Arrays, Leaves, and a Special Card!

This popped up in my mailbox yesterday!

A thank you card from our dear friends in West Liberty, KY! My kids were serious jumpin' in their jeans. They were so excited to see that the books they had donated had found their new home and that we have some newfound friends! Such a wonderful surprise, and I am so happy we could be a part of this opportunity to extend a hand!

In other news, we are in review mode in math! And I am trying to make this reviewing thing as exciting as possible! I downloaded this great multiplication array activity from Amy Lemons awhile back, and thought this was just the perfect time to use it!

So while my students were at lunch, I taped these fun little arrays in different places all around our room.

Now I am going to preface this by saying don't judge my awful white out job- but it was a quick fix and I wanted the activity in Spanish for my kiddos. But here is the activity sheet the kiddos were presented with to record their responses. They had to share how many rows of squares there are, and then write the number model and solve to match. (Amy's original looks way better, I promise!)

After explaining the activity- they were off. Seriously- for a lovely sunny day right after lunch- they have never been so engaged! Such a hit!

I will say it took awhile since the cards go from A-R and they had to hunt for them- but it was totally worth it, and it was great repeated practice with arrays. To snag a copy of "I Spy Arrays" for yourself, click here. And thank Amy Lemons for the great idea!

During the afternoon we also did a little leaf investigation as we continue through our plant unit. I asked all of my students to bring a leaf from home. To start our lesson they did an "open" leaf sort. Classifying them as they saw fit. Then we took some time to learn about the two types of leaves "simple"(hoja sencilla) and "compound" (hoja compuesta). After this, the students reclassified their leaves into these two groups. 

Finally, they each had to select a leaf from each group to complete a rubbing as a resource for them to remember the two types of leaves! Here are some examples of our rubbings:

(This one decided to use the most humongous leaf on the planet on her little paper :))

Happy Hump Day!