a Rafflecopter giveaway
We hope you will share your made-its by linking up below!
All the best--
Showing posts with label linkies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label linkies. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Makin' It Math Mid-Month Linky -- April
Welcome to this month's Makin' It Math mid-month linky! If you are a blogger, feel free to join us by adding your link at the end of this post. Check out the details here!
This month, I put together two sets of task cards for measurement and geometry. I also updated my money task cards to include QR Codes. AND since I usually include at least one freebie in my make-it posts, I will be giving away three sets! If your name is drawn, you pick the set you like best! Just enter the rafflecopter to win...
a Rafflecopter giveaway
We hope you will share your made-its by linking up below!
All the best--
a Rafflecopter giveaway
We hope you will share your made-its by linking up below!
All the best--
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Makin' It Math Mid-Month Linky -- Money, Money, Money!
Glad you stopped by! Welcome to our Makin' It Math Mid-Month Linky--a linky dedicated solely to math made-its. If you are interested in linking up your math made-its, check out the details by clicking the logo below. We would love to have you join us!
Our kids have been working a lot with money in the past few weeks, and are quickly becoming money masters! We thought we would give you an inside look at our explorations and share some made-its.
Our money explorations began with a simple pretest. Students were asked to name each coin, tell the value of each coin, and count a small selection of coins (if able). Students were pulled to do the assessment individually with real coins while other students were engaged in math game play. This quick assessment made it easy to group students based on need. Four groups were formed and guided instruction of small groups began.
Small Guided Math Groups
The following have been key in our small guided groups:
Students carefully counted in their heads as their peer counted aloud. Students then agreed or disagreed and gave proof. Discussions of how coins were counted (order) happened here as well.
Independent Practice
The following are a few independent practice opportunities we provided for students to work on while meeting with guided math groups (differentiated based on each group's needs and all designed for practice of money skills). Please feel free to download any you can use. Some were created this year and others we have used for several years.
Coins in My Pocket Journal Prompts - These prompts can easily be differentiated. My kids use half-sized notebook journals and simply cut and paste the prompts and solve.
"Show What You Know" independent tasks (premade/teacher created activity sheets, roam the room activities, Scoot activities, What's a Word Worth?, etc.) that can be used as assessment:
I don't find too many premade activity sheets that I like, but I inherited an OLD version of this workbook years ago. I think it's one of those for parents to use at home, not sure. It's great! It follows a logical progression of practice from like coins to pennies and nickels, pennies/nickels/dimes, etc. It also has some great problem solving sheets. I pick and choose the sheets to use based on student need and place them in folders labeled A, B, and or C. Cups of coins are always made available for use with these activity sheets.
What's a Word Worth? -- I'm sure you have seen or used something like this before. Students can use any word list and the coin key to figure out what each word is worth. I have three different sheets made and labeled A,B, and C so students practice with the coins they can count independently.
Counting Coins Scoot: Stop back to download soon!
Games:
Bank It! Board Game - This game can be played after students have learned to count pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. It requires addition and subtraction of coins. My kids love this! Games like these are easy to send home for at-home practice.
You may also like my This Little Piggy! Money Fun games on TpT.
Workstations (task cards, money bag activities, etc.):
Money Bags!: Coin Tasks - This differentiated workstation is used with bags of coins (fill with coins appropriate to student need).
You may also like my Show Me the Money! task cards on TpT.
Assessment
Ongoing assessment is easily done in guided groups. Much is assessed through observation. Courtney and I also created a performance task that we use to assess students' levels of mastery. Please feel free to download, Suzy's Piggy Bank. If you use this task, we would love to hear your comments and thoughts about how it went. Feel free to email us anytime!
Please share your thoughts and ideas in a comment OR link your blog post up with us!
All the best--
Our kids have been working a lot with money in the past few weeks, and are quickly becoming money masters! We thought we would give you an inside look at our explorations and share some made-its.
Our money explorations began with a simple pretest. Students were asked to name each coin, tell the value of each coin, and count a small selection of coins (if able). Students were pulled to do the assessment individually with real coins while other students were engaged in math game play. This quick assessment made it easy to group students based on need. Four groups were formed and guided instruction of small groups began.
Small Guided Math Groups
The following have been key in our small guided groups:
- the use of coins that students can touch/feel and manipulate
- mastery of coin identification and values before moving on to counting (some groups moved on sooner than others and students who showed mastery quickly were worked into a different group)
- a gradual progression in coin counting (mastery of counting like coins and adding coins from least to greatest--pennies and nickels; pennies, nickels, and dimes; pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters)
- multiple opportunities to count random groups of coins and write the total value using numbers and symbols (students would count a collection of coins for the group two times and the other students in the group would agree/disagree, recount to check accuracy, and discuss order in which coins were counted)
- acceptance and discussion of multiple ways of counting (including discussion of counting on coins to create landmark tens for ease of counting remainder of coins)
- self and peer-evaluation and justifying of thinking
- use of the open number line to illustrate how coins were counted
- lots and lots of practice
Students carefully counted in their heads as their peer counted aloud. Students then agreed or disagreed and gave proof. Discussions of how coins were counted (order) happened here as well.
