Skip Counting in the Classroom

How did everyone's day go? We had a staff meeting before school today to just be around each other and get some advice as to how to approach today. It was basically suggested that nothing be discussed unless a student brings it up. Thankfully, my students all came into the classroom all cheery and happy and no comments about the events that happened last Friday. We were able to have a normal day which was good because we had quite a busy day today!

Something I wanted to share from our activities today is our review of skip counting. Due to last week being all minimum days, I felt like I didn't really spend enough time on all our math lessons last week. I figured rather than start new material the week before winter break, it would be a better idea to review last week's material.  So today, we reviewed skip counting. I originally had all these winter-themed skip counting worksheets I found online that I was going to use. However, while the kids were doing their practice round on the 2 minute math facts test, an idea came to me. (Don't you love when that happens?)

I wrote on the board...How many heads? How many hands? How many feet? How many fingers? Then I told that students that we were going review our skip counting by counting the total number of body parts in the classroom. But before we could do that, we would need to figure out which way we were going to skip count to find the answer. The kids really loved this!

Counting hands and feet by 2s was rough! 

Then, we created a tree map on the board and the kids came up with other things on our bodies that we could skip count. They came up with some great things!

Haha, of course I definitely feel like I can refine this lesson better if I had more time to plan! But I still think this was a good way to approach it. Also brought in some problem solving skills too! Maybe during winter break I will create a worksheet to go along with this lesson. We shall see. :)

Just wanted to share! Hope everyone's day went well! :)