Holy moly let’s just all take a collective breath. 

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And another for good measure. 

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Ok. This year is going to be unpredictable. We can all just admit that. But ALSO, we love our students and families and, even in this crazy environment, are committed to supporting their education no matter what. We’re all in this together. (*cue High School Musical track*) So whether your school is 100% distance learning, attempting a face-to-face option, or some kind of hybrid model, let’s dive in and chat about how we can provide quality math units with the minimal amount of stress. Yes, I will be attempting the impossible: trying to siphon off stress from this crazy mess of a back to school season. 

Get Kids What They Need

Whatever your district is requiring, it’s clear that it won’t be safe for students to share supplies this year unless somehow you’ve got time in the day to sanitize things between each use. From a “work smarter not harder,” perspective, I’m jumping on the train of individual supplies for everyone. 

The immediate problem with the “every student needs their own supplies,” approach is this can get expensive pretty quickly and is likely way outside of budget realities for many schools. But let’s start our school year prep in an ideal world and assume you have the budget and adjust from there.

Build a Math Kit

The thing is, we need to focus on keeping learning (especially distance learning) as hands-on as possible this year. ESPECIALLY since so many students likely missed key learning points in the spring during the beginning of all this madness. Hands-on learning is more important now than ever. Endless worksheets (especially via Zoom) will not be enough to keep students’ education on track. Besides being important for our kinesthetic learners in the room, research shows us clearly that, “hands-on learning is uniquely positioned to support or elevate any type of learner,” (The New School). Plus, if students are at home, creating these supplies ahead of time and coordinating a drop off or pick up of them, will put everyone on an even playing field and imitate the classroom environment much more effectively than just crossing our fingers and hoping everyone has adequate access to paper and pencils. 

I’d recommend every student have a plastic box (with a lid), zippered pouch or even a gallon zippered bag that’s clearly labeled and exclusively theirs. Store it in their desk, locker, or cubby. The positive side of this is that students LOVE when things solely belong to them. It’s special and exciting. We’ll probably have to work on sharing a lot next year, but we can put a pin in that for now. 

This kit will serve as each student’s “Math Kit” and should store all kinds of fun manipulatives. Remember, we’re beginning our planning in an ideal world so, if you can swing it, here’s everything I can possibly think of that could be beneficial in this math kit. 

• Coins
• Base 10 Blocks
• Clock
• Measuring tools
• 100’s charts
• Counting manipulatives (Target dollar spot mini erasers are great for this!!)
• Number cards or playing cards
• Die/Dice
• Place Value Mat
• White board
• Dry Erase Marker
• Math journal

If you can include all those goodies in individual boxes for your students, your math blocks will be a breeze. They’ll have everything they need at the literal tips of their fingers without having to leave their desks for one second.
And for all my teachers who want to embrace in-person and virtual learning, I’ve got some great digital resources for you that will be sure to make math time go by in the blink of an eye. 

If you’re internally screaming at me because how dare I assume you’ve got the budget to buy 20 clocks for all your kids, I hear you. Don’t despair. I didn’t forget about you, I PROMISE! In fact, I created a free resource just for you. Because no classroom should go without the supplies they need to thrive at any time, but especially this year y’all we all need a little boost. 

For you, I’ve got a printable resource of manipulatives that’s FREE (yes, F-R-E-E) that will help you start creating quality math kits for your kids with no budget at all. 

Grab Your FREE Math Toolkit

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The most important thing we can do for our kiddos this year is to avoid panic, friends. Take another deep breath. Let’s come full circle and end this post like we started it. 

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And again. 

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I’ll be here with more math posts and ideas all year y’all. And if you missed our literacy series, head here to catch up! 

Now that you know WHY hoopla digital makes lesson planning easier, I want to show you HOW to use it!

First off, searching for resources is SO EASY. You literally type in the title you are looking for into the search bar at the top and hit search. You can even specify if you would like to find an eBook, audiobook, movie, or more. Once you find what you’re looking for, you simply “borrow” it and everything you check out is stored in a digital library right on hoopla digital so you can easily access it.

I’ve seriously been in awe at the wide array of resources that are available on hoopla. I’ve searched and searched for all sorts of titles for all kinds of lesson ideas, and guess what? I can always find exactly what I’m looking for!