Students showed their thinking with an open number line.
Students evaluated their peers and provided justification for their thinking. The students on the left drew faces to provide evaluation for their fellow classmates as they worked their way from desk to desk around the room.
Students showed multiple ways to represent a dollar.
Independent Practice
The following are a few independent practice opportunities we provided for students to work on while meeting with guided math groups (differentiated based on each group's needs and all designed for practice of money skills). Please feel free to download any you can use. Some were created this year and others we have used for several years.
Coins in My Pocket Journal Prompts - These prompts can easily be differentiated. My kids use half-sized notebook journals and simply cut and paste the prompts and solve.
"Show What You Know" independent tasks (premade/teacher created activity sheets, roam the room activities, Scoot activities, What's a Word Worth?, etc.) that can be used as assessment:
I don't find too many premade activity sheets that I like, but I inherited an OLD version of this workbook years ago. I think it's one of those for parents to use at home, not sure. It's great! It follows a logical progression of practice from like coins to pennies and nickels, pennies/nickels/dimes, etc. It also has some great problem solving sheets. I pick and choose the sheets to use based on student need and place them in folders labeled A, B, and or C. Cups of coins are always made available for use with these activity sheets.What's a Word Worth? -- I'm sure you have seen or used something like this before. Students can use any word list and the coin key to figure out what each word is worth. I have three different sheets made and labeled A,B, and C so students practice with the coins they can count independently.
Counting Coins Scoot: Stop back to download soon!
Games:
Bank It! Board Game - This game can be played after students have learned to count pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. It requires addition and subtraction of coins. My kids love this! Games like these are easy to send home for at-home practice.
You may also like my This Little Piggy! Money Fun games on TpT.
Workstations (task cards, money bag activities, etc.):
Money Bags!: Coin Tasks - This differentiated workstation is used with bags of coins (fill with coins appropriate to student need).
Assessment
Ongoing assessment is easily done in guided groups. Much is assessed through observation. Courtney and I also created a performance task that we use to assess students' levels of mastery. Please feel free to download, Suzy's Piggy Bank. If you use this task, we would love to hear your comments and thoughts about how it went. Feel free to email us anytime!
Please share your thoughts and ideas in a comment OR link your blog post up with us!
All the best--
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Number Talks Book Study - Chapter 2, Cont. & Makin' It Math Linky
Good day! Today's post serves two purposes---the continuation of our book study of Number Talks, by Sherry Parrish, and our mid-month Makin' It Math linky. Therefore, make-its will be intertwined in a discussion of Chapter 2.
To read my previous Number Talks discussion of Chapter 1, and the beginning of Chapter 2, please CLICK HERE!
Chapter 2: How Do I Prepare for Number Talks, continued.
First, I would like to share how my students got prepared for number talks. My students do A LOT of talking about math--explaining their thinking, justifying their solutions, comparing/contrasting their strategy use with that of their classmates, assessing the reasonableness of solutions--all while showing respect for their fellow classmates. BUT, I wanted to introduce my students to the Number Talk procedures outlined in the text because there were components of number talks that I had not used. I felt my students would benefit greatly from the consistency in procedures as well.
We began, as we do with anything "new", by making a list of expectations. We did this at the beginning of the year when preparing for what we call math "chats", so I thought it fitting to do the same with number talks. I talked to my students about how a number talk would work and asked them to generate a list of behaviors they felt would be important to show during this time. It's interesting how the first two behaviors on their list are almost directly stated from our social skills program and are quite fitting. Loved how "think together" was put on the list. I helped them with the word "praise" as a description of the kinds of positive things we say to one another when sharing ideas, even when there are some errors in thinking.
I also introduced the silent hand signals they would be using during number talks. We practiced them several times before having our first "official" number talk. The signals are posted as reminders, yet they will not be needed long... Feel free to download these simple posters by clicking the pic below.
I felt my students were ready to go, so I had to make sure I was ready.
Chapter 2 helped to prepare me...
After sharing four procedures and expectations essential to number talks, Sherry Parrish goes on to help teachers understand how important it is to anticipate the ways students will come to a solution. She suggests thinking through the possible strategies students may use to solve a given problem. Even if you are not able to anticipate all of the strategies students will use, preparing yourself ahead of time in this way will increase your ability to understand what is being shared during the number talk. Parrish also stresses the importance of thinking about how you will record students' thinking so that it clearly illustrates each strategy for students.
Below you will see some pictures of how I recorded students' thinking during two different number talks. I will be recording on the SmartBoard just as soon as my computer glitches are fixed. This will be a nice way to store records for easy reference. For now, I am doing it on chart paper.
I chose the problems carefully as suggested early in chapter 2. The majority of my students' understanding of place value is strong, and many use this understanding when adding two digit number, yet I wanted the whole class to see how making a landmark or "friendly" number can work (a strategy that some students have worked with in small guided math groups).
