Happy Half Day!

Dear Bloggets,
I have to confess that I am still trying to find my voice as a blogger.  I had to laugh when I looked back at my recent posts and saw art, art, and more art.  Even I began to wonder if art was all I ever did in class!!  So ... I am going to try my best to present other aspects of my class.  Here goes!!!!

I love math so I take every opportunity I can to celebrate numbers.  Friday was a very special day in my class ... "Half Day" which is our halfway point in the school year.  On this special day I expose my students to fractions.  Our California math standards make no mention of fractions until second grade.  But I believe it is important to expose children to fractions earlier than that.  So on Friday my kinders and first graders took part in several simple activities relating to halves.
For example:

• I read several books on fractions including Eating Fractions.
• Students put halves of matching snowflakes together
• Students drew lines to cut shapes in half on our (new, beloved) Smartboard
• Students folded papers in half.
• Students completed HALF of a worksheet (oh, they loved this one!!!).  The first graders started cheering when I tore their worksheets in half (prior to passing them out) in honor of Half Day.

Throughout the day we did half of this and half of that.  By the end of the day, the children had a beginning understanding of fractions, but more importantly, they had a great deal of fun!  They can hardly wait for our next number celebrarion: Hundreds Day!

Love to all,

Camille