Math Tip Monday - End of Year Wrap Up

I am so sad that this is the last round of Math Tip Monday. This was such a fun linky and it was great getting new ideas from other primary teachers. I wasn't able to incorporate all of these ideas in this year because of timing, but I'm definitely looking forward to adding things in next year! A big shoutout to K's Classroom Kreations and Theresa's Teaching Tidbits for putting this together!

I'm really excited about this post. This year I learned about Visual Instruction Plans... Aka VIPS! This has completely changed my instruction for the better and dramatically increased student achievement and made my life a whole lot easier. I only wish that I had found out about this a few years ago!

Visual Instruction Plans can be used for any subject area, but definitely lend themselves to math. It is a visual model of the step by step process that uses minimal words so students can look at where they are in the process and figure out what they need to do next.

P.S. Don't you love how the letters are falling off? It must be the end of the year!

In 2nd grade, we do a lot with addition and subtraction. Gotta get those facts down! But when we get in to double and triple digit addition and subtraction, the kiddos can get tripped up with the steps sometimes. Well.... Not with this! All but one of my students could follow these plans with any strategy and this is something I am DEFINITELY going to use again next year. It is a resource that is well worth your time to create.

Check out the other blogs in the linky! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Money and Time.. It's Another Math Tip Monday!

It's time for another Math Tip Monday link up! This post is all about Money and Time.

It seems like it gets harder to teach money every year. The students have less and less experience each year with money since they don't see it at home; their parents are using cards instead. I get it - I rarely keep cash on me and use cards most of the time. Gotta get those reward points! 

We start by creating anchor charts about coins. This can be a little tedious, so I start with the penny the first day. I introduce nickels the 2nd day, and we end up practicing with these coins for about a week or so before I introduce any new coins. Eventually I do the same thing for a dime and a quarter once I feel the students have a good foundation working with pennies and nickels. 

We do a daily coin counter and I usually will add 1 penny every day for 5 days, and guide the students through questioning to notice that we can trade in 5 pennies for a nickel.

This is really important because it lays the foundation for a game that we get to called "Collect 25 Cents". I introduce this game whole group to determine which coin (or coins) to add to the coin counter. 

Materials Needed:

Dice

A variety of real or fake coins

Rules: 

1. Player 1 rolls the dice. Let's say they roll a 3. They need to take 3 pennies (3 cents). 

2. Player 1 passes the dice to player 2. (This is REALLY important so the kiddos are paying attention to the coins the other player takes to check for accuracy. If you don't emphasize this step you end up with 2 students just rolling the dice and taking coins who have no idea what its going on.)

3. Player 2 rolls the dice. Let's say they roll a 4. They need to take 4 pennies (4 cents). 

4. Repeat step 2. 

5. Player 1 rolls the dice. Let's say they roll a 3 again. Again, they take 3 pennies and add the total. 3+3 = 6 cents. 

BUT WAIT!

You want to have as few coins as possible, so player 1 will need to trade 5 pennies in for a nickel. After the trade is made, player 1 passes the dice to player 2. (See why this is important?)

6. Repeat until one player has collected 25 cents. 

The great thing about this game is that it can be upped to collect 50 cents or collect $1.00 once students are ready to start working with larger numbers. If you are collecting more than 25 cents, you will want to use 2 dice. 

Helpful tips:

1. Make sure the students pass the dice to the next player to signal their turn. This helps when students need to trade pennies and nickels for larger coins. 

2. Have the students take the coins they need BEFORE they make any trades. 

Time is another thing that gets harder and harder to teach each year. Many families don't have analog clocks at home and prefer digital clocks instead. Sometimes the first time a child has even seen an analog clock is in school! This is something that can be difficult to practice at home because the kiddos don't have analog clocks. 

In order to get the kiddos proficient with time and money, I break it down into smaller routines to do each day. The routines are short, and last maybe 10 minutes each day. 

We start REALLY simple at the beginning of the year with telling time to the hour and half hour. This is done whole group verbally, but eventually transitions into using mini clocks and writing in journals. 

As the year goes on, we move to time to the quarter hour, 10 minute intervals, and eventually 5 minute intervals. I really stress vocabulary here such as quarter to, quarter past, half past, etc. I think the key here is that every student does everything, and increasing the number of turns. Add lots of practice into these quick 10 minute routines so that students can reach mastery. 

