Keeping Up With Kirbys

Well, it's a good thing that Valentine's Day is tomorrow because my kids need a reminder of what is so GREAT about each other.   We will spend the VERY first part of our morning making and then PROUDLY wearing our necklaces.  I will place 6 colored hearts on each child's desk.  The students will BE CHALLENGED to silently walk around the room and write "what they LOVE" about each other on the hearts. Once all hearts have been written on they will go back to their desks, cut out their hearts and string them on a necklace to share with everyone. You can get the template for the hearts here . I hope you have a LOVELY day.:-)

I LOVE teaching my 2nd graders the beginning of multiplication and division.  They feel all grown up and like true mathematicians!!  Their littles eyes light up and they act like they can now conquer the world.  Nothing else matters as far they are concerned.  Adding, subtracting, regrouping, borrowing...who needs that?!  We can multiply and divide. I think I enjoy teaching this to the kids because it is a nice break from borrowing and regrouping -- which is a gray hair creator for teachers.  And if you asked 9 out of 10 second graders what they want to learn in 2nd grade they will say "times", which means multiplication. We used Laura Numeroff books to get us started.  First we read If You Give a Pig a Pancake  and then make a list of all the things that we could put on top of a pancake and create their multiplication problem with a craftivity to match her books. I've created templates for a variety of her books, math work mats to help work out the p