Five Ways to Add Some Math to Your Read Across America Celebration

Hi, Teaching Friends!

Don't you just love a good cross-curricular activity? They are one of the BEST ways to help your students build and use connections! Did you manage to put some literacy learning into your 100th Day celebration? And now, how will you add some standards-based math work into your Read Across America festivities?

Here are five ideas to get you started ... and most require little or no prep or printing!


1. Build a timeline! You've probably already got a big stack of books all rready to use on Read Across America Day. Give each of your students a book (or work in pairs if you're short on books) and a sticky note. Have them write the title and the copyright on the paper, and then use the stickies to build a timeline together.


2. Make tally marks all day long! If your school is like mine, you'll be having "Stop, Drop, and Read" several times throughout the day. Tally how many minutes you spend each time... and every time you add more tallies, choose a student to lead the class in counting them all again!


3. Make a Seuss-themed class book about math. How about a sums of ten book, based on Ten Apples Up on Top? Your students can draw self-portraits, with hands out on either side of them to hold the apples. Give each child 10 apple stickers to divide as they wish between their hands and write the number model. Pop a cover on, bind it, done!


4.  Will you be giving your students special pencils... or stickers... or erasers? Why not put these items to good learning use before you hand them out?  Small items like these are great for estimation activities. Here's a "Sid the Science Guy" video from my First Grade Math Pinterest board that demonstrates a strategy for estimating. What a great way to introduce this activity! While you're watching, keep an eye out for Gerald, who's sure to remind you of at least one of your own students.
Sorry the video isn't embedded, but it's an easy click through.

5. Last but not least, here's a set of two class graphs for collecting and organizing data about your students' reading preferences... because after 10 years of teaching a literacy intervention class where literacy was an element in almost everything we did, I'm pretty much a cross-curricular diehard!  :)
Click here or on the image to download your graph set!

Happy Teaching!