Coordinate Grid Battleship

After teaching coordinate grids, I decided to take my unit a step further and have my students play Battleship using their knowledge of coordinate grids. I found a great sheet for my students to use on TpT http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Coordinate-Grid-Battleship-Game-239781.
On the sheet, they set up their ships and were able to keep track of the enemy's ships while using the skills they learned with coordinate grids. My students had such a great time with the activity and even asked if they could play it the next day when they finished early.

Non-Distracting Photographer (NDP)

This year I started using Edmodo with several of my groups. I have to say that I really like the site and its features. From what I am understanding, Edmodo just recently updated so that pictures can be uploaded. With this being said, I decided to take a spin on photo taking in my classroom and assign a daily non-distracting photographer (AKA NDP). When a student is selected to be the NDP, they are only allowed to take five pictures. The students are allowed to move around the room only after their work is finished. So far every student has taken the job seriously. Plus, they get a shout out on Edmodo that night when I upload the photos.

Did You Know?

My classroom faces into the library, and with this being said every class that is brought into the library walks pass my room. This school year I decided to buy a dry erase board and place it outside my classroom to display fun facts for the students to read when they walk pass my room. I downloaded the app 'A Fact Every Day' by Wombi. The facts are kid friendly and rather interesting!

In addition, I have a plastic folder below the dry erase board holding forms for students to fill out if they know of a fun fact. On the form they are asked to share their fun fact and where they found it. If the source checks out, then I will post their fun fact on the board, along with their name.

Clip Boards

I feel like every year I have less and less space to display students' work in my classroom. This year I am trying a new way to display students' work by placing clip boards in the windows of my classroom. I bought the clip boards from the Dollar Store, along with the ribbon. I spent a total of $14 on ten clip boards and four spools of ribbon. I have two clip boards hanging on my wall with 3M Command Hooks. The 3M Command Hooks have done amazing things in my classroom! In fact, the curtains in this photo are hung with them. Plus, they keep the custodians happy because they don't take paint off the walls. :)

Sunglasses

Hooray! The 2013-2014 school year is underway!

No, for real, where did the summer go?

So my wedding was in August 2012. With this being said, the 'pin-it' button on my computer was on fire by time I got married. I learned that Pinterest can either be the most amazing thing to plan a wedding or the most stressful. :) Well, one of the ideas I found on Pinterest was to have sunglasses available for my guests to wear during our ceremony that was outside. I ordered so many sunglasses that your grandma's sister's cousin's best friend from grade school would have been able to have a pair of sunglasses from my wedding. With this being said I thought I would incorporate them into my welcome activities with my students.

 I bought little tags and placed them on the sunglasses. One side I wrote 'Welcome to Mrs. Riggs' Class' and the other side I wrote 'Math is so cool you need shades'. My students thought the sunglasses were great! I actually felt super cool when I realized how much they loved them!

I bought my sunglasses through http://www.shadesoffun.com/

Boggle Board

Last school year I made a math boggle board in my classroom. This was a GREAT activity to have for students who finished early. To my surprise, students of all ages and levels enjoyed working on the boggle board. Simply the board has 16 numbers and one target number. The goal is for the students to use the most amount of numbers to get to the target number. The students start with any number on the boggle board. They move either up, down, left, right, or diagonal to another number. Then the students can either add, subtract, multiply, or divide their first number with their second. Next they will take that answer, move to another number that is up, down, left, right, or diagonal, and either add, subtract, multiply or divide. The students will repeat this step as many times as needed until they have used the most numbers to reach the target number. At the end of the week, I gave out prizes to the student who was able to use the most numbers correctly.

I have created two 'cute' boards with different target numbers, and student record sheet in my TpT store.http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/MATH-BOGGLE-BOARDS-802904

Vocabulary Review

This year all of the 5th grade Talent and Development Program students (students who test above the 91%ile) from my district participated in the Disney Planet Challenge. This year we focused on the topic of health and created a variety of activities that ranged from research and presentations to field trips and school wide projects. One way we rolled out the vocabulary to the group was by using the idea of a headbands game. The words were brainstormed by students, then the teachers made them into cards to place on headbands. The students then needed to describe the word to the student wearing the word on their headband without giving it away. Then once the student guessed the word being described, they received another card. The student with the most correct words was named the winner!