Would love to hear your comments about what you see recorded. Why do you think solutions are crossed out with names written next to them in the second pic? What do you notice about Abbi's thinking from one day to the next?
As I reflect, one of my goals will be the addition/breaking up of each place value as described in the text to illustrate the separation of each digit's value in a different way.
Have I said how much I love number talks already??
Moving on...
I am sure many of you thought about student accountability when reading. I did. Parrish makes six wonderful suggestions for developing students' accountability:
AND--What if students still need to develop mental reasoning? Make manipulatives accessible, and use tools such as number lines, hundred charts, rekenreks, and ten frames as appropriate for developing conceptual understanding that is foundational to mental reasoning.
Finally, Parrish suggests five small steps toward teaching for understanding:
In the coming chapter readers receive support for developing specific strategies in their K-2 classrooms. Hope you will stop back this coming Sunday for a discussion of Chapter 3!
Now, some WONDERFUL NEWS!
Sherry Parrish, the author of Number Talks, will be doing a Q&A after the completion of our book study! We are collecting questions now, so feel free to send in any questions you have for Sherry from now up until the first week in February. We will also include a reminder in each of our book study posts. You may send questions to guidedmathadventures@gmail.com
Last, but not least, we would love for you to leave your comments and link up any math made-its you would like to share!
Smiles,
To read my previous Number Talks discussion of Chapter 1, and the beginning of Chapter 2, please CLICK HERE!
Chapter 2: How Do I Prepare for Number Talks, continued.
First, I would like to share how my students got prepared for number talks. My students do A LOT of talking about math--explaining their thinking, justifying their solutions, comparing/contrasting their strategy use with that of their classmates, assessing the reasonableness of solutions--all while showing respect for their fellow classmates. BUT, I wanted to introduce my students to the Number Talk procedures outlined in the text because there were components of number talks that I had not used. I felt my students would benefit greatly from the consistency in procedures as well.
We began, as we do with anything "new", by making a list of expectations. We did this at the beginning of the year when preparing for what we call math "chats", so I thought it fitting to do the same with number talks. I talked to my students about how a number talk would work and asked them to generate a list of behaviors they felt would be important to show during this time. It's interesting how the first two behaviors on their list are almost directly stated from our social skills program and are quite fitting. Loved how "think together" was put on the list. I helped them with the word "praise" as a description of the kinds of positive things we say to one another when sharing ideas, even when there are some errors in thinking.
I also introduced the silent hand signals they would be using during number talks. We practiced them several times before having our first "official" number talk. The signals are posted as reminders, yet they will not be needed long... Feel free to download these simple posters by clicking the pic below.
I felt my students were ready to go, so I had to make sure I was ready.
Chapter 2 helped to prepare me...
After sharing four procedures and expectations essential to number talks, Sherry Parrish goes on to help teachers understand how important it is to anticipate the ways students will come to a solution. She suggests thinking through the possible strategies students may use to solve a given problem. Even if you are not able to anticipate all of the strategies students will use, preparing yourself ahead of time in this way will increase your ability to understand what is being shared during the number talk. Parrish also stresses the importance of thinking about how you will record students' thinking so that it clearly illustrates each strategy for students.
Below you will see some pictures of how I recorded students' thinking during two different number talks. I will be recording on the SmartBoard just as soon as my computer glitches are fixed. This will be a nice way to store records for easy reference. For now, I am doing it on chart paper.
I chose the problems carefully as suggested early in chapter 2. The majority of my students' understanding of place value is strong, and many use this understanding when adding two digit number, yet I wanted the whole class to see how making a landmark or "friendly" number can work (a strategy that some students have worked with in small guided math groups).
Would love to hear your comments about what you see recorded. Why do you think solutions are crossed out with names written next to them in the second pic? What do you notice about Abbi's thinking from one day to the next?
As I reflect, one of my goals will be the addition/breaking up of each place value as described in the text to illustrate the separation of each digit's value in a different way.
Example:
29 + 29
(20 + 9) + (20 + 9)
(20 + 20) + (9 + 9)
Have I said how much I love number talks already??
Moving on...
I am sure many of you thought about student accountability when reading. I did. Parrish makes six wonderful suggestions for developing students' accountability:
- Ask students to use finger signals to indicate the most efficient strategy.
- Keep records of problems posed and the corresponding student strategies.
- Hold small-group number talks throughout each week.
- Create and post class strategy charts.
- Require students to solve an exit problem using the discussed strategies.
- Give a weekly computation assessments.
AND--What if students still need to develop mental reasoning? Make manipulatives accessible, and use tools such as number lines, hundred charts, rekenreks, and ten frames as appropriate for developing conceptual understanding that is foundational to mental reasoning.
Finally, Parrish suggests five small steps toward teaching for understanding:
- Start with small problems to elicit thinking from multiple perspectives.
- Be prepared to offer a strategy from a previous student.
