Monday Math and Menu Plan

Happy Monday my friends! We had such a busy and fun weekend that I wish I had more time to share with you all the excitement and fun, but we spent a lot of time in the sun, at the movies and of course together! Today brings a new week that we are looking forward to and I plan on sharing some fun tips and good times we had .

UNO MATH!

Play as though playing real UNO, though before putting your card down onto the existing stack, multiply the 2 numbers! For younger players, they can add or subtract the 2 numbers. Fun and so simple to play!

♥ Making Math Fun! ♥
My 7 year old is mastering his multiplication tables and in a way for him to do well on his timed tests, we play games to help him learn them! Can be played alone of with many people!

This one is so simple and only uses a 2 dice, graph paper a marker and colored pencils (Number of pencils varies based on how many are playing). Make sure at least 1 die goes to 9 or both can go to 9 or however high or low you would like to start with.

Roll the dice and multiply the 2 numbers in your head. Say answer aloud and then begin working on the graph paper. Mark the boxes across from 1 die and then mark the boxes down from the second die to make a box. Color in the entire area and then count each and every box colored. Is the answer the same as what you worked out in your head? Write the correct answer in the box you colored. At the end of the game, each person adds up their boxes and the one with the highest area covered (or highest score) on the paper wins!

Monday: Grilled Chicken Salad with Homemade Greek Dressing

Tuesday: Polish Sausage and Potato Pancakes with Green Beans

Wednesday: Shitake Angel Hair Pasta with Garden Salad

Thursday: Keema Aloo served over Jasmine Rice with Naan

Friday: Avocado Ham Sandwiches with Homemade Pasta Salad for our Picnic in the Park with Movies!

Avocado Egg Salad is my Healthy Alternative to Egg Salad!

Swap out the Mayo for Avocado and then add in some cilantro and a squirt of lime and it's so delish!

My children like to eat it with cucumber slices. 

12 Eggs

2 Avocados

Chopped Cilantro

Juice of 1/2 small lime

1 celery stalk chopped

Salt & Pepper to taste

Dash of Paprika

Mix all ingredients together to desired consistency. Serve on rolls or with veggies!

Enjoy every minute my friends and have a wonderful week!

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Math Fun!

Let me tell you a secret...I HATE MATH...Okay, that's putting it mildly. I think it comes true to what it all boils down to though. We often hate that which we don't understand. I was hospitalized in my 4th grade year for a very long time and a very crucial part of that year. I missed much of the basics that led me to being a poor match student. I struggled every which way til Sunday with Math and because I had ZERO confidence in my skills, I always scraped by in each class. SCRAPED. College years were HELL because I felt too stupid to ask for help and and just sat and struggled. To do it all over again, I would have asked for help back in the 4th grade. I NEVER EVER want my kids to go through that. I am going into Math with a FUN outlook and at the same time......taking on a new adventure. I plan on starting from the bottom up. I am going to learn with them regain the confidence that I plan on putting into them. Together we will all grow strong in math and learn to love it. My children don't know I hate Math, in fact, they think it's my favorite subject and you know what? It slowly is getting there. S...l...o...w...l...y...Take a tour of our classroom, and focus on our Math centers!

Colorful charts decorate our room, the bolder and more colorful the better. I hang them on cup hooks, so that they can easily be interchanged. There are a few posters on this hook and right along with them, I have coordinating flashcards. This becomes a center where children can sit with flashcards and compare or test themselves with a dry erase marker. Anything they can think of, they can use it for. Having them be interchangeable allows me to cover up any particular one if there is a test that day.

Math games, counters and pattern blocks aplenty in this room! We love to play them all and even when it's not class time! Confession: I buy everything at Thrift Shops or Garage Sales! That is how I can afford to keep purchasing them when I find one.

Our Hundreds chart gets used and used often. This is the 2nd one our family has had to buy. My youngest loves to count using a dry erase marker and keep track of how high he can go each day. He marks where he struggles and starts from the beginning again.

Our Math manipulative cabinet is chock full of great things. Money, flashcards, card games along with window games and a multiplication electronic game. This corner of the classroom is a favorite.

I even like to make up Math games to keep the variety flowing. We like to incorporate real life Math into our activities that I call Math We Can Use! Here is where we use real newspaper ads and our fake money. I give the children a grocery list and they have to find those items and tally up the total. Then I give them a set amount of money and they have to subtract the total from their money. We change this one up in different ways to keep it fresh. 

Instead of a Math notebook, we keep math folders. Their folders have different reference points in them to assist each child in whatever they may be working on. I will go into more detail on these in tomorrows post but this one holds:
Gallon Measurements
Place Value and Decimals
Regrouping
Length/Capacity/Weight Measurements
Multiplication Chart
Division Chart

What do you do to make math fun?

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Making Math Fun!

My children study their Math flashcards every evening and believe me, it gets OLD! They like to spice it up every now and then, so it's not the same thing constantly! I bought a Large Foam Math Dice Set & a pack of 100 numbers flashcards. Roll the die to see if we are adding or subtracting and then pick 2 cards at random from the numbers pile. (we keep them in a bucket and you just reach in and pull). If you need scratch paper for the larger numbers you are free to use it, but the idea is to answer as quickly as possible! This turns studying in to a fun game!

How many of us does this describe???

Yes, it really is!