How does hoopla digital increase student engagement?

So, let me tell you friends, the benefits don’t stop with my experience with hoopla. Student engagement is where it’s at! I love that hoopla digital offers the ability to project a book, making it large enough for students to see and follow along. Anytime I’m able to make things larger and easier for students to see, I immediately see an increase in engagement.

I also love that if students have different interests on a particular topic (and don’t they always) that you can borrow ebooks and audiobooks that fit their needs. Think about your Listen to Reading center – what if you could tailor audiobooks that matched your STEAM curriculum? Well, you can with hoopla!

What are my favorite titles available on hoopla?

Well, there are truly SO many, but here are a few:

Like I mentioned before, their resource library is MASSIVE!

In fact, I got so excited about what hoopla has to offer that I created another free lesson plan for you!

Using “Mechanimals” by Chris Tougas, available right on hoopla digital, students will work through the five step engineering process – (1) Ask, (2) Imagine, (3) Plan, (4) Create, and (5) Improve – to answer the challenge question: How can we design a mechanical animal that will perform a specific job for a farmer?

In this STEAM experience, students will create a mechanical animal that helps the farmer with a job of the student’s choice. Talk about opening the doors for your students to get creative!

You can truly go mild to wild with what materials students build with – from cut paper to clay, recyclables, and more. I made this turkey mechanical animal that has tons of eyes that act as cameras to help the farmer patrol for predators entering the farm – y’all literally ideas and creativity will be flowing through your kiddos’ minds!

Grab your free copy of this lesson plan guide by joining my email list below. You’ll be sent the password to visit the Freebies section of my website.

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• “How do you fit STEAM in? I just don’t have time in my day.”
• “Where do you find resources?”
• “I teach very young students (Kindergarten), can STEAM work for them?”

Thinking back to all of the planning myself and teams I’ve taught with have done surrounding STEAM education, I could probably write a book – and hey, maybe one day I will! One thing though is certain, I am so thankful that I found hoopla digital! So buckle up, I’m about to show you exactly how awesome Hoopla is for lesson planning – plus I’m going to give you a FREE lesson idea with plan so you can get started TODAY!

What is Hoopla Digital?

hoopla digital is a service that has partnered with libraries ACROSS North America to bring online/mobile (think digital here) access to literally thousands of Movies, TV Shows, Music, eBooks, Audiobooks and Comics. It’s truly at your fingertips and ready to download in a snap! Right here in Dallas the Dallas Public Library system has already partnered with hoopla digital bringing a wealth of resources to you – and all you need is a valid library card!

I love a trip to the library as much as the next teacher, but it can be so frustrating when the book you need for a specific lesson is either checked out or not carried at that location. With hoopla digital you always have access to their huge library and never have to worry about a book being checked out!

But, how does that relate to STEAM education?

Oh, I’m so glad you asked! Y’all… it has EVERYTHING to do with STEAM education because hoopla digital has become the leading resource for STEAM content across all age ranges!

If you’re just getting started with STEAM, hoopla has such a diverse variety of STEAM resources – whether you want a book targeted directly for STEAM education, a book about inventors, or a book that can be used to create a STEAM challenge, it’s on hoopla!

5 Ways hoopla Makes Lesson Plans a Cinch

1. No trips to the library! All of their content is available to you digitally! The days of worrying about someone having checked out a particular book are done. Plus, as teachers we know that as students are exploring something new they inevitably have questions we don’t have the answers for. hoopla makes finding resources for the questions a snap!
2. Did I mention how diverse the hoopla library is?! This simple fact means that it is easier than ever to pull STEAM into any content block throughout the day – science, literacy, math… you name it!
3. Hoopla isn’t just ebooks! If you need audio books for listen to reading, videos, music, or even a clip of something from TV – chances are you can find it on hoopla!
4. Not super comfortable with STEAM? hoopla has books that lay out pre-made STEAM activities for you! Take their outline and transfer them into your lesson plans! This is the perfect way to get your feet wet with STEAM education.
5. There are TONS of resources that teach to growth mindset which is important not only for STEAM, but for creating resilient students! Here are some of my favorites available right in the hoopla database:

• “Ada Twist, Scientist” by Andrea Beaty
• “Rosie Revere, Engineer” by Andrea Beaty
• “Iggy Peck, Architect” by Andrea Beaty

OK, I promised you a ready-to-go and FREE lesson plan! One of my favorite traditional content blocks to bring a little STEAM action into is a math block. Something about math centers just really lends itself to incorporating STEAM without changing the entire scope of a content block or your day.