- It is all right to put a student's strategy on the back burner.
- As a rule, limit your number talks to five to fifteen minutes.
- Be patient with yourself and your students as you incorporate number talks into your regular math time.
In the coming chapter readers receive support for developing specific strategies in their K-2 classrooms. Hope you will stop back this coming Sunday for a discussion of Chapter 3!
Now, some WONDERFUL NEWS!
Sherry Parrish, the author of Number Talks, will be doing a Q&A after the completion of our book study! We are collecting questions now, so feel free to send in any questions you have for Sherry from now up until the first week in February. We will also include a reminder in each of our book study posts. You may send questions to guidedmathadventures@gmail.com
Last, but not least, we would love for you to leave your comments and link up any math made-its you would like to share!
Smiles,
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Math IS Real Life -- January Edition
Welcome! It is our first time linking up with some fabulous fellow math bloggers, 4mulaFun, The Teacher Studio, Teaching to Inspire in 5th, AND MissMathDork for Math is Real Life.
Many moons ago, I posted a little sign in my third grade classroom that read, "Become a USER of math, not just a DOER of math." This was after endless conversations about why we learned all the things we did in our third grade math classroom. I have memories of telling the kids they would not be walking about in the grocery store and have someone hand them a worksheet with problems to solve, and they would not open a cookbook with a recipe they want to double and see a multiple choice question in the margin. Yes--we learn to do a lot with math, but if we are not able to USE it for a purpose all the things we know how to DO are no good to us at all. The foundation of our explorations back then, and always will be---understanding the purpose for what we are learning and how it helps us maneuver in our daily lives.
I would like to share one of my second grade students' recent explorations...
A few weeks before Christmas break, I was browsing the holiday items at Farm & Fleet, and I happened upon a beaded ornament kit that I knew well--those infamous pipe cleaner beaded wreath ornaments. Well, I had to get them, as they brought back memories from my own childhood and I knew my kids would enjoy making them.
I got the two kits home, sat down at the kitchen table, and took a closer look at the directions to help determine how I should divide the beads and pack them into individual baggies for my kids. I am always wanting to do things to make things easier in the long run when it comes to prep of materials. I looked at the diagram and figured out how many green beads and red beads I needed to put in each baggie. I got through one kit that made enough for 16 ornaments when I asked myself--"What am I doing? I should have the kids doing this!" I stopped midway and left my nice little prep behind.
I took the other ornament kit to school that same week and shared it with my kids. I told them how I picked up the ornament kits and they would have to help out with prep before we could make them as a class. I showed them the big bag of green beads, and the small bag of red beads, and told them there were enough beads to make 16 ornaments. I posed the same questions I asked myself at home (replacing the "I" with "we"):
The kids were very quick to answer the first two questions. They needed more information to go further. One student said loudly, "Why don't you just look at the directions, Mrs. Masters?" Ha! Smart cookie! So we looked at the directions, and I knew he was expecting the directions to tell us exactly how many of each bead we needed to make an ornament. NOPE! Here's what we found.
We discussed what we saw--number of each color of bead in the kit, number of pipe cleaners in the kit, a diagram showing how to feed the beads onto the pipe cleaner, and a diagram showing how to bend and tie. Did the directions show us what they needed to know? Well, yes, but they had to do some work. None of the kids chose to focus on the total number of beads in the bag, but their attention WAS drawn to the diagram. BWT this was also a perfect example of using informational text features for a purpose.
Quite a few hands went up when I asked how what we saw could help us. In our discussions we decided to just count the red beads in the diagram, that was easy--we needed 8 of them for one ornament. Then we saw that each group of green beads had 4 beads, and we needed to have 7 groups of green beads to make an ornament. I asked the kids if they had enough information to help them answer their question, and they said yes. It was time to go to it! Some kids worked together, and some went on their own, to determine how many green beads were needed to make one ornament. No directions were given except for the fact that they needed to show their thinking. Here are some examples of their thinking...
Each group/individual showed their thinking, explained, and we asked ourselves if what was shared was reasonable. After discussions began, two girls went back to their seats to do some revision. One student in particular noticed this and drew attention to the fact that they left. I asked them why they went back, and they said it was because their answer didn't make sense. I stressed how important it was that the girls realized this and went back to rework. As we say, the trip (journey) is just as important as the solution. We, of course, had some discussions of how repeated addition of equal values is multiplication and how each section of the ornament was a group. Only a few students wrote 7 x 4 or 4 x 7. This exploration was a perfect application of skills learned and served as a foundation for new knowledge as well (multiplication). Not to mention, we had a good-ole'-time making the ornaments and taking them home to put on our trees. Something to remember!
Thanks to 4mulaFun, The Teacher Studio, Teaching to Inspire in 5th, AND MissMathDork for the opportunity to link up!
ALSO--Just a reminder, starting January 11th, we will be joining Tara, The Elementary Math Maniac, for her book study of Number Talks: Helping Students Build Mental Math and Computational Strategies (K-5) by Sherry Parrish. The text is well worth the investment, and we hope you will join us!
