Spinning with The Pigeon

TL/DR: There's a pretty cute and easy free game at the bottom.

Is the weather horrible where you are? If it is, I apologize. It's almost assuredly because I have yard duty this week. When I am on yard duty, it is guaranteed that it will be terrible weather. Not complaining though....just saying. If yard duty is my least favorite thing about elementary school, that's not such a bad thing. There are so many more magical moments that more than make up for it. Sorta. ;)

One thing I love to do with The Littles is to bring things they love out from our books into the world with us. As you've heard me complain explain before, I'm doing Daily 5 with my class this year. I don't have an extensive class library to fuel the wide range of reading levels, so I've been getting beginner chapter books from the public library. I've found that if I want them to read Henry and Mudge, I have to read it to them first. Same way I got them interested in Frog and Toad. Once I read it to them, the titles fly off the shelf. One such series is the "sister" series to Henry and Mudge, called Annie and Snowball. These are stories about Henry's cousin (and neighbor) and her pet bunny.

We noticed that on every page, the bunny was sort of cleverly hanging out somewhere in the picture. And right around that same time, one of my students gave me a palm-of-my-hand sized stuffed white bunny. So I started hiding the bunny around the room, and when they'd discover it, I'd move it when they went to recess or left for home for the day. Then they'd discover it again, over and over. Oh my! So much joy in that moment! I just laugh and laugh when they point and jump and exclaim over where they've found that silly little bunny!

Here's the little bunny on top of the loudspeaker in our classroom. 

Today, they found her perched on top of the overhead screen.

Okay, back to math! haha! This is actually a mathy story, because for our math games, which I'm in the middle of rotating out, I made a fun little spinner game (for recording: spin, tally, graph.... add/compare options) and they can't get enough of these activities. They just think they are so fun! So for this one, the four options on the spinner are each from a book we've read together. The bear from Ira Sleeps Over, the purse from Lily's Purple Plastic Purse, that crazy bike from the original Splat the Cat, and finally a hot dog from The Pigeon Wants a Hot Dog. They loved these books, and they loved seeing these old friends incorporated into a math game. 

You can download from my google drive here:

* Spin and Record with Literature Connections
* Y por los chicos y las chicas

Logistics: These are color prints. For the math box, I print 3 copies of the spinner itself (which go into sheet protectors), throw in a few generic clear spinners that they overlay on the spinner page, and include a matching number of recording sheets, also in sheet protectors. In the tub are also 3 expo markers and a swatch of felt they can use to erase their work on the plastic protector of the recording sheet. I don't have unlimited ink budgets, so this is a good compromise. I also reserve the right to print the color pages in black and white, but they seem fine so far with just erasing their work at the end of their work period.