A big shout out to Theresa's Teaching Tidbits and K's Classroom Kreations for putting this all together!

An InLinkz Link-up

Math Tip Monday - Math Baseball

Today I'm linking up with K's Classroom Kreations and Theresa's Teaching Tidbits for Math Tip Monday. This post is all about Spring Math Ideas!

When I hear spring, I immediately think of Spring Training! So why not play math baseball to keep the students engaged? 

When I play math games, I want them to be fun, meaningful, and most importantly easy for the teacher. I will not play a game that takes tons of time to set up and get the students ready to go. All you need is something for the students to write on (I usually use white boards or scratch paper) and something to display the problems. Quick, easy, and fun!

 My rules and procedures are always the same, and very little changes overall. But there is enough change so it feels like a new game to the kiddos! Click here to read about some of the other math games I play. 

The rules and procedures I use are:

1. Divide the class into teams. I either use 2 or 4 teams depending on the game and how much time we have.

2. Number off everyone on each team. 1 - however many students you have. Each team should have a number 1, number 2, number 3, etc. 

3. Everyone solves every problem. Gotta have that engagement!

4. Be quiet when solving the problems. I do not give warnings in games since it is usually a reward, so if this rule is broken that student will be out, or their team will lose points, move back, etc. The consequence depends on the game. I've found that if you are consistent with this then you have very little problems with students talking while solving the problems. 

5. Give the students enough time to solve the problem. Depending on what the problem is, and the strategy I want them to use, it usually takes between 45 seconds and 1 minute. Ultimately you need to keep the game moving forward, or you'll lose the students. If I call on a student and they have not finished the problem then they earn an out. 

6. Call out a number, and the student on all teams with that number show the answer. 

7. If it's right - they move forward. If it's wrong, they move backward OR stay in the spot. In math baseball I let them stay in their spot, but this changes depending on the game. When the team earns 3 outs, aka 3 wrong answers, then all of the students on the diamond go back to their seats. The outs are then reset and the game continues.

8. At the end I usually give the students the opportunity to get a grand slam, by solving a more challenging problem. It's always exciting when they score 4 runs at the very end of the game!

Here's what math baseball looks like:

On each plate I wrote H for home plate, and the numbers 1-3 for each of the bases. I have two baseball diamonds going simultaneously so each team has the chance to move forward each time. It definitely keeps them all engaged and is a lot of fun!

Check out these other blogs for some great spring math ideas:

An InLinkz Link-up

Place Value in Primary Grades

Today I'm linking up with  K's Classroom Kreations and Theresa's Teaching Tidbits  for Math Tip Monday. This post is all about place value in the primary grades!

Place value is a huge part of math in 2nd grade. I explicitly teach it through routines, although it does come up during adding and subtracting numbers. I know some teachers who teach lessons on place value, but for me it has always made more sense to teach it as a routine and build more upon it as the year goes on. The routine that I use is called Today's Number. 

The math curriculum we use has a routine called Today's Number, which gives a number and the students come up with various ways to make the given number. They can write equations, draw representations using whatever they want (cubes, tally marks, base 10, etc), use money, etc. I think this is a great routine to have students create multiple representations of a number, but it almost seems like the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer". The higher students come up with a million ways to make the number, and the struggling students sit there confused because they don't know where to start. 

In comes... the anchor chart! I have used several different forms of this anchor chart to give students a starting point and it makes a big difference. It gives the kids who need a place to start just that, and the kiddos who don't get a push just in case they need it. I've found it covers the models they were already using anyway, so it really just organizes their work so they I can read it.

I focus on more parts of this than others. It changes throughout the year, and it goes along with the models that we are using when we add or subtract numbers. At the beginning of the year, we add using tally marks because I cannot stand seeing students draw circles or unorganized groups of lines it makes me crazy so I pay particular attention to tally marks. As we get into larger numbers, tally marks are no longer practical so I try to wean them off of tally marks and start encouraging them to use base ten models. As we get closer to regrouping, I focus on breaking apart numbers and writing them in expanded form to get students more comfortable with the idea of "carrying". 

Check out these blogs for other ways to teach place value in primary grades:

An InLinkz Link-up

Ideas for Teaching Word Problems

Today I'm linking up with  K's Classroom Kreations and Theresa's Teaching Tidbits  for Math Tip Monday. This post is all about teaching word problems! 