Smiles!
Many moons ago, I posted a little sign in my third grade classroom that read, "Become a USER of math, not just a DOER of math." This was after endless conversations about why we learned all the things we did in our third grade math classroom. I have memories of telling the kids they would not be walking about in the grocery store and have someone hand them a worksheet with problems to solve, and they would not open a cookbook with a recipe they want to double and see a multiple choice question in the margin. Yes--we learn to do a lot with math, but if we are not able to USE it for a purpose all the things we know how to DO are no good to us at all. The foundation of our explorations back then, and always will be---understanding the purpose for what we are learning and how it helps us maneuver in our daily lives.
I would like to share one of my second grade students' recent explorations...
A few weeks before Christmas break, I was browsing the holiday items at Farm & Fleet, and I happened upon a beaded ornament kit that I knew well--those infamous pipe cleaner beaded wreath ornaments. Well, I had to get them, as they brought back memories from my own childhood and I knew my kids would enjoy making them.
I got the two kits home, sat down at the kitchen table, and took a closer look at the directions to help determine how I should divide the beads and pack them into individual baggies for my kids. I am always wanting to do things to make things easier in the long run when it comes to prep of materials. I looked at the diagram and figured out how many green beads and red beads I needed to put in each baggie. I got through one kit that made enough for 16 ornaments when I asked myself--"What am I doing? I should have the kids doing this!" I stopped midway and left my nice little prep behind.
I took the other ornament kit to school that same week and shared it with my kids. I told them how I picked up the ornament kits and they would have to help out with prep before we could make them as a class. I showed them the big bag of green beads, and the small bag of red beads, and told them there were enough beads to make 16 ornaments. I posed the same questions I asked myself at home (replacing the "I" with "we"):
- What do we need to do? (separate the beads)
- What do we need to know to be able to do it? (how many green and red beads are needed for each ornament)
- How are we going to figure it out?
The kids were very quick to answer the first two questions. They needed more information to go further. One student said loudly, "Why don't you just look at the directions, Mrs. Masters?" Ha! Smart cookie! So we looked at the directions, and I knew he was expecting the directions to tell us exactly how many of each bead we needed to make an ornament. NOPE! Here's what we found.
We discussed what we saw--number of each color of bead in the kit, number of pipe cleaners in the kit, a diagram showing how to feed the beads onto the pipe cleaner, and a diagram showing how to bend and tie. Did the directions show us what they needed to know? Well, yes, but they had to do some work. None of the kids chose to focus on the total number of beads in the bag, but their attention WAS drawn to the diagram. BWT this was also a perfect example of using informational text features for a purpose.
Quite a few hands went up when I asked how what we saw could help us. In our discussions we decided to just count the red beads in the diagram, that was easy--we needed 8 of them for one ornament. Then we saw that each group of green beads had 4 beads, and we needed to have 7 groups of green beads to make an ornament. I asked the kids if they had enough information to help them answer their question, and they said yes. It was time to go to it! Some kids worked together, and some went on their own, to determine how many green beads were needed to make one ornament. No directions were given except for the fact that they needed to show their thinking. Here are some examples of their thinking...
Each group/individual showed their thinking, explained, and we asked ourselves if what was shared was reasonable. After discussions began, two girls went back to their seats to do some revision. One student in particular noticed this and drew attention to the fact that they left. I asked them why they went back, and they said it was because their answer didn't make sense. I stressed how important it was that the girls realized this and went back to rework. As we say, the trip (journey) is just as important as the solution. We, of course, had some discussions of how repeated addition of equal values is multiplication and how each section of the ornament was a group. Only a few students wrote 7 x 4 or 4 x 7. This exploration was a perfect application of skills learned and served as a foundation for new knowledge as well (multiplication). Not to mention, we had a good-ole'-time making the ornaments and taking them home to put on our trees. Something to remember!
Thanks to 4mulaFun, The Teacher Studio, Teaching to Inspire in 5th, AND MissMathDork for the opportunity to link up!
ALSO--Just a reminder, starting January 11th, we will be joining Tara, The Elementary Math Maniac, for her book study of Number Talks: Helping Students Build Mental Math and Computational Strategies (K-5) by Sherry Parrish. The text is well worth the investment, and we hope you will join us!
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Makin' It Math! -- Mid-Month Linky -- {October 15}
Welcome! Thanks for stopping by for our brand-new monthly linky---Makin' It Math! It's a linky dedicated solely to math made-its. To learn more about the linky and how you can participate, click here!
I have been busy with several things...
I have been making some new sets of place value cubes to start using with my kids this week. They are so easy to make and are a fabulous tool for independent practice use while meeting with guided math groups. The best part is that you can customize them for your students' needs. Feel free to download my free directions for making the cubes! You can make up your own activities, or you may like the ones I have listed in my TpT store.
