Table TOP Math: Integrating Math, Art, and Vocabulary

Math vocabulary is like spinach.

While good for you, in some circles, both have been known to have a less-than-stellar reputation.

I'm not one of those parents who feels the need to sneak vegetables into my kids. Vegetables are just part of life, a rich part of our daily eating habits. For example, we make lasagna more flavorful, more colorful, more nutritious, and more interesting with spinach or kale.

Math vocabulary is no different. I don't feel a need to isolate math vocabulary, shoving a piece of plain, cooked spinach down anyone's throat. Math vocabulary is what we do all the time. It's part of the environment in a rich, mathematical life. It helps us to communicate our thinking with precision. Like exercise, the more we utilize vocabulary, the more natural it becomes.

I love finding activities that naturally invite a wide variety of mathematical vocabulary, preferably while having fun and integrating subjects like art. We found a perfect candidate in Table TOP Math.


Students make tops, designed to spin on tables. As they fold their creations, they describe what they notice with observations like:

• 4 equal angles
• 4 sides
• opposite sides parallel
• 2 sets of sides with equal lengths
• angles: right, acute

They also give names to the shapes they observe:

• polygon
• quadrilateral
• rectangle
• parallelogram
• trapezoid

Then, they try different coloring techniques, integrating art. What a great opportunity to experiment with design and guess what each will look like as it spins. Watch a few examples...

Table TOP Math available here

You could make math vocabulary an integral part of any origami folding project. Pick something with fairly simple folds that your students will enjoy, and apply vocabulary along the way.

If you're interested in Table TOP Math, it is now available as a *new* product at a marked discount. ENJOY!!!

Fairy Tale Favorites!

Fairy tales invite students to think about short stories in new, exciting, and creative ways. Here are some of our favorite activities that focus on character in grades 4 and up.

Poetry & Art: Character
I invite students to create diamante poems that either show the changes in a single character or contrast two characters. After writing a poem, students create background displays. Here's how...

First, think of a prominent feature from the book that is fairly easy to define in an chunky outline, like a beanstalk (right) or stars (left.) Then, make shape templates out of cardboard scraps and use teeny pieces of tape to mount them on background paper.

Spray them with tempera paint that has been watered down just slightly...enough so it will go through a spray bottle. (Test this ahead of time and remind students that less is more. Too much spray will give you "lake effect poetry.")

When dry, remove templates and write the poem. A couple colored construction paper cut-outs help the artwork to "pop" and give it more depth. I use this tempera spray art for a variety of poetry-art projects. Students always love it!

Character Study Sheets (available here)


"Character analysis"...it's not a phrase that brings students running. But what if you change it up a bit? How about scoring characters on report cards? It's so much fun to consider...

What grade might you give Red Riding Hood for "follows instructions?"
How about Cinderella's stepsisters? What grades might they receive for "gets along well with others?"

Character Report Card

Character: Adjective Scale

Throw in a few adjectives--and their opposites--and you've got the makings of more creative character analysis.

On a scale of 1-10, how might you rate each of the three pigs for lazy versus industrious behavior? How would Hansel and Gretel score on impulse control? The possibilities are endless...

Casting Characters

Finally, what if you got to cast characters in a movie production? Can you describe each character and cast a famous actor or actress in the roles?

I love teaching short story through folk and fairy tales! Read more about our unit adventures here and here.

You can also preview the character analysis sheets here.

Christmas Art & Poetry: Winter Art from the Heart

I spent the morning with an incredible group of (almost 30!) second graders, creating winter scenes.

In preparation for their scenes--and for poetry writing--we brainstormed nouns, verbs, and adjectives that they might find in a book with the subject of "winter." They came up with fabulous lists.

I am tickled with how these turned out. On another day, they'll complete poems to go on the back of each winter scene. Here are a few to share...

Wisemen, angel, Mary & Joseph

Notice the "naughty" list?

Love the reindeer.

Wreaths on the fence are a nice touch.

So much detail. Love the colored birds.

