One is A Snail, Ten is a Crab

My friend Erin (who is super and should do her own blog - hint hint) recommended the book One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab by April Pulley Sayre. Its a must get book for elementary math. I'll expand on this post in the future, but for now just go buy a copy. It's great.

5 Little Pumpkins

5 Little Pumpkins Sitting on the Gate
The first one says, Oh my it's getting late
The second one says, Oh I don't care
The third one says *pumpkin pie is in the air
The fourth one says Let's run and run and run
The fifth one says - It's Halloween Fun
OOOOOOOO went the wind
Out went the lights
And five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

This is a great little finger play rhyme that I am using this week to work on ordinal numbers.
* This rhyme actually says, "There's witches in the air", but I don't do witches. I most defiantly do pumpkin pie, so I changed it!

How We Count

• When we are counting by ones, we pat our legs.
• When we count by tens we use "flashing tens". We hold up all ten fingers and flash them each time we count up. Since we have 10 fingers, we are adding 10 everytime.
• When we count by 5's, we swim. We have 5 fingers on each hand, so each time one hand "swims" forward, we are adding 5 more.
• When we count by 2's we whisper the odd numbers (every other number) and say the even numbers (2,4,6,8) outloud. 1,2,3,4,5,6