Resources Galore for Teaching Greater Than & Less Than

It's almost time to get out.... Mr. Alligator!!  A few years ago I came upon an awesome song about a number eating alligator.  This little tune, along with a stick puppet and other manipulatives, is the best way I've found to teach greater than and less than.

I start the week by reading an informational book about alligators.  This helps the kids activate their schema and make connections to our math activities using an alligator.  Here are some book titles for this:

Next, I introduce Mr. Alligator.  (A double-sided paper alligator puppet enlarged from student version.)  Mr. Alligator is not like the alligators in the book... he only eats numbers!  Then, I play the "Number Eating Alligator" song.  The kids L.O.V.E. this!  I continue to play this song multiple times while the students make their own Mr. Alligator puppets.

Click {Here} for the Number Eating Alligator Song

Click {Here} for the Number Eating Alligator Puppet

Once the puppets are made, I teach a chant.  (The chant is on the first page of the presentation link below.)  On the second day of the unit, we use a work mat on legal size paper to practice the skill of identifying greater than and less than.  The work mat has a fish bowl outline on the left side and one on the right side.  The students also have their own Mr. Alligator puppet on a stick and a small cup of goldfish crackers.  Once they have all of their materials, I use this presentation on my Promethean board for the activity:

Click {Here} to Download the Activity Presentation



Throughout the unit, the kids like to play these online greater than and less than games:

Online Game #1

Online Game #2

If you're still with me after all of this.....

....here are two practice sheets to also use throughout your greater than and less than math unit:

Click {Here} to Download Practice Sheet #1

Click {Here} to Download Practice Sheet #2

(Please don't judge me... both of these sheets were made a few years ago.  I know I need to work on making them cute!)

Phew, that's all I have for this.  I'd love to hear any ideas that you have to teach the concept of greater than and less than!

--Mrs. Pollard

All About Writing! (Files NOW shared)

Last weekend I blogged about help with my writing.  (This came after a very frustrating writing assessment.)  One comment that I got was to use "5 Star Writing".  I loved this idea so I put it to use right away.  (THANK YOU for the idea!)  My students are now completely obsessed with writing 5 star papers!

To introduce the 5 star writing, I created this presentation.  The kids had white boards, markers, and erasers.  They read the sentences, decided if it was 5 star or not, and wrote it so that it was 5 star.

Grab your 5 star presentation {here}.



The next day, we wrote about our favorite thing to do at school.  After I modeled, I introduced the 5 star writing rubric.  The kids wrote their sentences and then filled out their rubric.  The goal was for them to really look at their own writing to see if it was their best-- of course, they all gave themselves 5 stars.  Then, I came behind them and we went over the rubric together.  If they earned a star, I gave them a star stamp on their rubric.  They were very into this!

Grab your 5 star writing rubric {here}.

Finally, I've created a Writer's Tool Kit for my kids to use while writing.  Having this resource available to them makes them more independent and confident in their writing.  You can check it out at my TPT store!

Click {Here} to Download from TPT

Happy writing!  :)

--Mrs. Pollard



HELP with writing!

Ok, I need your help!  My students are not understanding what makes a complete sentence.  They are either not using any punctuation at all, putting a period after every word, or putting a period at the end of every line.  WHAT?!  (It might help you to know that 16 of my 24 firsties are ESL students.)

Everyone always has such wonderful ideas in the teacher blogging world so I'd love to hear any lesson/activity ideas or tricks that you can offer!  Thank you!!

--Mrs. Pollard

Skip Counting-- Freebies!

In a few weeks, we'll be starting our math unit on skip counting.  We've been verbally skip counting since school started, but we haven't really stopped to look in-depth at the pattern of counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s. 

To verbally skip count, we do a little rhyme called "Ringo Rango".  (Here's a link to check it out: Ringo Rango.)

A fun way to emphasize skip counting by 5s is doing painted handprints!  In the past, I've used a long strip of bulletin board paper and divided it into squares.  I paint the students' hands and they put it down on the paper.  Then, we go back and label the numbers under each handprint.  I hung this up along the top of my wall and the kids referred back to it all year.

For skip counting by 10s I tell the kids that crabs have 10 legs.  You can open by reading a book about crabs to grab the kids' attention.  I've uploaded a freebie presentation for you to go with crabs and 10s.

Skip Counting by 10s Freebie

I use this cut and paste activity as a quick assessment at the end of the skip counting lessons.

Skip Counting Cut & Paste Freebie

What do you do to teach skip counting??

--Mrs. Pollard

CVC Spelling Mats

I have a large ESL population in my class this year and they are really struggling with medial short vowel sounds.  I made this station to give a little more practice with this skill-- it is also helpful for vocabulary for my students.  Check it out in my TPT store!

Thanksgiving Number Order

I just uploaded a math station for November-- Thanksgiving Number Order.  Click {here} to check it out!

Welcome to Noun Town!

This past week, we have been learning about nouns.  We started by labeling items in the room-- this was a huge success because I let each student choose an item (AKA: noun) to label.  Now they are all very aware of this print in our classroom.  We read sentences and identified the nouns and wrote our own sentences using nouns.  The biggest success of all was definitely Nown Town.  I found the idea on Pinterest.  I gave each student a blank piece of paper and they could draw any noun they wanted for our town.  They also had to make a label for it.  They have not stopped creating things-- every scrap of paper and free minute is used creating something for Noun Town.  I even have some students creating their own Noun Town at home!  Awesome!

Here's our Noun Town:

*I love that our town has 2 Walmarts and that all of the cars are driving to McDonalds.  :)

And a little freebie for you....

Click {HERE} to download the sign
"Welcome to Noun Town".

--Mrs. Pollard