Mrs. Cain's Favorite Things


Our favorite math things! Did anyone else run home to watch Oprah at 4:00 after school? I can literally remember being so excited to see Oprah's "Favorite Things" Christmas episodes and dreaming about having all of those things. I think we all have favorite things that we use every single day in our classroom and/or at home as teachers. Here are a few of my favorite things!

1. Favorite Holiday Activity
Sugar Cookies! I grew up sitting around the table with all my cousins making a giant mess of sprinkles and eating way too much sugar. My mom would make the sugar cookies from scratch and we would have fun using all the cookie cutters to make the perfect cookie(and sneaking some raw dough). She would then let us use icing and sprinkles galore! I know for a fact there was finger licking involved so germs were definitely being spread! My uncle would eat them anyway! On a side note, I actually do not even like sugar cookies as I am more of a pecan chocolate chip/oatmeal raisin type girl. But, I love the experience! I think this is the most important part to remember-experiences.
I am a work smarter, not harder type of mom so here are my shortcuts:

1. Buy sugar cookie dough in the rolls. I love Pillsbury!
2. Buy a couple cookie cutters from the holiday section at Walmart(they are like 97 cents). Don't go overboard. You just need a few!
3. Buy ready-to-spread icing and divide into some bowls. Let your kids count how many drops of food coloring they have used and watch as the colors change with the addition of drops.This can become a great ratio and art min-lesson!
4. My mom had a great idea to put sprinkles into cupcake liners in a cupcake pan to *hopefully* eliminate dumping of sprinkles. I told my kids to use their fingers(after we washed our hands) to get sprinkles onto the cookies.
5. Enjoy the experience! I put down towels on the floor for easy cleanup and let the kids eat a cookie(or two!). My dog licked up any fallen and left behind sprinkles. Have fun with it!

Showing off our icing and sprinkle fingers! See our dog Stella in the background?
2. Favorite Math Activity
I love, I mean LOVE all my Christmas math Coordinate Graphing Mystery Pictures. It never fails that I have students that need a refresher with the coordinate plane. We have so many standards in eighth grade that use the coordinate plane that it really is tied with my curriculum. I use my mystery pictures as a decoration as well! These make fabulous sub plans, early finisher activities or extra credit for the end of the semester. Here are two of my favorites. Click the picture to get these for your students!
Christmas Math Coordinate Graphing Mystery Picture

Christmas Math Coordinate Graphing Mystery Picture

I also love my Math Movie Questions to accompany the movie Elf, Frozen, or How the Grinch Stole Christmas. These are all standards aligned! This is a great way to have your students doing math while rewarding them with a movie!

3. Favorite Teacher Tool
Y'all! I just recently started playing around with using Google Forms to help me give feedback to my students quicker and it has been amazing! Students can use their own devices to do this! Even if you are limited with technology and are not a 1:1 school(we are not!), you can use Google Forms to create a "quiz". You can even assign feedback for incorrect answers! If you assign point values to each question it will grade it for you! Go to the settings on your Google Form and click the tab titled Quizzes. Choose the settings you want and go back to your Form to assign the correct answers and point values. I have done this with plain worksheets so I can get immediate data in one class period. This helps me see quickly who needs remediation and who needs an enrichment activity!
*Be on the lookout for a blog post soon about more details on how to make any worksheet into a Google Form Quiz!
Another favorite teacher tool is the obvious-FLAIR PENS! I thought everyone knew about these special little gems but it is still widely not known how amazing these pens are. I use them to fill in my guided notes during class, grading papers, and pretty much everything else. See below to win some for your own classroom!

→GIVEAWAY details:
I am giving away a $10 Teachers Pay Teachers gift card(will be sent through email) AND
a 12-pack of FLAIR PENS(will be sent through Amazon) to ONE awesome teacher!!
1. Simply like my Facebook Page
2. Comment on this Blog Post with one of your favorite things!

Now it's time to hop on over to Middle School Math Man's Blog to enter another giveaway! 
**Giveaway end Monday, December 18, 2017 at 8:00 P.M. EST!**







50 comments:

  1. Winter Break is one of my favorite things.

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  2. Wet erase markers on laminate... Comes off clean everytime!

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  3. Flair pens are one of my favorite things.

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  4. Laminating sheets so I don’t have to remake items and everything is washable :)

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  5. Lined Post-it Notes are one of my favorite things. (Also...I'm not on Facebook at the moment :(.)

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  6. This time a year(especially with a crazy 2 year old), one of my favorite things is COFFEE!! :)

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  7. Whiteboards and markers,not my go to but this in math it has helped so much instead of always working out of a notebook!

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  8. Christmastime with family is one of my favorite things

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  9. Flair pens are one of my favorite teacher tools. I love to write with them and all the colors they come in.

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  10. Seeing white christmas lights all throughout the winter, especially when it is snowing!!! It looks magical! Happy Holidays!

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  11. Snow, Christmas cookies, time with family and friends, Christmas music, Christmas lights, candles, hot chocolate, and all of the things Christmas time brings!

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  12. One of my favorite things is students who really appreciate learning! It makes it all worthwhile to have those few who totally enjoy learning new things!

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  13. One of my favorite things is celebrating with students.

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  14. Down time with family and friends

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  15. One of my favorite things to use as a teacher is any color flair pen :)

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  16. Writing on desks with expo markers!

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  17. Spending time with family :-)

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  18. I love making shortbread cookies with my daughter.

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  19. I always look forward to playing board games with my family until all hours of the night!

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  20. Colorful Expo markers are one of my favorite things!

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  21. Lined Post-it notes and graph paper index cards....it was a tie!

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  22. Obsessed with prismacolor pencil sharpers!

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  23. coordinate graph pictures are my favorite. Some of my students really do an awesome job!

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    1. Congratulations Darlene!! You are the winner!! I'll message you through Facebook as well or you can email me at activityaftermath@gmail.com so I can send you your prizes! :)

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  24. I love to play math games with my students for review. We have been playing connect four and they LOVE the competition and beg to keep playing...I've never had kids ask for MORE math problems until now!

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  25. My timer is one of my favorite things to keep class on track and keep the kids moving on to new things!

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  26. My students - all of them- are my favorites. They are so funny and interesting.

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  27. Driving around and looking at Christmas lights with my family. Colorful dry erase markers for writing on the board. Color by answer assignments with mystery pictures.

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  28. Sterilite clear storage boxes are one of my favorite things. I use them to organize classroom materials, stations, etc.

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  29. My favorite thing is a Teachers Pay Teachers gift card!!!!!! Yay!!!!

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  30. What a fabulous activity with grinch and Olaf. Thank you for participating in the fun “tour” of cool math sites!

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  31. Love discovering you and your products! Favorite thing...seeing my students "get it". Love seeing the "click" moment when it comes together for them!

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  32. Teachers pay teachers is my favorite thing!

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  33. Seeing my kids (@home and @ school) excited about Christmas!

    And our 12 days of Christmas dress up days.

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  34. Kahoot, Trashketball, and other fun review games!

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  35. Flair pens. I cannot grade summatives without them!

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  36. Watching Lifetime Christmas movies in my pajamas!

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  37. I love coordinate plane puzzles too!

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  38. Flair pens are also one of my favorite things!

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  39. One of my favorite things is the look on a student's eyes once they truly understand the content.

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