February Math Centers - Valentine Math

Math centers/Math tubs are my favorite part of our math block. This is when I meet with small groups, re-assess students, and watch my kids practice their INDEPENDENCE!

Once August and September fly by, my kids are on their own during our 25 minute "math tub" time. Now, don't get me wrong... my feelers are still out and my eyes are wandering around the classroom to give reminders to students who need them... but for the most part, my kids take the tubs and go!

I just finished and uploaded my February math centers based on what my students are learning at this time. I also asked my Facebook Followers to see what their kids are learning now!

Here is a little sneak peek:

Heartbreakers: place value & expanded form practice

ValenTIME's Day: addition with 3 addends and telling time to the hour and half hour.

The other 4 centers are:

Sweethearts: mentally adding/subtracting 10 from 2-digit numbers

My little book of story problems

True to your heart: comparing 2 digit numbers

Valentine Surveys

You can grab them below:

If you want to catch a deal, you can grab all my math centers for the whole year for a discounted price below:

BOTH will be on sale from now through Sunday (1/25)!

2

Place Value Boot Camp and a FREEBIE!

Happy, happy, happy long weekend!

Before I start this post, I must introduce you to my inspiration for all this. It was my first year teaching when I discovered the hilarious Teacher Tipster. I must admit, I had (okay, fine... HAVE) a huge crush on this man! Nothing melts my heart more than a guy that is SO good with kids - and he is seriously a creative genius. After you watch this video, head over to his site and check out all the other amazing tips he has to offer!

Teacher Tipster

This little video inspired our yearly ritual of PLACE VALUE BOOT CAMP!

My teaching bestie, Lindsey, and I take our kids outside and get them amped up for boot camp! Lindsey uses her whistle often and I have an excellent yelling voice ;) so we make quite the team. We sing the same song as above except instead of saying "add all the babies onto the end" we say "add all the little ones to the end." 

Remember my little army lover from this post.... can you guess which little guy it is?!

Also, don't mind my face in all these pictures... I was yelling... a lot :)

We had our kids sit with a partner and write down the number they saw on a whiteboard so we could do a quick-check of who was getting it and who still needed some practice!

After 2 days of outside boot camp, we took our littles inside for a place value scavenger hunt!

Lindsey and I put little cards all around the great room and covered them with sticky notes. With a partner, students had to walk around the room and try to find all the place value cards, count up the tens and ones, and record on their sheet.

(note^^^ it was "crazy hair" day - she doesn't normally have purple and red hair)

To mix it up a little and keep the boot camp vibe, we added in some exercise cards for the kids to do!

Push ups by the trash can?! We are so mean.

The kids had SO much fun with these place value activities and called me Sergeant Moran all week long. I highly recommend this boot camp procedure! It will get loud and it will get a little wild... but it'll all be worth it in the end - I swear!

I saved the scavenger hunt and I am offering it as a freebie for you in case you want to try it out!

Just click the image above to snag your copy.

I am off to a bridal expo for the day and then I have the PATRIOTS tomorrow! Woooo!!!!!

See ya later this week and enjoy your extra day off :)

11