The math curriculum we use at school has a huge emphasis on teaching word problems. Needless to say, my students get a ton of practice with making sense of word problems!

The key to teaching word problems is to get the students to really consider what the problem is saying and asking you to do. I've found that best way to do this is annotating the problem. We already do this in reading all the time so why not do it in math, too?

This could be glued into an interactive notebook as a resource. The chart in my classroom looks just like this, except not as cute. Click the picture to download this FREEBIE in my TpT store!

We go through each of these steps every time we solve word problems. It is a systematic way to get students to consider the problem, and figure out the best strategy to solve it. The best part - it can be used for any grade or operation! 

Check out some of the other ideas for teaching those dreaded word problems:

An InLinkz Link-up

Ideas For Teaching Number Sense: Guess My Number!

Today I'm linking up with K's Classroom Kreations and Theresa's Teaching Tidbits for Math Tip Monday. This post is all about teaching Number Sense! 

I hope that my students have a decent grasp on number sense by the time I get them in 2nd grade. But, we all know that it isn't always the case. English language learners, new students, learning disabilities.. you never know what obstacles you're going to encounter with each new group of students.

Enter... Guess My Number! This can be done on a number line or hundred chart, but I typically use it on the hundred chart. 

Students will ask questions about the mystery number. The person who chose the mystery number will then answer yes or no. I encourage the students to ask descriptive questions, and they know that they are not allowed to guess a specific number, until many other numbers have been ruled out. Here are some examples of questions that my students have asked last year:

Is the number even or odd?

Is the number greater than ___?
Is the number less than ___?

Is the number between ___ and ____?

Does the number have a ___ in the tens place?

Does the number have a ____ in the ones place? 

It is a fun game to add to calendar time, and it's also easy enough to play on the fly when you find you have an extra 5 or 10 minutes!

Make sure you check out the other ideas for teaching number sense! 

Math Tip Monday - Back to School Math Ideas

Today I'm linking up with K's Classroom Kreations and Theresa's Teaching Tidbits for Math Tip Monday. This post is all about Back to School Math Ideas!

These past few years I've found so many great ideas from blogs, and I really had to rack my brain to find something to write about for this post. I even started to wonder.. I found so many great ideas, how can I even compete with what is already out there? 

Well..

After a quick visit to my classroom I found a few ideas that have really helped me out these past few years, and I hope that you'll find them useful, too! 

1. Math workbooks

We do not have consumable math books. Why, I have no idea. It was a huge struggle trying to manage all the copying and storage of what seemed like a random assortment of worksheets. Because.. it WAS a random assortment of worksheets. I felt like I was constantly passing out papers and the students were constantly shoving them in their desks, losing them, turning them into paper airplanes, crumbling them up, cutting them into pieces, and basically anything expect what they were supposed to be doing with them! It drove me insane! #teachersunderstand

Well, I wasn't going to do that again my 2nd year with this curriculum. Once I was more familiar with it I would copy all of the papers I would need from the unit at once and copy them into a workbook. I was able to pick and choose which worksheets I would need, which would be journal activities, which could be done as a center, etc. It worked out SO much better. 

My curriculum will sometimes bounce around from topic to topic, so the main focus may be counting, but there are other topics within that topic that are sometimes not related. We pull those out and put them into a separate workbook. So there might be a counting workbook, a money workbook, and a time workbook that the students are working on. It is easier for me to keep the skills separated so that my lessons are more focused.

Side note - I realized that I needed to create separate workbooks AFTER this first one. Needless to say I will be revising this workbook this week!

These workbooks are just packets with a double staple on the side. They stayed at school in their math folders, and homework was sent home separately. I had very few students lose the workbooks since it was much harder to lose a workbook instead of just one piece of paper. I think they would have lost a "packet" but not a "workbook" because it sounds more official!




2. Center Bags

Oh, centers. It took me the longest time to figure out how to manage this. I needed a system that would work for me and I kept trying out different things, and finally last year I found something that worked for me.

The prep of centers is the hardest part for me. Once I get busy with the hustle and bustle of the school year I have the hardest time constantly gathering supplies and organizing centers. Eventually I realized that most of the centers I have use similar materials and I was constantly emptying out the materials from one bag and dumping them into another. I needed to work smarter and not harder and from that idea came center bags!

