First Month... WHAT????

HOW IS IT OCTOBER??

Haha, but seriously how?? This first month has FLOWN by! We have done some great things and we have started to settle into routines. Since I moved from second to third grade last year and kept some of my kiddos I felt like we did not have to take as much time setting up routines because they knew most of them. This year, I have to set up the routines again, and that takes a lot of time. I also have a full time aide this year and I need to get used to having someone in the classroom all the time again; as I haven't had one for a couple years now. This aide came back to elementary from high school and she is still trying to navigate the differences between grade three and middle school expectations and the way we learn.

So on to my topic for this post, MATH. We have been doing some great things in math this month and I thought I would share with you some of those things. I started interactive notebooks this year, and I must say, I am LOVING THEM. It shows me pretty quickly who understands the concepts we have been working on and who is still struggling. I think I will do more pages a week as we are still into place value and it is almost time to move on to addition and subtraction with regrouping (the subtraction section is never fun because it's just so hard for them to get!).

So we have been playing games, like expanded form dice games: students roll place value dice and use them to build 4 digit numbers which they record in expanded and standard form.

We did Place Value Scoot, which I made the task cards for, (thanks to Ashley Schroeder's Schroeshow Periscope on how to make task cards). The kids loved moving around the room, and they really showed that they understood how to represent a number 4 ways (in a drawing, in standard form, in expanded form, and by looking at a pictorial representation). It also showed me which kids need more direction and step by step assistance (which was only a handful, PHEW). If you don't know what scoot is, you can also go to Ashley Schroeder's website and there are posts about it there. There are cards placed around the room with different questions or activities on them that the students have to complete. They move from one question to the next and see how many they can get finished in the time given. I had 28 cards and 4 or 5 got them all done in 30 min. One person only did 4 (which I was a little shocked at, but they can be a day dreamer, so I know for next time to really monitor them). Student record their answers on a recording sheet whose numbers correspond to the numbers on the cards. So they look at the number on the card they are working on and then write their answer in that box (so if they are working on card 15 they write their answer in box 15 on their recording sheet). If you didn't have time to put them on the wall, you could put them on desks and have them move from one desk to the next. They don't have to wait for their classmates to finish a card before they can also work on that card, they just join them, so they can work at their own pace. It was so neat to see them all engaged and reviewing the concepts we have been learning!

I think that when we get back from Thanksgiving (I am in Canada so that is coming quick), I will take pictures of our interactive notebooks so you can see those, but for now, these are two of the fun things we have been doing in place value. 

Now to a freebie (it's my first and the only product in my TPT store).  My kids have been loving playing what I call "The Dice Game" They roll a double 10 sided die and add the two numbers rolled together to get the sum. Then they colour the sum in on their recording sheet to create a kind of bar graph. The goal is to see which sum will "win". It gets them practicing their addition facts as well as having fun playing a game. I will be posting a multiplication version soon as well.  Here is a multiplication version if you are interested. It's not fancy or cute, but it is fun and the kids are practicing math facts so that makes me happy!

Kim Sutton Math!

Last Friday I left my kids in the capable hands of a TOC and went to see the always wonderful Kim Sutton. I was able to attend the workshop with my mom which made it even more fun! We arrived just on time (traffic) and had a great day of hands on learning!  One of the best things about the workshop is all the fun dice you play with! definitely know how kids feel about playing with dice when you see the fun colours!

The location was great, and there were a lot of people there. Here are some more shots of the day.

 all ready to go!

So of course this week we have been putting the things I learned into practice. 

We made counting strings on Tuesday:  They string 20-30 beads onto a string and then the beads can move along the string. It can be used for addition, subtraction and multiplication/skip counting.  It is also great for kids who need to fiddle with things. 

On Wednesday we played a few games with digit cards, and it was interesting to see who had number sense and who took a while to catch on to where the digits should be. The first game we played was with the random number CD that says the numbers 0-9 in a random order and they had to flip the cards over and back every time they heard it. When it was face down some forgot where the number was! Then we went over which digits were face up and which were face down. 

On Thursday we started with the flip over game and then added a twist where they had to flip over two digits that equalled the number called, so if the number called was 8 then they could flip over 2 and 6 or 5 and 3 or 1 and 7 etc. If they ran out of addends, then they had a rest time. You can play this game with partners and a double die (which we will do next week) and then if they run out of cards to flip over, they have to flip them all over. The winner is the one who can flip all their digit cards face down exactly. You can also add in that they can subtract or add the numbers together to get the number rolled.  The digit mats that they are playing on have dots and on the other side coins. When I had them put their digit cards down at first some were confused as the 5 spot only had one coin in it, but the coin was a nickel so we had a good discussion about why the 5 card would go there. 

The other game we played was with the hundreds chart and bingo chips. To start the random number CD that calls numbers 0-100 called numbers and they put the chips on that number. It was interesting to see who had a good number sense and who had trouble locating the number (a good reminder to me that we need to do this more often!!) Then they had to get 4 numbers in a row. After the random number CD (which one student figured out everyone would get a four in a row at the same time if they are listening) they rolled a double decagon die (10 sided, I am trying to use more math language) and covered that number( the outside number was the tens place and the inside die was the units place). When they got 4 in a row, they wrote down a tally mark and once they got 10 tally marks they won. Now we don't have 100 bingo chips each so the kicker was that once they ran out of chips, they could start moving the ones on the board to another location if they felt it would benefit their game. This was a hard concept for them to contend with. 

Math!!

We have been finishing up our unit on number sense and as one culminating activity I read the story, "One Is a Snail, Ten Is a Crab" by April Pulley Sayre. It's a really cute counting book with a fun twist.

Amazon.ca

After reading the book I gave the students a number between 20 and 100. I also gave them pictures of the different feet in the story that I found online here. They then had to create a picture showing that number in feet. For example if their number was 29 they could use two crabs, one insect, two feet, and a snail.

 We have also been working on doubles and I found a great doubles craftivity on pinterest, which led to a great blog by Amy Lemons The students created a Doubles Dude and then wrote out the doubles facts. They are quite cute!

It's been a fun Math week. Maybe too much fun???? 

Place Value and DOT DAY!!

So, lesson learned again! Never introduce a new toy without giving kids a chance to play with it. We tried to focus on place value, but the rods were too good as drumsticks, and the hundreds were very useful to build towers so after a few minutes of trying, I gave in and let them build. They were very good construction workers! Not so great mathematicians during this lesson! HAHA. 

 We also celebrated International Dot day in honour of book ``The Dot`` by Peter H. Reynolds. Students were given a construction paper circle and instructed to turn that circle into something of their choosing. We came up with flowers, bugs, cats, frogs, swords, tacos, a tiger and many other creations. We didn`t get finished, so the completed projects will be up in a future post. For now, here are the beginnings.

Place Value Pirates

Today we made place value pirates! It was a little tricky for some of the little darlings, but with support they did a great job! I got the idea from pinterest of course, and made the template. The kids wrote the number word on the bandanna, the standard form in the mouth and the expanded form on the beard. They were very excited about this activity.

 We also finished our construction paper houses which are always cute! Most of them followed the expectations of making everything out of paper, but some "forgot".