Welcome To Fall!! Cool 3rd grade place value activities

I feel like things are FINALLY falling into place....just in time for FALL!!!

So a few weeks ago, I got an email from my friend/previous co worker Gennifer, and she wanted me to come and do a math training for her staff (she's a principal in a neighboring county in VA, but we used to teach together!) on Math Expressions. Since I'm SO active in our county's math and have taught successfully with Math Expressions, she wanted me to give her staff a quick overview and how to use the program successfully. I met some really cool teachers, and without going into too much detail, I really want to do training for a living now! I love all the technology trainings I do for my school, and this was SO much fun!

On the way to her school, I stopped for a PSL from Starbucks. If your blood type is Starbucks, as mine is - you know that stands for PUMPKIN SPICE LATTE!!! PSL is everything fall should be in a tall cup of caffeine! I love love love everything about fall - especially the pumpkin flavored everything. In fact, right now as I blog, I am baking pumpkin chocolate chip cookies!

One of my favorite units to teach this time of year is place value. I'm not sure if it's because it is SO easy to differentiate between my Tier I, II and III students, and my gifted students! My favorite activity, is an AIMS activity called "Clue Me In." Click here to purchase this activity from AIMS.

In this activity, students are given "mystery numbers" to find. Level A starts with 3 digit numbers, and level G and H are 6 digit numbers. The clues use math vocabulary like sum, difference, greater than, less than, and place value all the way to the hundred thousands. The clues were too difficult for my Tier II and III students to complete by themselves, so I set up teams of 4 to complete this activity, just as the directions state you should. I paired my higher level thinkers (1-2 per group) with my lower level students (2-3 per group). I put the lower level students in charge of finding the place values, circling and crossing out numbers. My higher level students were in charge of decoding the clues. It worked BEAUTIFULLY!

I put the recording sheet in a sheet protector, and let students write on it with a dry erase marker. At the end of each clue, or if students needed to start over, the paper easily erased. 

Clues are mixed up. For example, the first clue might say "The digit in the hundreds place and the tens place are the same." The students haven't figured out either digit. We talked about how you would remember to go back and solve this, and students decided they should circle the clues they had to go back to. 

This was HARD for 3rd graders! Look at the "brain stretching" as we call it in our class. This was a group of 5 - with EVERY student engaged, for a total of 45 minutes. Coolest. Activity. Ever. 

I am starting rounding and comparing now, and I am teaching my students the rounding mountains found in math expressions, with a little twist to help. 

You can find that poster on my TpT store. I will post some cool lessons on rounding next week! It's time to bake some more of those delicious pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. (If you want the recipe go HERE! 

Make it Monday!! and a Freebie!

Wait- it's Monday?! Where did my weekend go? I was SO excited to cross off some items from my "Pinterest To Do List" for back to school! Since I'm not allowed in my classroom, I figured I need to have everything finished and ready to go for my first day in my room!

For Monday Made It, I'm linking up with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics!


If you remember Friday, I spent the whole day with Momma. After we went to the doctor, and took care of some other things, she helped me create some totally awesome bulletin boards for my classroom!! This project cost about $20 for two bulletin boards! I was super excited! I present to you, Make it Monday -- bulletin board style!

 I have had this idea for a while now -- and I have seen it on several blogs done different ways. Several I saw used glue, or tape. I decided to use my staple gun. One of the blogs I first saw it on YEARS ago was HERE.  First, I went to Walmart, and found these twin sheets for only $4.00 a piece! I was SO happy because the turquoise color is PERFECT for my room this year. They only had it in a fitted sheet, which I thought would be okay -- I really had to make it work! If you plan on making your own, stick with the flat sheet! I also picked up some staples for my staple gun.
Then, Momma and I climbed in the Avalanche and headed to Lowes. I was on the hunt for Foam Board. You can find it in the building section -- this is the stuff they put on a house under the siding for insulation. I suggest you get the foam board with the coating on each side, not just the plain foam. It was $10 for something like an 8 or 9 foot board. I knew it would fit in the Avalanche, if I moved things around. Wait - I didn't want ONE board, I wanted TWO! So, I borrowed the cashier's box cutter, and cut my board in the checkout line! Simply score the board down one side, then the other, and fold! I was able to bring home two smaller pieces that didn't require any rearrangement!

