a simple activity. I give each child a sheet and a dot marker, with one cube to roll. They take turns rolling the cube and marking their own sheets.

Lots of comparing and contrasting is done during this activity, which is another great skill taught using these fun printables!

If you want to use the same sheet twice, I recommend grabbing a cookie sheet and some mini magnets and marking the answers that way. We have pom pom magnets and gem magnets. I made both with a glue gun, mini magnets, and that’s it! It adds a different element to the same activity, and allows the sheet to be reused.

We mainly use those items with our roll and graph printables, but you can get as creative as you want with marking the squares, many of the ideas shared in Ideas for Using Dot Fun Printables would also apply.

markers ~ color the squares
small stickers
balls of play dough

What would you like to see a “Ideas for Using” post about?

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Filed Under: Ideas for Using Tagged With: Ideas for Using, Kindergarten, Math, Preschool, printables Leave a Comment

May 7, 2012

Let’s Trace Numbers ~ Newsletter Subscriber Freebie

Let’s Trace Numbers was created after several readers asked me to make a set to match my Letter Tracing Bundle.

This set includes worksheet tracers for numbers 1-10 and flashcard tracers for 1-20, all using the green dot, red star method I used on the letter tracing set.

This set is available to my Newsletter Subscribers for FREE.

If you are already subscribed to my newsletter, you should have an email that has the subject “Subscriber Freebies from 1+1+1=1″ in case you need to search your email folders.

Not subscribed to the newsletter yet {which is not the same as the blog feed RSS email, read more here}, you can subscribe here. Be sure to confirm your email subscription or the newsletters won’t come!

Filed Under: Printables Tagged With: Math, printables

February 22, 2012

Tot Time Notebook ~ Numbers and Shapes

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My boys still use their Calendar Notebooks, and Ladybug still uses her Tot Time Notebook!

She already has 26 Alphabet sheets for her, in her notebook and recently I added shapes and numbers!

I included numbers 1-10…

Each page is just printed on paper and slid into heavy weight sheet protector {I only use the heavyweight ones if I want it to erase easily}. She uses thin Expo markers and Expo click markers. These wipe off very easily with an eraser. She also has dry erase crayons and sometimes uses these-I have to wipe these off with a bit more muscle. If your little one can’t handle not drawing on everything else with a dry erase marker-I would recommend using the dry erase crayons!

I added this set to the Tot Time Notebook webpage and also to my Teacher’s Notebook Shop, since some prefer it! The set is FREE in both places!

Remember, this notebook can be as versatile as you can think of-you can make your own with any printables inserted into sheet protectors. You can take it with you and also use it at home! Although it is named the Tot Time Notebook-I am sure it is easy to see that it can be used for older children as well!

See my new Tot Time Notebook webpage here where I will add anything new I make, or any other printables I find online that would be neat for the notebook.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Math, printables, Shapes, Tot School, Tot Time Notebook Leave a Comment

November 21, 2011

Daily Calendar Notebook

I have wanted to create a daily calendar notebook for years. I have seen them used in classrooms {back in my teaching days} and then last year my pal Mama Jenn posted her version here. Recently I was inspired to take the dive and create a notebook for my 2 boys, Kindergarten and 4th grade! Since I knew I was going to add a few more sheets, I decided to recreate all of the pages we would need specifically for my two boys ~ also knowing some of you may want them too! Jenn has some pages I don’t have {money, tally marks, place value and more} so be sure to get other sheets from her if you are interested in them. I personally have given up on counting our days in school since it drives me nuts to be off a day.

After the first day of the tutorial process, this has now become something the boys do together. It is a great time of team work and patience building as they work together. I am close by and help as needed, but try to stay away as much as possible so they can learn from each other. The lap desks they are using are less than $5 at Michaels!

For the cover each child just decorated a page with his name on it. You can see them set up below in front of our current wall calendar…

Each child has a mini supply box {boxes are from this awesome organizer}, here’s a peek into PacMan’s, which contains everything he needs to complete his notebook each day: crayons, pencils, dry erase click marker, Vis a Vis markers. There’s also a community eraser that sits nearby.

