Number Sense....Trying Something New

I've said it before and I will continue to say it....I love that our career allows us to try new ideas.  And if they fail, we try something else.  And if they don't fail, we try it again, but make it even better!

One problem we have found at my school...our kids don't know their facts.  Like really KNOW them.  So we are really trying to build their number sense understanding.
Number sense...I am learning.

My teammates Jess, Carrie, and I have been reading:

 The Right Brained Addition and Subtraction suggests to set up the facts as a neighborhood. Here is what Jess made:

Our overall goal is to help the kids visual the facts.  Jess really builds the foundation for these "streets" during her number of the day routine.  Then we expand on it in guided math goups.

We start each of our guided math groups with some math talks.  I found all the "number talk" strings on TPT from the Number Sense Guy.  Um...thank you!! This saved me a lot of creating.  Here is the pack I bought:

Now times this stack by 2 because I bought the first grade and kindergarten set.  Needless to say...my hand hurt from cutting!

 Once we complete our discussion, each student gets to work on their "number." (A little something I learned from the Math Coach.)  We are trying to give each student some time to work with their particular number.  and once they master the facts for that number, they move on.
Our firsties get to use number bracelets, rekenreks, and houses to practice their facts.

 I really like the house manipulative because I think it makes our "fact neighborhood" more concrete.  They get to drop the beans in the house and find out how many people live upstairs and downstairs.  Sometimes they record this on the sheet that I made up and sometimes they just make a simple T-chart.

During this time, Jess, Carrie, and I are able to work individually with students.  We are completing quick assessments to determine what "number" each student is on.  It looks like this:

We are hoping, hoping, hoping that these little changes will make a big impact on our students and help them to KNOW their facts.

Any suggestions...we will take them!

Up next...connecting addition and subtraction.