Insect Math Centers and More

We started our day today with a chit-chat message focusing on insects.

We learned about symmetry and I had the students think of shapes that were symmetrical to put on the chart.  Throughout the day, we looked for things that had symmetry.

As promised, I am showing a peek at my math centers for the week.  {I will also be using them next week since we had a short week this week and we aren't able to do math centers on Wednesday with our early dismissal.}

You can find these 5 math centers in my All About Insects Unit.  My students LOVE measuring using non-standard units so I included a measurement activity for that, but you could also have students use a ruler and record the inches in the boxes as well.  The other center that is always a hit is the roll & color games.  This week we are rolling two dice and counting the dots to color in the number.  I noticed my students still needed some work on counting on, counting backwards, and addition.  I made the other centers to focus on those skills.  I am using the addition center as part of my quarterly assessment.  I am taking Deanna Jump's advice from the conference I attended and using my students center work to assess rather than waiting until the last week of the quarter and frantically trying to assess everyone.  So far, this has worked like a charm!

Since we were learning about butterflies today, we made a butterfly life cycle using beans and pasta.  The best thing about this is that I bought a box of each type of pasta and it will probably last me for 5 years or more.  I just keep the extra in bags in my spring tub and pull it out each year.  This idea is all over Pinterest so I definitely can not take credit for it.  I did make the labels for the title and the stages of the life cycle though.  For the leaves, I cut strips of construction paper and folded them in half.  Then I showed the students how to cut the pieces to look like a leaf.  I am pretty proud of how well they were able to cut out the leaves.

If you would like a free copy of the labels {both title & stage labels}, click on the image below!  :)

Tomorrow is Friday......can get a whoop whoop?  I love my kinder babies, but this has been a LONG week!  Looking forward to a little bit of relaxation this weekend.