Here is a glimpse into the printables in each notebook, many are the same but I made a cursive version for PacMan and a print version for Krash. Be sure to make it to the end of the post if you want to see a video of me walking you through the notebook!

These printables can be downloaded for free on my Calendar webpage, just scroll to the bottom to find the section!

Month Calendars ~ each day they just write the next number in. Just print a new sheet each month.

Write the Number ~ extra handwriting practice and number word spelling practice. Pac writes them, Krash spells them out loud and just traces the number.

Day of the Week ~ each day they trace the current day and abbreviation. They also circle yesterday/tomorrow. They then sing the song together. This page is in a sheet protector so we can erase it at the end of the week. They use a Vis a Vis to prevent smudging throughout the week. The images below show Monday first, but the updated file has Sunday first to match the songs. The boys quickly corrected my mistake!

Month ~ They obviously only change this page when we have a new month. But we sing the song daily. Also in a sheet protector.

Weather & Season ~ circle the season once, do the weather graph daily.

We still use our _____ of the Day chart on our main calendar board, which is where they look to get the following items. I change them out when necessary and if I forget, Pac does it for me!

USA ~ we go through our states A-Z, still using our USA PowerPoint show and Erica’s USA printables. We don’t do a new state daily {usually 1-2 per week}, but record our new state after we finish our simple research on the state.

For our state work, we are using Road Trip USA-just the state coloring pages, and also this awesome My States Notebook. The boys work together to complete the pages, we also review all states with our USA Geography PowerPoint show.

Shapes ~ there’s also a shape cards page in the download in case you need a set to use to “choose” the shape of the day.

Colors ~ colors page is included also in the download, to cut apart and “choose” a daily color.

Pac has an extra sheet, Today’s Number. On this sheet he takes the date and makes 6 math problems to equal that number. This sheet is in a sheet protector and he erases it daily. He uses a thin dry erase click marker for this one.

Krash has 2 extra sheets, one to add a word per day to our current word family, and one to record a word per day from our You Can Read unit. Each day he reads all the words he has listed also.

Daily Drawing ~ I printed tons of free how to draw pages from the sites I have pinned here. Each day I give the boys a new laminated sheet to draw in their notebook. I did this because I simply love their drawings and I am horrible with art. It is a simple way to encourage drawing daily. I also love that I will have an awesome keepsake collection of their drawings!

Additional Items not included as printables in my download…

Mini Calendar Connections Sheet

I added in a sheet-starting with the Thanksgiving set, with all cards on one page just so I can add it to their notebook. You can find this page for this month and upcoming months within the small set of Calendar Connections cards.

Weekly Bible Verse

I included a cursive copy work page and a print trace work page for each child taken from our Bible verse of the week. We are currently going through the Seeds Family Worship Printables that Valerie shares over at Totally Tots. You can find all downloads for the sheets we use over there!

Sponsored Child{ren} Prayer Sheet…

I created a sheet that includes photos of our sponsored children and maps showing their location {all of our kids are in Rwanda, Africa}. We actually have one more little girl who we are now sponsoring {I just couldn’t resist while at Relevant}, but I don’t have her online photo yet-I will update this sheet when I do. I just used their photos from the sponsorship website and then searched on Google for a map and flag shot. I added in stars to show which city they live in, and then on the bottom right I added 2 stars to represent us and them.

This page is intended to be a visual reminder to pray for them and talk about them each day. Slipped in the back of the sheet protector that holds this sheet is our most recent letter/photo form each child. Here they were looking at our “brother” Albert and catching up on what life is like for him.

Obviously Ladybug is too young for a calendar notebook, but she certainly made it known to me that she felt left out. Here she is, where she set herself up ~ right next to her brothers, working on her dry erase board. Soon after this she asked me where her notebook was.So, I made her one.

Stay tuned…I will be sharing the printables I created for her-which have nothing to do with calendar time, but make her feel special since she now has her own notebook.

Updated, see Ladybug’s Tot Time Notebook here!

Finally, for those of you who prefer a walk through, here’s my cheesy video that I made just for you. It is a few minutes and probably very boring unless you want to see their actual notebooks and how I have them set up. I also show the differences between the 2 boys and what they complete each day.