The center bag is a supply bag that I had in my classroom, and I put all of the materials that are constantly used in math centers in them. The students know they probably won't need all of the materials in the center bag, but it's there just in case they do. I have also heard of other teachers who have the students keep one set of the center or math materials in a box in their desks so they can pull them out quickly when needed. I try to keep the amount of things in my students' desks to a minimum, so that doesn't work for me, but it's just a different spin on a center bag. The picture below is a peek into what I have in my center bags. 

Included in the bags are:

1. 2 different color wet erase markers

2. Tens frames

3, Bag of money

4. 2 Dice

5. Unifix cubes

6. Base ten blocks

7. (Not pictured) Bag of number cards - I think I must have put the number cards in the bag with the center materials so I will need to put a bag of number cards back in the center bag.. just in case. 

When we were working on centers my students would go and pick up a center bag for the materials they needed. There was a designated spot for all the center bags by my math centers where I stored the bags. 

I use a lot of centers that come with my math curriculum, and the center bags are aligned to those games. I have some other centers and activities that might require something from a center bag, so if a student needed anything they would just go and pick up a center bag. They never had to ask me about it and I never had to find the materials for them. It keeps your prep to a minimum since you only have to prepare them at the beginning of the year.  I just wish I had that figured out my first year!! 

3. Math Focus Wall/Word Wall

I love my math focus wall, but I hate these pictures! It is missing a few things that I will add this week so please bear with me while I describe how I have it set up. 

The whole focus wall

Here is a photo of the whole focus wall. You probably noticed that there are a lot of blank spots, and that is where I put the anchor charts that we create as a class. I create new ones each year with my students so that it is more meaningful to them, but I happened to find two laying around in my room. I put them up so you can get an idea of what it looks like when the anchor charts are up. I will put up one or two more next to the money anchor charts at the top and possibly another one below the money anchor chart on the right. The space below the hundred chart is where I put up a poster that tracks the mastery of math facts, but I haven't got one yet. 

The hundred chart is a tool that we use frequently in math so I want it in a spot where the students can clearly see it, and have easy access to it if need be. I have the days of the week to the right of the hundred chart, and the calendar to the right of that. Below the calendar you'll notice I have a light blue pocket chart, which matches the background near perfectly! #ilovethetargetdollarspot

I used push pins to mount a small white board to the math wall, which has multiple uses. We use it to solve equations for the coin counter, write a message, work out other problems, etc. It saves me time from running back and forth between the math wall and the main white board. I had smaller plastic holders attached to the wall to display coins in the coin counter, but those kept falling off the wall and wasting precious minutes of math time so I realized I needed to change it this year. I used zip top quart bags, and I had my students set them up at the end of the year. Overall they did a good job, but I am going to move the last one on the bottom to the main row. It just doesn't look right to me. At least it'll be a simple fix!

Side note - Those clothes pins will be used to hold anchor charts in other areas of the math wall, but I didn't get a chance to move them yet. This isn't related to math, but it will make your life SO much easier.. hot glue a push pin to the back of a clothes pin to hang up your anchor charts. It is to easy to put them up and take them down!! 

Here's a better picture of the calendar area. Below the calendar I have two pocket charts, which I am going to use as a math word wall. We write a lot in math to explain our thinking or strategy, journal entries, questions, etc. and the students need help spelling math words. It will also hold vocabulary words that we might not have on an anchor chart that they still need to remember. 

I am SO excited about this new addition to my math focus wall for two reasons: 

1. I will no longer have to spell  (or help them sound out) the word equation for my students multiple times a day. They can simply look at the math word wall and find it instead!

2. I got these pocket charts from the Target dollar spot. YAY! 

These are examples of a student created anchor charts. I made both of these anchor charts within the first month of school last year, and I think they held up pretty good! 

I make all of my anchor charts with my students. I might prefill in some information to save time during instruction, but the majority of the chart is constructed with student input. I have an idea of what I want the chart to look like and the information I want in it so I pick and choose their responses and reword as necessary. My anchor charts aren't always super cute and "pinworthy" but they are functional. Sometimes if I get lucky they'll be cute AND functional!

Make sure you check out the other blog posts for Math Tip Monday! I know I'll be taking notes of the other fabulous ideas out there!