Math with Peeps

After seeing how cheap Peeps were at Walmart, I could't pass up the opportunity to reward my kiddos for a week of good behavior.  I just had to think up a way to make eating Peeps delicious and educational at the same time.

I just wanted to share what I created because I am proud of it :)

I decided we would take predict the class' favorite Peep color and then tally up the totals.  After that I handed out two peeps per student (no eating yet!).  They counted up their table groups totals, wrote them on the worksheet.  Then I assigned each table group a reporter, tallied the totals up front, we summed up the totals together and then graphed them.  So much fun!   Oh and after that - they got to gobble them up!

Click here to download the document
Graphing Peeps Worksheet

Easter Crafts for the First Graders

I love tying together crafts and learning. I was subbing in a first grade classroom for almost 2 weeks and decided I would throw in some crafts as classroom rewards for good behavior.

The first craft was a bunny topper for a writing piece. I read the story "It's Not Easy Being a Bunny" aloud, charted some commentary from our whole class discussion, and had the kids partner talk. They chose from two prompts: 'It's not easy being a bunny,...' and 'If I were a bunny...'. The kiddos then wrote a rough draft and conferred with a partner. When they were ready they received the materials for the craft.

I originally created these bunny toppers after being inspired by the Leaping Leprechaun toppers made by A Cupcake For the Teacher. Then after painstakingly hand drawing my bunny patterns, I saw that she uploaded her own bunny craftivity. It is called Bunny Hop and you can buy it in her TpT store if you like the idea.  She is one creative teacher, I love following her blog.

The other craft we did was a stained glass Easter egg using contact paper, construction paper, tissue paper and glue. They turned out so awesome! To sprinkle in some learning, we reviewed patterns, charted the different kinds, then demonstrated how each row of our Easter Eggs could be a different pattern using the tissue squares. Some kids latched onto this idea more than others. I loved them all anyway!

You can find the instructions for this stained glass Easter egg project here.

Happy Easter, friends!