I faced the foam pieces so that you can see what each side looks like -- one side is silver, and one is white. Next, I took my gray flat sheet, and laid it down, placing the foam piece ontop. If you only wanted to use one sheet, you would have to undo the hem in the sheet. I bought two, so I knew I would have some extra fabric. The next part is sooooo easy. Very neatly, pull tight and fold the fabric over. Use your staple gun to staple down the fabric! This was MUCH easier with Mom to help keep the fabric smoothed out! 

We went around each side, and on the fourth side, we cut off extra. I wanted some open space in the center to put my mounting tape. (Scotch 3M mounting tape). 

I thought the fitted sheet would be just as easy. Boy - was I wrong. Oh so wrong! Thankfully - my Momma is a patient woman, and we made it work! I HAD to have that color -- and she understood that! I ended up cutting out the corners and elastic on the fitted sheet. 

Not nearly as neat and pretty as the gray one! We flipped it over, and saw a problem!! 

My bulletin board had flabby skin on the front! 

Mom and I smoothed and pulled, and smoothed and pulled, and restapled along the back and.......

All is well in bulletin board land! I am SO happy with these two boards! I cannot wait to hang them on my wall! I only have one bulletin board- so this REALLY opens up some options for me! I cannot wait to hang these up! 

Also -- to celebrate my Liebster nomination, as well as making it to 5 followers on Bloglovin' I'm going to add in a Freebie! This is a poster I created to teach rounding, using the idea of a mountain! Do you like what you see? Go on over to my TpT store and download it! Rate my product, and let me know what you think! Check out the other freebies I have there too! 

Awesome Math Lessons...Part 2

Okay - so I started a post earlier to list my FAVORITE math things from this past year - and I realized I had WAY too many, and I would have to condense. I listed 3 with pictures and details on my previous post, and I have a few more ideas to share!!!

4. Working in a Candy Factory - This was a really powerful activity for arrays in multiplication. Students had to create AREA models of multiplication to arrange pieces of candy. How many ways could students create candy boxes for 8, 12, 20, 24 and 30? They were given graph paper and base 10 blocks. At first I only gave them 8 blocks. They had to create a 1x8, and a 2x4. If students created a 4x2, we flipped it around to see that it was the same, or SYMMETRICAL (sneak in that vocab!). All possible combinations were glued down to a paper, and those papers went into their math notebooks. I then upgraded the students to 12 blocks. I never told students how many possible combinations there were -- that's a powerful math conversation to let them have among themselves. I did allow partner work - which I usually do in math. Check out some photos of the kiddos in action:

PS -- really look at their faces - you can see some "ah-ha!" moments, and you can even see the "math talk" going on between students!

I love the last picture-- The expression is priceless with the "thinking" face.

5. The Rounding Game:
This was very cool - it was a game board that went to 100. I had the students color each 10, grab the dice, and two game counters of different colors. The rules were simple - roll and count up your number. When you landed, you had to round the number either up or down. Example: You start by rolling a twelve. Since you are on 0, you count up twelve. You land on the 12 square, which rounds down to 10, so you stay on 10. If you were on 0 and you rolled a 4, you would stay on 0. The first person to reach 100 wins, and WOW - was it competitive!  This was such a great game because it really put into practice 0-4 round down and 5-9 round up. After a few rounds of this game, students started to just "know" which way to round. That really helped the next week when we moved into rounding to the nearest hundred and thousand. (Also note-- this was book character day - and although you can't see everyone's costume in these pictures we have Heidi, Greg from Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Junie B. Jones)

I decided I better keep my "favorite things" to only 5 lessons. These really were favorites of my students and myself. If you would like any more information, let me know! Both the Candy Factory and the Rounding Game came from a Dan Mulligan in-service done for our county.Sometimes I changed the rules/directions/format to fit the needs of my students. Hope you enjoy these games and ideas as much as my kiddos did!