Now THAT is an angel! (And what a Rudolph!)

Check out the Grinch!

Frozen comes to life! The kids started singing spontaneous carols--and the Frozen tunes--while they worked!

Penguin habitat!

Tree is all decorated.

Angel AND Santa!

Displays for a class of 30 kids takes up a lot of counter space! :)

You'll find the updated lesson here. (If you've already purchased it, please download your free revision with winter scenes.)

October: Art & Math Classroom Activities

I'm back from a brief trip to Disneyland with my husband and youngest two boys.

That's me in the front seat at Space Mountain = sheer terror. Don't let the closed eyes on the kiddo fool you. He was fearless...the only one in our family who wanted to do California Screamin' again. Apparently we have a roller coaster kid on our hands.

Today we're taking it easy. A little soccer. A little Halloween art for Fearless and I. We're doing a fall version of Poetry & 3-D Art for Every Season* with a 3-D Halloween display and diamante poem:

Halloween

Spooky, Dark

Howling, Creeping, Blowing

Pumpkins, Ghosts, Spiders, Webs

Dinging, Tricking, Treating

Fun, Sugary

Holiday

I love how these 3-D projects look on display. And the artwork inspires kids to write, write, write! The fall season could feature scenes with leaves, corncobs, blowing trees, scarecrows...anything from autumn.

*This has been updated on TPT to reflect the photos shown here! On sale til Halloween. :) If you've previously purchased this product, an updated version will automatically be available to you.

The artwork inspired Fearless to write some of his own poems:

HALLOWEEN

IS NOW HERE

SO NOW GHOST

WILL APPEAR

SO WATCH OUT

THERE MIGHT 

BE ONE RIGHT 

OVER THERE

(...he said it's all in caps!)

IT'S THE RIGHT

SEASON TO RAKE

LEAVES BECAUSE

IT IS FALL AND 

YOU KNOW WHAT

IS IN FALL

HALLOWEEN

IS IN

FALL

October Math
Another favorite October activity? Skittles: Fractions, Estimation & Graphing. Grab some candy while it's on sale this week and you're set for math!

Remember to graph your Halloween candy...and don't miss Tamara's ideas for math-inspired spider webs!

Parallel & Perpendicular Art

When I noticed that quite a few of my students were confused by the terms "parallel" and "perpendicular," I decided it was time for an end-of-year art activity. I visited my Math - Art Pinterest page and discovered a sweet little project at Math Activities*. Students worked on this during free moments at home and at school.

*You'll notice that we purposely did the lesson a bit different than originally described.

I love the way this turned out. And, yes...they now can tell me what parallel and perpendicular are! ;)

Descriptive Poetry & Tissue Painting: 5-Sense Your Poetry Lessons!

April is Poetry Month and I'm celebrating with the release of one of my all-time favorite lessons...

Descriptive Poetry and Tissue Painting:

Techniques to Inspire Young Writers & Artists!

Simply put...I love these lessons! Having used these poetry techniques with students in grades 3-8, I am confident that you will also experience immense success!

In the lessons, you will introduce students to a 5-sense method for gathering information about a topic. After learning the technique, they can use it to write additional poetry or transfer the knowledge to other kinds of descriptive writing. (In the examples shown here, we used it in a state study, writing descriptive poems about places in our state.) Don't be surprised if it inspires new urges to write!

After her kids learned the 5-sense technique in one of my classes, a mom shared how they extended learning. On a cold, frosty day, the kids dressed in their snowsuits and trekked down to the river with Mom. With 5-sense flaps in hand, they sat and collected sensory words and phrases about their surroundings. Since temps hovered near freezing, she'd only planned to stay for a short time, but the kids wanted to stay, writing in their flapbooks for 90 minutes. On the way home the kids talked about doing a Writer's Conference together, adding, "You and Dad can do it with us if you want to."