I shared this made-it in our previous post, but this is my newest math made-it. I just finished putting a Halloween spin on some math games I have used in past years. These games are perfect for my kids' independent practice needs right now. Thanks to Krista Wallden for her spookly clipart--so much FUN! You can check out the games in my TpT store, but you can also enter to win one of three two copies! Good luck to you!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Using Tens: Ten Frame Fact Cards
These ten frame fact cards really help some of my kids visualize the using ten strategy of addition before transitioning to the use of fact cards with just numbers. Download a free copy here!
We hope you will consider joining us by linking up your math-made its!
Good day!
Place Value Cubes
I have been making some new sets of place value cubes to start using with my kids this week. They are so easy to make and are a fabulous tool for independent practice use while meeting with guided math groups. The best part is that you can customize them for your students' needs. Feel free to download my free directions for making the cubes! You can make up your own activities, or you may like the ones I have listed in my TpT store.
Low-Prep Halloween Math Games
I shared this made-it in our previous post, but this is my newest math made-it. I just finished putting a Halloween spin on some math games I have used in past years. These games are perfect for my kids' independent practice needs right now. Thanks to Krista Wallden for her spookly clipart--so much FUN! You can check out the games in my TpT store, but you can also enter to win one of three two copies! Good luck to you!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Using Tens: Ten Frame Fact Cards
These ten frame fact cards really help some of my kids visualize the using ten strategy of addition before transitioning to the use of fact cards with just numbers. Download a free copy here!
We hope you will consider joining us by linking up your math-made its!
Good day!
Monday, October 13, 2014
Loved that Lesson Linky and Some Other Goodies...
This is the first time linking up with Meg from The Teacher Studio for Loved That Lesson--a wonderful linky opportunity to share those lessons we love.
One of the lessons I love to do with my kids at the beginning of each new school year relates to being mathematicians. We always start by reading and defining the word mathematician, which is usually a new one for them. Then we begin to think like mathematicians and ask ourselves what we do when we doing math. This year my kids came up with a FANTABULOUS list of ideas given the simple prompt, We are MATHEMATICIANS! We... Ideas were recorded on the SmartBoard and a door display was created to remain up all year long. These can readily be seen for easy reference.
I was so pleased with their thinking!
To read about more "loved" lessons, stop on over to The Teacher Studio!
I also wanted to share a few goodies that may be of interest to you...
Fly on over to Teaching Math By Hart for a wonderful giveaway opportunity and help Kim celebrate 1000 TpT followers!
I just finished putting a Halloween spin on some math games I have used in past years. These games are perfect for my kids' independent practice needs right now. Thanks to Krista Wallden for her wonderful clipart--so FUN! You can check out the games in my TpT store, but you can also enter to win one of three two copies! Good luck to you!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
New Linky on the Horizon!
Lastly, we have a new monthly linky on the horizon that will kick-off this week--Makin' It Math! We hope it will bring along with it some wonderful math resources for many. Stop back this Wednesday!
Wishing you the best for a wonderful week!
One of the lessons I love to do with my kids at the beginning of each new school year relates to being mathematicians. We always start by reading and defining the word mathematician, which is usually a new one for them. Then we begin to think like mathematicians and ask ourselves what we do when we doing math. This year my kids came up with a FANTABULOUS list of ideas given the simple prompt, We are MATHEMATICIANS! We... Ideas were recorded on the SmartBoard and a door display was created to remain up all year long. These can readily be seen for easy reference.
I was so pleased with their thinking!
We are mathematicians! We...
- think.
- try different ways.
- have fun with math.
- work together.
- use tools.
- learn more every day.
- never give up.
- sometimes make mistakes.
- check and re-check.
- have really smart brains.
- are problem solvers.
- ask questions.
- need tons of education.
- study math.
- get stuck.
- use our brains.
- have good test scores.
To read about more "loved" lessons, stop on over to The Teacher Studio!
I also wanted to share a few goodies that may be of interest to you...
Teaching Math by Hart TpT 1000 Followers Giveaway
Fly on over to Teaching Math By Hart for a wonderful giveaway opportunity and help Kim celebrate 1000 TpT followers!
Low-Prep Halloween Math Games
I just finished putting a Halloween spin on some math games I have used in past years. These games are perfect for my kids' independent practice needs right now. Thanks to Krista Wallden for her wonderful clipart--so FUN! You can check out the games in my TpT store, but you can also enter to win one of three two copies! Good luck to you!
New Linky on the Horizon!
Wishing you the best for a wonderful week!
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
What Are the Other Kids Doing? Wednesday Linky ~ Anything Goes!
Good day to you! What are the other kids doing? It's a linky dedicated to sharing independent practice activities that you use with
your students that make it possible for you to meet with small guided
math groups. Many teachers call them math centers or
workstations--whatever you call them, these activities are designed to
engage students in meaningful practice away from the teacher. For details about linking up, click here! We'd love for you to join in the sharing!
Today's Topic---Anything Goes!!
Today's Topic---Anything Goes!!
How do kids know where they are going?