With winter coming up, many of us will engage in some form of study of weather, seasons, or snow. Why not tie that study into a snowflake STEAM challenge?

This lesson plan guide will take you and your students step-by-step through the five step engineering process as students investigate and explore snowflakes then create their own artwork showcasing symmetry. For this lesson, I recommend using “There’s Math in My Art” by Nikole Bethea which is readily available for you on hoopla digital!

Materials are simple (and reusable) – toothpicks, pom poms, glass beads, pipe cleaners, etc. – you can see the full list right on the lesson plan guide under materials.

Students will (1) Ask, (2) Imagine, (3) Plan, (4) Create, and (5) Improve a snowflake design that features a symmetrical design.

Grab your free copy of this lesson plan guide by joining my email list below. You’ll be sent the password to visit the Freebies section of my website. Want more ideas for STEAM lessons – click here.

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Want answers to more of your STEAM-related questions? Join me as I take over the hoopla Instagram on November 7th! I’ll be answering all of your questions live, and I’d love to see you there! Click here to follow Hoopla on Instagram so you don’t miss out!

Call me crazy, but I believe that even our youngest learners can start the year working together and building a love for math – albeit after you practicing lining up for the 100th time!

One of my favorite things about using math games as my centers is the community that it builds.  My students have the chance to use math terms in their own words as they chat while playing, they learn how to work together and solve conflicts with peers, and they learn how to support each other!  Y’all if I can pull out a math game and hear a resounding “yessssss” from my students, I am winning as a teacher.  Isn’t one of our duties as educators to help our students find joy in learning?

And let’s be honest for a moment… Any opportunity to throw in erasers from the Dollar Spot is a chance to add in some seasonal flair (and they’re just freaking adorable).

So what do math games look like in my Kindergarten classroom at the beginning of the year?  Here’s a peak at the types of games that we play and the skills these games work on.

Rainbow Racer

Rainbow Racer is a game where students play again each other or cooperatively to measure various images using non-standard units.  In addition to building understanding of length and measurement this game reinforces one-to-one correspondence when counting and the basic idea of addition as students race to get 20 rainbows first.

Superstar Subitizing

Superstar Subitizing practices recognizing groups of objects instantly.  This game goes hand in hand with using some form of quick look dot cards during calendar time.  What’s better?  It’s differentiated to allow students who need a challenge the chance to use a different playing card with higher numbers AND roll two dice that must be added together – subtizing and addition in one game!

Happy Apples

Happy Apples builds important foundational counting skills.  As students spin the spinner they must identify the number shown and add that many apples to the tree.  Students begin to understand that higher numbers help them fill the tree faster (again, introducing that idea of addition).

More or Less War

More or Less War is all about comparing numbers (numeral and pictures).  But there’s a twist!  Instead of the greater number always winning, the students flip their cards and then spin a spinner that will determine if the number that is more or less is the winner.

Pencil Pick Up

Pencil Pick Up uses 5 frames to help students start instantly recognizing (subitizing) numbers 1-5 as well as reinforcing the concept that a number can be shown in different ways.  Be careful not to roll a 6 or you’ll have to put a 5 frame back!

What Comes Next

What Comes Next? allows students the chance to identify and build patterns.  Now, don’t get me started on the fact that neither the TEKS nor CCSS list teaching patterns in Kindergarten – that is a whole other blog post!  Take my word for it that teaching patterns builds invaluable foundational math understanding, and we should be going beyond the standards to teach patterns in Kindergarten!

I’m so excited to break these games out during the BTS season!  Want your own copy of them?  [Click here] or click the image below to grab yours today!

This go around I decided to have the students create their own personal cupcake based on a writing checklist modeled after the Lucy Caulkins narrative writing checklist.  Here’s a peek at what our checklist looked like for this publishing party.

The kiddos helped me mix all of the ingredients – they LOVE when we do a cooking activity together.  To make sure we had enough batter for all of the kids to make their cupcakes I used two boxes of cake mix.

