Number Sense Reflection

Apr 29, 2014


This time of year always brings about reflection for me.  It starts with cleaning for some reason.  This means my little closet has been sorted through, organized, and labeled.  Once this is complete, my brain moves on to thinking about what went well, what didn't, and what needs to change for next year.

And the lists start.

Last year at this time, Natalie and I had decided number sense was lacking in our instruction.  It needed to be stronger, had to improve...there was no question about it.  So we researched, sat down, talked, planned, created, and implemented.  This year---I can honestly say that we did so much better but there is more growth to be made (always).

I ordered Number Talks.  Downloaded some webinars.  Attended an Early Numeracy PD over Spring Break.

Then (out of the blue) Sarah Major from Child 1st sent me this:




Just.In.Time!! THANK YOU!

So I read...tagged.....labeled....read....took notes.

The ideas within are so visual, but also include kinesethic and auditory components to each activity. Just what my struggling mathematicians need.  Honestly, it is what I need. Math has never made much sense to me.  Visual teaching techniques do make more sense to me.  And the more I learn, practice, read, implement, try out, fail, succeed--I feel like I'm becoming a better math teacher.

So what did I get from all this reading and tagging.  Well, quite a bit:

I have been using dot cards this year (my first year using them).  But I can see through my reading that I need to do even more with them.  I can present them in a variety of ways, including colored dots, pyramid dots, and five frame dot cards. Here are some cards that Sarah sent with the book:

My kiddos decided these were way better than my hand-made cards!


Yep. It's a problem for some of my kiddos.  There are some great visual and kinesethic tips for me to help my first graders with this problem.  These lesson may come FIRST next year!

Stony Brook Village is a strategy that Sarah created to help students visualize computation.  I could see this being a part of our number sense board.  The village is set up with houses for the facts to 10.  There is a story to go along with village, which I think will help my students connect and make more sense of the facts to 10.  They have GOT to know these facts!

As I read the book, I knew I couldn't do this alone.  We work as vertical teams twice a week in my K-2 building and we would need to look at these ideas together.  That meant...ordering more books!  Plus we would need Book 2: Place Value.

So we did.

And I look forward to having conversations with my building so we can support each other vertically with number sense concepts.  And then, come May next year, we will reflect, research, change, read, implement again!

Wordless Wednesday: Nonstandard Units

Apr 24, 2014


 
 
 
 
This week we enjoyed measuring with potatoes (then sending home a potato and recipe with each kid!)  What nonstandard units of measurement do your students enjoy using?

http://secondgradesugarandspice.blogspot.com/2014/04/wordless-wednesday-april-23rd-authors.html
 Head over to Wordless Wednesday and check out some other pictures.

Egg Puzzles: Math Review

Apr 19, 2014


I know, I know.  It is kind of late for eggs, right?  Well....it has been a C.R.A.Z.Y. week.  Anyone else?  Stomach bugs (kids at school), state Praxis test (me), birthday parties (for my little 4 year old), cold weather, warm weather, local amusement park opening....the list could go on.

BUT....

I have had these eggs sitting around my house:


And FINALLY it struck me what to do with them!  Math review.  We have hit our standards but my little mathematicians need constant review.  So I created some games:





To play, our firsties will get a stack of eggs that look like this:


The eggs all fit one skill but the students will need to put the puzzles back together.

I still have some eggs left. But even if I run out, this would be super easy to make out of foam paper or even just construction paper. What other review games could I make?


Whole Lot of Research Going on.... Part 2 and a Freebie!

Apr 15, 2014

Life... it's a funny thing.  It tends to get in the way a tad.  So this post is a long time coming, but I did rotate the pictures so you can see some of our writing. 

I left you with a few pictures of the jeeps and what our hallway looked like.  In part two I'm going to talk to you about the writing.  I'm blessed to only teach writing to our bright-eyed little firsties.  Each class is 70 minutes long so we spend a lot of time in writers workshop, which I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! We get to conference with lots of children throughout the process which leads to great conversations about being authors. We think informative writing is so much easier for our firsties to write because it's just facts.  No opinions, no story, just stating the facts.  And state the facts they did. 

Em and I have had long conversations about final copies of writing pieces. Do your firsties like to "publish" their pieces?  Our firsties LOVE writing their pieces, but rewriting them....notsomuch.  The time has been put in and they are not willing to redo what has been done.  So for this writing piece, students wrote/drew pictures/revised, edited and then we typed them up.  After that students only had to cut and paste their words onto blank white pages.  I liked doing it this way because it gave them the power to choose where their words would go and what the book would look like.  Once the words were in place, the illustrating began!  Here are a few books. WARNING... there are a lot of pictures, but I wanted to show you the differences in our writers. The first book was one of my favs because he wrote about Salmon. What firstie chooses Salmon to write about???!!!??? This friend.  :)  His lead and fun fact are fantastic! 

Here's a few of our writing pieces.  :)  Students had to write five chapters along with a lead and provide closure.  Let me know what you think!




LOVE this Cover!

                                                                                        Oops.. forgot to turn.







                                                                               another one..:(




For sticking with me, here's your freebie!  The chart we use to collect our data. : )