My adventure with guided math has been a very loooooong one! I never liked teaching math whole group and frankly, didn't care for teaching math at all. I was an "Reading / Writing" kind of teacher, and this went on for several years. I blame the math program my district was doing, I was NOT a fan (and I think everyone in our district knew it), and I just couldn't find my "niche" as they say.
Then Common Core came along and I want to know why I never learned math this way!!! I have retaught myself math and retrained myself to problem solve the way I am now teaching my students. Ask my students now what my favorite subject is and they will say "math"...true story, it actually happened today when we have some high school kids come read to our class. One high school student said his favorite subject was math and all my little pumpkins said, "That's Mrs. Stenger's favorite too!"
One thing I struggled with was time. When I had kids in groups, I would take too much time and then not meet with all the kids. I thought, "Well my high kids don't need me everyday", but that is just not true! Of course they do!!
So I created a PowerPoint (my favorite program...I use it for everything:) in which I meet with all my students everyday! I also set the slide timers so that I meet with each groups for 12 minutes (wanted 15 but it just didn't work out), and then a slide in between rotations for clean up that is 1 minute and 30 seconds.
It is working out so well for my class and for me. It keeps me on track and my students know where they are going. It's a win-win!
I put up instructions on what they are to do at each rotation/station so I am not interrupted in my guided math groups. That time is precious, right!
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
What are the other kids doing? Wednesday Linky -- Task Cards
Welcome! What are the other kids doing? It's a linky dedicated to sharing independent practice activities that you use with
your students that make it possible for you to meet with small guided
math groups. Many teachers call them math centers or
workstations--whatever you call them, these activities are designed to
engage students in meaningful practice away from the teacher. For details about linking up, click here! We'd love for you to join in the sharing!
Today's topic--Task Cards!
Sorry for the quick post today--just want to share some freebies, a giveaway, and some new task cards I have added to my collection to use this year.
When I think about the abundance of independent activities I have for kids to do during guided math rotations, task cards make up quite a small portion. I have created some to meet my student's needs that are differentiated, but I have not been able to find a lot out there that "fit" my needs--even though there are oodles of them. I have plans to create more, but as we teachers know--so many things and so little time...
With this being said, when I do use task cards I always provide an activity sheet and a self-checking answer sheet. If one is not provided with task cards purchased, I create one. I also organize all task cards on binding rings for ease of access/to keep them together, and they are placed in workstation drawers according to student need.
My Show Me the Money! task cards are some of the kids' favorites, and they are differentiated. You can check them out in my TpT store, but you can also enter below to win one of two copies!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
You may also like the following freebies listed under Workstations & Games on our navigation bar...
AND Addition with Models & Numbers Task Cards. They are FREE, too!
Finally, here are a few task cards created by others that I have purchased and plan to use this year.
Please feel free to share your task card ideas in a comment or link up!
Today's topic--Task Cards!
Sorry for the quick post today--just want to share some freebies, a giveaway, and some new task cards I have added to my collection to use this year.
When I think about the abundance of independent activities I have for kids to do during guided math rotations, task cards make up quite a small portion. I have created some to meet my student's needs that are differentiated, but I have not been able to find a lot out there that "fit" my needs--even though there are oodles of them. I have plans to create more, but as we teachers know--so many things and so little time...
With this being said, when I do use task cards I always provide an activity sheet and a self-checking answer sheet. If one is not provided with task cards purchased, I create one. I also organize all task cards on binding rings for ease of access/to keep them together, and they are placed in workstation drawers according to student need.
My Show Me the Money! task cards are some of the kids' favorites, and they are differentiated. You can check them out in my TpT store, but you can also enter below to win one of two copies!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
You may also like the following freebies listed under Workstations & Games on our navigation bar...
AND Addition with Models & Numbers Task Cards. They are FREE, too!
Finally, here are a few task cards created by others that I have purchased and plan to use this year.
Please feel free to share your task card ideas in a comment or link up!
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
What are the other kids doing? Wednesday Linky - Reading & Writing About Math
Coming to you a little late in the day for our linky, What are the other kids doing? It's a linky dedicated to sharing independent practice activities that you use with
your students that make it possible for you to meet with small guided
math groups. Many teachers call them math centers or
workstations--whatever you call them, these activities are designed to
engage students in meaningful practice away from the teacher. For details about linking up, click here! We'd love for you to join in the sharing!
Today's topic---reading and writing about math!
We would like to share some things we already do and some plans for the future. :0)
Class Math Books
This summer, Sarah and I participated in a reading/writing professional development workshop. The speaker was fabulous, and we got a lot of great ideas from her. One thing that she discussed was creating class books. Now this is something I have done many, many times throughout my teaching life, but what stuck out was she mentioned writing math books.....WHAT?!?! How simple, but yet how difficult for me. When I've done class written books before they typically were by month and each book had a theme with a prompt the students wrote about. They also focused on English/Language Arts.
So my thoughts are this could easily be done during small guided math groups (in which each group writes their own books, or parts of a whole class book), or it could be done as a rotation/station.
