Place Value and a Freebie

I have been completely stressing this weekend about my next evaluation and I don't know why. If you talk to me any day of the week I would tell you (as cool as a cucumber) how much I don't care about these evaluations and how this is not a big deal. I keep saying it in the back of my head but I can't get the next one out of my head!! With this said, I spent all day Saturday thinking about what I was going to do during this math eval. We are studying place value right now so it wouldn't make much sense for me to do anything different but I want to make sure I hit all those "instructional" components. So, after spending all day yesterday racking my brain and writing a lesson plan which was pretty lame, I woke up this morning and knew exactly what to do.

I am not going to go through my whole lesson plan that is jam-packed but I do want to share a couple things I will be doing and, of course, give you part of it :) To start my lesson (you know that ol' anticipatory set) we are going to play "I have, Who has? Place Value". I created some cards today. After I get them laminated I am going to make sure my kiddos are well-versed in the rules of this game. I am thinking they are going to love it! Click here to get your copy of the game!

I made some really cool "Place Value Pinch Cards" to use for a formative assessments (just one out of the five assessments they require--I mean if you want to be that star #5 teacher!). I am only assessing through the tens place but we will probably learn the hundreds place later on.

I made these from some paint chips from Home Depot- I am sure they thought I was crazy taking 24 random colors of Disney paint. If you are closer to Lowes I am sure they have a better selection of paint chips if you want to go above the tens place. Home Depot did not have a large selection. Then I printed out these strips and will laminate. I was super excited about how cute these were.

After we work on expanded form whole group, we will do some partner/small group practice with this partner activity. Students can use the picture, but will also have access to rods and units if they prefer. My last critique in an evaluation was that I needed to improve on grouping (I pulled names out of a bag to make groups last time); so, this time I want to make sure my evaluater sees that I am taking their critiques and trying to improve (I mean there isn't that much room for improvement!! lol--just joking). If you would like to use this partner activity click here.

If you have any other tips for me please share!

My evaluation isn't until Thursday so we will be busy this week getting the room ready with tons of student work and I will be posting all the fun things we are doing this week. We are studying MLK all week and the hundreth day of school is Wednesday. Hope ya'll have a great week and enjoy the one more day off this weekend! I am going to try!