Apple tree directed drawing

We are loving our apple week in 1st grade but I am exhausted!! I have lots more to share with you about our week but for tonight I just wanted to share this super simple directed drawing activity that we did. Our apple trees turned out so cute and the kids love our class orchard hanging up on the wall (please forgive the terrible photography, all I had was my phone!)

Here's a few up close shots.

 I love the little birdie :)

You can click on the picture to below to grab the picture directions.

Have a great rest of the week!!

Adding 3 Numbers

Gosh I love math. I loved learning it in school and I LOVE teaching it!! Especially when lessons just work. This week we tackled 3 digit addition which is always a tough concept. When we came to this lesson I had flashbacks to beating my head against the wall last year trying to get my kids to understand so I decided to go hands on and made these math mats.

I had them use 3 different colors to represent each part. It really helped them understand that they were combining 2 parts and then adding the third one.  (They also really loved sorting all their cubes into colors at their tables. One of my little boys just burst out "Oh I just LOVE sorting!!" haha). So first I gave them a problem and they set up their mat.

Next they chose 2 parts to combine, and wrote the number sentence on the bottom to represent the 2 parts they were adding next.

We did a few problems together and then I let them break out the dice. They rolled 3 dice, set up the problem and then went from there. The rolling of the dice instantly made it feel like a game and they were happily practicing for a good long time.

By the time we moved on to paper and pencil practice there were no tears (from me OR them), I didn't have 26 hands shooting up in the air, and pretty much everyone knocked it out in no time. Like I said I love math :)

You can download the mat here.

HAPPY FRIDAY FRIENDS!! :) I hope yall have a great weekend!!