Fun Kid Math

Sometimes the best ideas are the ones that come up unexpectedly. Yesterday I had the pleasure of experiencing one. 

The students were joking around during a math lesson about subtraction and one kid jokingly asked, "How much is half of Austin?" 

"Oh, that's easy!" I said, "It's Alexis!"

"Wait, what?" asked my student as Alexis' ears perked up. 

"OH I GET IT!" shouted another.

Each student in my classroom has a number. It makes life so much easier and I'm sure many of you have the same system. Therefore, just use the students' names instead of numbers to make it more fun! As an added bonus, I had them do this for points for their groups. They ware all given a list of names earlier in the day (for Valentine's Day), and I told them to get it out to use if they needed to.

I made it harder too by having addition of three digits. The kids LOVED it! I plan on adding this to my board math. Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest.

A Forgotten Fowl

So last week I was mentally at a loss for things to do with my kiddo. He is almost two. We were driving each other crazy. He threw lots of fits to make my ears bleed, and I kept telling him the word, "no". This awful cycle would last for quite some time.

As I was making sure this kid was gaining the sustenance needed to continue said fits, I realized there was one activity he and I hadn't done together. It was one that I can remember doing many times as a young girl with my mother. Feeding the ducks!


There is a large (and stinky) pond near the local community college that is thriving with water foul who just want one more bite of your moldy bread. There are geese, pigeons, ducks, smaller birds, and more seagulls than you can shake a stick at. And trust me, after being there for five minutes, you'll want to shake a stick at them!


My son was excited to see the birds all around us. We came at a great time too. As you can see from the picture, we weren't the only ones who decided to help the local hungry animals. One woman dropped about four loaves of bread between her mom mobile and my humble sedan. This helped keep the birds from ripping bagels and hamburger buns out of my kid's tiny fingers.


Needless to say, the outing was a success. My breadbox was empty, my kid had an experience with his mom he hadn't had before, and I got to re-live my memories. SUCCESS!