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A Few of the Best 100 Days of School Dress Up Costumes!

Published February 2, 2013 | By Ms. K

The following are some of the best 100 days of school dress up that we had. We incorporated our Math Family Night with our Students’ 100th day of School Celebration. I sent this letter that I used last year to inform parents of the day’s dress up celebration. Again I used a rubric I adapted from Ms. Saoud’s blog at Primary Graffiti here.

Which costume do you like best?

Which child’s costume do you think won?

I’ll tell you at the end of the post!

My favorites are the “Name Your Own Star” –how clever…and the wrestlers belt–how creative! I also especially like the student in the school uniform with the notes safety pinned to her because it looks very kid done! Each note has a different word on it.

Here is my favorite staff dress up outfit.

We also had a couple of staff members who dressed up like they were a hundred years old. They had walkers and all! One of our staff members had a sign on her front that said I am 100 years old. On her back she had a question that asked, “When was I born?” The kids had to bring her the answer written on a piece of paper.

I have a thing for puffballs, so I used 100 puffballs to make a scarf of sorts. It didn’t quite turn out like I had wanted. I used hot glue, so it was a bit stiff. I glued all the puffballs to a ribbon. Maybe if I was more of a seamstress it could have been a real scarf! Nevertheless the kids loved the scarf and wanted to touch the puffs. I gave the scarf away to one of the kids who asked me if he could have it at the end of the day. I guess you get to see my totally cute new phone cover in the picture, too! What an added perk!

To answer your question if you were wondering which child won from above, the first picture won of the little girl in the red shirt with all of the beads hanging down from safety pins.

Maribeth Alexander liked this post

What Will You Do for Family Math Night?

Published January 30, 2012 | By Ms. K

After previously being at a PTA meeting, one of our parents voiced her opinion that many times students brought home homework with which parents weren’t able to help them because they were unfamiliar with the content. Since our parents have been in school themselves, many math strategies and methods are available to teach students–to mention a few–ten frames, ladder division, open number lines, compensation, bring it down addition, window method for multiplication. Because of this we set up five stations for our parents in addition to the stations for our students. We really wanted to reach our parents because isn’t that what Family Math Night is all about?

We had six parent stations to teach parents what their children were learning at school–ten frames, addition strategies, subtraction strategies, multiplication strategies, division strategies, and technology. The technology station gained much traffic due to its popularity. We had a lap top d and an Ipad displaying websites and apps that parents could use at home to teach their children. Many times when parents are sitting with their children in any waiting room, they hand their children cell phones to occupy them. To capitalize on this, why not show them educational ways to occupy their children’s time?

For our students teachers developed all types of math stations. We had three K-2 tables, three 3-5 stations, an estimation station, a technology station, and a music and math station. The K-2 tables included dominoes and equations, ten frame games, and legos with number bonds. The 3-5 tables included combinations with outfits, clock fractions, and measurement with paper airplanes. Our technology booth for students was also a big success as students explored different math websites on laptops.

To encourage parent attendance, we served dinner, had door prizes, and announced our 100th Day of School dress up winners. We hope for even more attendance next year. Pictured below are some of the stations and activities.

Clock Fractions

Cutting Clock Fractions...Notice the 100 Silly Bands

Estimation Station...The closest guesser wins the jar.

Estimation Station

Equations with Dominoes

Addition/Subtraction Tic Tac Toe and Take Home Base Ten Block Baggies

The addition/subtraction tic-tac-toe boards and take home base ten blocks shown above are present at a parent table. We have an over abundance of base ten blocks at school. We have about 10 LARGE plastic containers of them that are not used in addition to the ones in teachers’ classrooms. Since we have so many, we decided to send some home with parents.