Lessons include:

• detailed poetry & art teaching notes, ideal for both classroom and homeschool settings
• photos and examples of student poetry and artwork
• handouts: 5-sense poetry flaps, poetry toolbox minibook, assignment sheet, Writer's Conference Record Sheet, Author's Self-Conference/Editing Checklist
• related book suggestions

Time Frame: the series of lessons can be completed in 5-7 days, working ~1hour each day. (more time with a large class, less time with an individual or small group)

Lessons are available through: 

Teachers Pay Teachers

Teachers Notebook

Celebrate Poetry!


P.S. A big thank you to all my students whose hard work is featured here! If you (or your parents) see a photo of your poem/art, drop me an email and I'll send you a copy of the lessons! :)

Photo Week in Review!

I managed to capture a few more photos than normal this week. Here's a little peek into my classes:

Class: Oregon History, Geography, and Writing*
Photo: One student's Oregon salt map with borders, cities, regions

*Note for Oregon teachers and homeschoolers: An extensive unit study on Oregon History, Geography, and Writing is scheduled for publishing later this spring.

Class: Oregon History, Geography, and Writing
Photo: Student working on a tissue painting to go with our Oregon poetry.

Class: Drawing FUNdamentals
Photo: Fourth grader's bird drawings following the E-Z drawing lesson from Roger Kukes' book, Drawing in the Classroom.  (THE greatest book, IMO, for teaching children to draw.)





Class: Kindergarten Math Club
Photo: Love this! :) The calendar shows the new January Calendar Grid for Bridges, Second Edition. We made number trees for each of the button pictures. Since the month was over, I removed all the number trees (on those blue pieces of paper), shuffled them, and had the kids match them to the pictures. This was hard work, but they were up for the challenge! ;)

Class: Math Club, Grades 4 & up
Video: This represents a high and a low...  I had the kids make videos using ScreenChomp on iPads to demonstrate what they know about the numbers in fractions. One group's uploaded fine. The other group's video got eaten by whatever technological monster currently hates me. Both groups worked so, so hard. I'm crushed that their hard work is floating somewhere in technology land...

And, last but not least, my husband brought home a printed copy of 101 Ways to Make Book Reports Fun. So thankful for all the help he gave me on that project!

Kitty, Nine Lives, Ordinal Numbers, Bookmaking, and More...

Post flea-bath photo.

We're sad. Our kitty passed her ninth life last week. It might actually have been her thirteenth. Or thirtieth. This cat gave me gray hairs. If we cracked the outside door, she'd streak in (sometimes so fast I didn't notice) and go hide in the house. Somewhere. A couple of us are allergic, so we'd begin an all-hands-on-deck call to find her. Usually under the bed.

She made me the craziest when I'd try to leave home. She'd zip into the garage door just as it was about to close. I sometimes pushed the button repeatedly as she waltzed in, then out, then in, then out. We recently came home after being gone for hours to find the garage door standing open. She must have done that in-out thing one time after I quit looking.

But the ultimate curious cat moments came when she'd run into the garage as I was backing out, jump on the hood, leap to the van roof, and take a final hop to the backside of the garage door. Yep. Up. Way up. While in the open position. If I continued backing out, she was stuck up there and I couldn't leave because the garage door was open; if I shut the door she'd be squashed. But when I pulled back into the garage, she'd go further onto the garage door where it was impossible to reach her.

Only a year ago I wrote about her when she got sprayed by a skunk. She was CURIOUS.

She made me crazy.

But we loved her.

So in tribute, we're making cat books. While learning math. And doing a little art. Go figure.

We started by reading picture books about the nine lives of cats:

My Nine Lives by Clio, by Marjorie Priceman
Comet's Nine Lives, by Jan Brett

We also read Cookie's Week. The cat, Cookie, encounters one misadventure each day of the week ("On Monday...Cookie fell in the toilet.") until she finally rests on Sunday. It's a great book to look at the days of the week in sequence.