While the kids were at recess I separated the batter out into cups and added coloring.

Since I was the only adult in the room during this activity, I had the kids share their writing with each other while I called a few kids at a time to build their cupcake.

I placed all of their writing out on the tables and had my kids go around at random and sit down and read the writing their peers wrote.  I also put out small construction paper notecards so that the kids could write a positive note for each story they read.  Let me tell you, the kids were excited about the cupcakes, but I think they were even more excited to read the positive feedback from their classmates!

I must say that this batter was GORGEOUS!  The kids were so excited to add the colors of batter for each item on the checklist that they felt they had completed.  (Tip:  To manage how much of each color batter the kids were adding we used a teaspoon and the kids were instructed to add only one scoop of each color batter).

While the cupcakes baked we continued sharing our writing with each other.

Just for you, I’ve uploaded a free version of my Publishing Pastries color code guide!  And guess what?  It’s editable!  Just click [here] or on the picture below to download your copy!

Overall it does take a fair amount of planning beforehand to pull off these publishing parties, but if your students are struggling with motivation during Writers Workshop I HIGHLY recommend figuring out what a publishing party might look like in your class and giving it a try!  If you do try it out, I would love to hear how it went!

Driving home from school one day, which happens to be when almost all of my ideas come to me, I was trying to think of a way to make our next Writers Workshop a hit with the kids.  I knew we were scheduled to have our publishing party, but wasn’t sure exactly what it would look like.  Lucy offers several suggestions in her books – but they just weren’t meshing with what I felt we needed.  Then it hit me!

Spending only $11.00, let me show you how I set the stage to engage and wow’ed my students during our recent publishing party.  Did I mention the prep work is minimal?

Before our publishing party I created a simple banner using butcher paper.  A tip I learned quite some time ago for creating stellar anchor charts and banners is to place the paper on your SMART Board/MIMIO Board/projector screen/etc and trace the letters or pictures.  Works like a charm and I don’t have to start over 5 times because of a mistake!

With the banner template created,  I invited the kids to help decorate it throughout the day.  I LOVE group art projects and corralling all of the kids together to create one final product.  When our banner was finished, I hung it up for display during the party.

Like all good parties we needed some sort of food!  My kids had recently been begging to cook something, so I figured a little baking was in order.  We were celebrating after all!

We mixed all of the ingredients together, then I separated the mixture into plastic cups for each child.

To add a little writing flair and self-esteem to our baking fun, I had the kids add a drop of food coloring to their batter to show what they were most proud of in their published piece of writing.  The possibilities for this are endless, but ours went a little something like this…

• Red = spacing
• Blue = stretching out words
• Green = story makes sense
• Yellow = capital letters
• Purple = punctuation

Kids are always amazed at how food coloring changes the color of things!

Once everyone had their batter and coloring mixed together, I helped them scoop their mixture into a cake pan using a rubber spatula.

All of the variation in colors make this cake look AMAZING!

 And it tastes pretty good, too!

Once we got the cake into the oven to bake we got serious about sharing our published writing!  I picked up these cute little glitter hats at Dollar Tree and used them as a visual reminder for who was sharing.  Students wearing a hat were the readers and students not wearing a hat were the audience.

We gathered in two circles facing each other and started by reading our writing to that partner.  Once the reader was finished reading, the listener gave one comment about what they liked in the story.  I then had the outer circle (the readers) rotate clockwise to music.  When I stopped the music the outer circle stopped moving and read their story to their new partners.  We did this several times and then switched roles.

What exactly did my $11.00 go towards?  Cake mix, food coloring, glitter hats, and these colorful table centerpieces.

My goal for this publishing party was to create more excitement about our writers workshop and the writing process, and I think it safe to say “mission accomplished.”  I’m excited to work through our next Lucy writing unit and plan the next publishing party!

Last week I went outside one day after school and took pictures of the bark of several trees right around our classroom.  I printed and laminated these to create a tree bark matching activity.  This center is super versatile!  Students can go outside in teams (with adult supervision) to try and find the tree that each picture matches.  This led to some of the best conversation of the day because students were unknowingly using great description words to justify why a certain picture match a tree or not.