Meet Furball and **Freebie**

Meet Furball. Mrs. King's Class Pet.  And yes, my students named him. We have Jungle Explorers of the Week (star students) and this little guy gets to spend the whole week at the home of the *Explorer.*

A while back I saw where Abby posted about her son bringing home a "class pet." I knew I wanted to do this in my classroom because as a parent myself, I would eat this up. I think it offers a great opportunity for my kids to journal about an experience. I wasn't sure if all my parents would be on board, but they have been all for it!  My students take home a simple journal, a book called The Lion Hunt, and Mr. Furball.  I asked them to take a few pictures and write about their journey with our friend.  Here are some of my favorites:

 Reading to our Sweet Friend (or two :)) 

 Catching some zzzz's.

Constructing Gingerbread Houses

Attending Church

And absolute FAVORITE- playingConnect Four with an Elf on the Shelf :)

Next on the agenda... working on our Number Sense. All we hear from the older teachers--- number sense, number sense, number sense. They can perform operations or steps that we give them, but they can't talk about numbers well.  This complaint is one reason I pushed for Work Stations this year (And I def think it is paying off!).  If you have read any of my math posts, you know I love Everyday math and often refer back to it.  I remember doing missing number puzzles and 10 more, 10 less, 1 more, 1 less all the time. I tried to create something for my kids reminiscent of that! The best thing about this activity is it can be used over and over again, since the students choose the numbers. You all are getting the updated version since my kids proved to me that they definitely shouldn't be getting into negative numbers in that top row (I LOVE to challenge my kids, but I am not going near negative numbers with a ten foot pole).

You should be able to click on the picture to get the activity and a number chart to 120 (Yay Common Core).

Last but not least, remember how I really, really like Teacher Tipster. Well I really, really like this idea!

Here are my cuties working on those addition facts!!!

Hope you found an idea that you like!