Now, I am admitting that I have not done this yet, but wanted to put it out there for anyone to help me out with, or brainstorm with me:) so I have no pictures to share. If anyone out in the wonderful world of teaching would like to share how they have created math class, I would love to hear your ideas and how they worked in your classroom. I plan to come back and let you know how they worked in mine....once I get it all figured out!
Over the years, I have tried to engage my students in writing about math in different ways. Here are some questions/prompts that I have used with third and fifth grade during independent work time while working with small guided math groups. I have tried to organize some of the most effective prompts/ideas I have used into categories in list form.
Reflecting
Problem Solving
Vocabulary (insert words/concepts of choice)
Some additional writing activities that my students have enjoyed--some quick and others done over time.
Something I have especially like to use with ALL grade levels is list making. Here are some examples...
Math Picture Books
Using picture books during rotations/independent work time is something I have started doing more of in the past few years. Most of the texts I use are those that I have used as mentor texts, so students have knowledge of the texts before exploring them during independent work time. You can click here to see some of the texts I have used. I have just started adding to this page of our blog, so additional texts and reflection sheets will be include in the future. One of the texts my students liked most last year was The Big Buck Adventure by Shelley Gill. You can read more about how I used the text in a post on our Hoots N' Hollers blog. This particular text was actually used during guided reading rotations. You will also be able to download the free reflection sheet!
Please feel free to link up your reading and writing ideas for independent work time. We love it when you share! Don't have a blog--please share in a comment!
All the best for the rest or your week!
Over the years, I have tried to engage my students in writing about math in different ways. Here are some questions/prompts that I have used with third and fifth grade during independent work time while working with small guided math groups. I have tried to organize some of the most effective prompts/ideas I have used into categories in list form.
Reflecting
- Explain what you learned today.
- How can what you learned today be used in your life outside of school?
- What "I wonders" do you still have about what you have learned?
- Create an illustration showing what ______________ means. Then write a caption to go with your illustration. (various vocabulary terms/concepts)
- Make a list of the steps you learned today.
- Describe the attributes of ___________________. (geometry)
- Describe something you learned from a classmate today.
- Why is it important to know how to ___________________? (many possibilities)
Problem Solving
- Explain the strategy you chose.
- How is this problem like another you have solved?
- How did you and your partner's strategy differ? (partner problems)
- What was easy for you? Difficult?
- Would you choose to solve this problem or a similar one the same way? Explain.
- How does this problem relate to real-life?
- Write a similar problem. Take this problem and make it your own.
- What worked well? Did not work well?
Vocabulary (insert words/concepts of choice)
- What is the meaning of _______________?
- Define _________________.
- Describe _________________.
- How are ________________ and _______________ different? Similar?
- What is ____________________?
- Illustrate __________________. Then write a caption to accompany your illustration.
- _____________ is to ______________ as ______________ is to _______________ (analogies--used this with older students)
- Create and label a model to show the meaning of __________________.
Some additional writing activities that my students have enjoyed--some quick and others done over time.
- writing math riddles
- creating math comic strips
- creating "teaching" mini-books (My fifth graders created mini-books to teach concepts to someone else younger than them. They had to use language they would understand--could not make any assumptions. This was a great project--challenging for some.)
- math PowerPoints to illustrate concepts/key vocabulary (I am sure there are many other formats for creating these today--it was quite a few years ago that my fifth graders did this.)
- writing math poetry or songs (Multiplication is... {two-word poetry}, Sing a song of ___________. {use familiar tunes as basis}, acrostics, shape poems)
Something I have especially like to use with ALL grade levels is list making. Here are some examples...
- Make a list of ways to make 20.
- How many different things could you buy with $5?
- Find at least 6 items in the room that are about one foot long. Write them in a numbered list.
- How many ways can you show/represent 100?
- Make a list of real-life times when you need to add.
- Look around the room. Make a list of as many object as you see that are arrays. (love to do this one with my second graders--you would be surprised at the number of arrays in your classroom)
- List all of the math words you know. (This is quite telling!--do at various times throughout the year. I let my kids use the resources around the room. They must know what each word means.)
- Write some examples of how you can use measurement (of length) in your life outside of school.
- List the skills you need to figure the area of a garden.
Math Picture Books
Using picture books during rotations/independent work time is something I have started doing more of in the past few years. Most of the texts I use are those that I have used as mentor texts, so students have knowledge of the texts before exploring them during independent work time. You can click here to see some of the texts I have used. I have just started adding to this page of our blog, so additional texts and reflection sheets will be include in the future. One of the texts my students liked most last year was The Big Buck Adventure by Shelley Gill. You can read more about how I used the text in a post on our Hoots N' Hollers blog. This particular text was actually used during guided reading rotations. You will also be able to download the free reflection sheet!
Please feel free to link up your reading and writing ideas for independent work time. We love it when you share! Don't have a blog--please share in a comment!
All the best for the rest or your week!
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