A Math-y Five for Friday

I Am So EXCITED!  I love 5 for Friday.  It helps me reflect on my week. And I am always random...so that is easy.  I am most certainly linking up today.  Math has been my focus lately.  Reading, making, thinking...so I wanted to make this a math-y post today.

1.
We will start off a little personal.  TEN is the number of the day.  My Ben and I have been married for 10 years today (together for 17...but that's a different number).  We went out and celebrated last night with a great dinner at a restaurant that is all underground.  Tables are lit by candlelight :)  Here is a picture!

2. 
Number sense is one of my big focuses this year!  I have been reading Math Coach's Corner like a crazy woman.  One thing she talked this summer were number bracelets.  You can check out her post.  So I made some for our guided math groups this year.  And the BONUS: it helped my girls work on some fine motor skills :)

3.
Natalie and I sat down last week to hammer out ideas for this year in math.  We came up with a clear focus of how we wanted our guided math to look and flow.  We like to start our math groups with some "quick math" activities.  This is reviewing certain skills quickly (time, shapes, missing number, etc).  Last year we just did this on a white board with our firsties.  But this year, we are taking a different approach.  I made up some blank templates/sheets that we will use for each group.  They will fit in sheet protectors so that we can make up new problems each day with the template.  They will look something like this (but for many different skills):

4.
SsssOooo....if I am going to use these sheets above everyday and they need to be in sheet protectors AND I will be at my small group table, I need something effective, efficient, and handy to store these sheets in or on.  I started doing some searching and found a tutorial for a cardboard easel on eHow.  I decided to try it. 

I used an old Target box that I had.

Cut it up.

Taped the bottom together.

And there it is! My easel.  But it needed some flair.

I bought lime green tape.

I added my sheets to it with binder clips and voila!

It is not perfect, by any means, so don't look too closely.  But I do love it!

5.
We go back to school in exactly 19 days.  I will start going in next week to set up my little areaS and help my team out with their rooms.  The summer went by so fast but I have enjoyed every minute.