Pumpkins and Polygons

I decided that it would be fun to introduce measurement of weight (grams and kilograms) by using pumpkins (actually winter squash because, as you know, there are NO pumpkins here!) so I set up my center activities this week with that in mind.

Center 1: weighing pumpkins, converting grams to kilograms and back again, doing a little addition and subtraction with pumpkin weights, estimating pumpkin weights, holding different gram and kilogram weights... fun stuff.

Center 2: reviewing polygons and lines of symmetry (I stress the "reviewing" word here!) with nice bright orange shapes to fold and glue. Very hands on!

Center 3: reviewing place value by rolling fun foam place value dice with a group and then solving problems related to the 4-digit number that was rolled.

Center 4: practicing time - matching analogue, digital and written times with a cut and paste activity.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?!! 

This was NOT a sensible thing to do the day after a week of half term holiday!! My kiddies had clearly forgotten just about everything we did before the holidays - sigh.

There were some very....ummmm.... "interesting" answers on those papers. 

So today we went back to the drawing board with polygons and lines of symmetry and painstakingly, with lots of different colored pencils, drew lines of symmetry on regular polygons before playing a loud and boisterous team game at the end to see how much they remembered.

And... I breathed again. :) MUCH better. :)

Lesson learned - allow for a day of acclimatization before embarking on center work. :)