We wrote stories--and included ordinal numbers--about the misadventures of a cat. Each tale was unique and written at the child's developmental level. Here are pages from the 6-year-old's:

On the first day, Cuddles fell into the toilet.
On the second day, Cuddles fell into a pot of mud.
On the third day, Cuddles got into the washing machine and it spun him around.
On the fourth day, Cuddles knocked the clothes off the clothesline. They got all dirty again.

And a few pages from the 9-year-old's:

On Tiger's first life at the farm he chased a bird to the top of the barn and fell off. Oops, life number one flying away.

On Tiger's seventh life he went down to the pond and tried to catch a duck. He pounced, but fell in, KER-SPLASH. Life number seven flying away.

On Tiger's eighth life he snuck up on the dog he saw through a thorn bush. He attacked and got stuck in the bush. Life number eight bounding away with tufts of fur missing.

We made books, pop-up style.

The 9-year-old will also add page numbers using Roman Numerals after reading Fun With Roman Numerals and Roman Numerals I to MM. Although Roman Numerals seem to be on the way out, standards-wise, it's something I want my students to learn. Roman Numerals aren't uncommon in dates (think movies!) and chapter titles. Just today we read A Giraffe Goes to Paris which included information about King Charles X of France.

It's been very healing for all of us to remember kitty's antics. I hope she made you smile. 

Disclosure: If you purchase books through my Amazon links, all commissions go toward foster care through Grace and Hope at no additional cost to you. I do not keep any money myself; I am hoping to be able to sponsor an additional child in foster care through commissions on this site. Thank you!

Happy New Year! (Dragons!)

Celebrating Lunar New Year? This art project  (and this!) provided us with great fun as we  commemorate the Year of the Dragon. Here's our monster:

The dragon's scaly skin is formed by painting with bubble wrap. Fun medium!!

We've also been reading. Two of our favorite books this week...

• The Knight and the Dragon (by a beloved author/illustrator, Tomie DePaola...this is also a great story to act out)
• The Paper Dragon (with a beautiful moral...the strongest thing in the world is not dragons, but LOVE!)

I've also learned (by much trial and error) that the single most effective way to get children to draw is to sit down and draw with them. We got out the Prismacolor pencils yesterday. Here's a 9-year-old's dragon (right.)

I'm also thinking about a math lesson...  How about a survey where students interview people of all ages to find out which animal under the Chinese calendar they were born? It'd be a great Facebook survey to do at home.

Happy New Year from someone born under the Chinese Calendar animal...

wait for it...

MONKEY! :)





(Photo taken at a garden in China.)

Linking up at stART.

Game Review: Cartoon It!

Cartoon It! is totally unlike any game we've ever played.

The game begins as each player is given 30 seconds to memorize the features of a cartoon character on a card. When time ends, the player turns the card over and uses the "Features Board" to assist him in recalling all the parts of the cartoon. He draws the cartoon with as much accuracy as possible. Points are awarded for number of correct features; a bonus point is given to the player who finishes first.

We played this for the first time over Thanksgiving break with a mixed group, ages 5-adult. One adult was always done first, so we quickly decided to forego giving a bonus point for finishing first. If we allowed players the time they needed, all players got full points every time. (It's slightly embarrassing to admit that the 5yo often remembered as well as the adults. I shouldn't be surprised considering the fact that my kids regularly beat me at Memory.) Since everyone was successful, it became less a competitive game and more of an opportunity to work on drawing and memorization. We experienced amusement, merriment, and occasional awe as we viewed all the drawings. When the rest of us quit, my almost-6yo kept drawing on his own, using the cards and the features board. I could see it inspiring some children to draw more often.

I think this is the perfect game for the right person/group. It's a great little tool for children to practice memorization and drawing skills. I like the visual/spatial qualities. I could see a group of slightly older children having an uproariously good time, comparing their cartoons to the originals. The game fills a unique niche in the market and could be a fun group activity for holiday play. It would also make a fun classroom game for early finishers...especially those who like to draw.

Disclaimer: I received a review copy and no other compensation. This is my personal opinion. If you order from Amazon, all commissions go toward foster care through Grace and Hope at no additional cost to you. THANK YOU!