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Background
Schedule
Planning and Organizing
So, What is Everyone Else
Doing?
Math Games
and Activities
Great Resources
Background
I feel
really odd actually even adding this page to the site. I am
far from a math expert and am even further from even being
considered strong in my math teaching!! However, one of the
reasons I even have this website is because I use it as a reflection
tool and I really feel it helps me become better at what I do.
So, this page will be a great illustration of HOW MUCH reflecting I
will need to do in order to be effective (read: A LOT!)!!!!
In my entire
career I have only taught math for a year and a half. Then I
started team teaching and only taught the language arts, which is
why most of this site revolves around reading. This year I am
teaching math for the first time in about five or six years!
Luckily, it is only second grade math and I feel I have a good
handle on the material. When I taught fourth, I was clueless
when we hit fractions!!!
I really feel that small group math instruction is the way to go. I
suppose my background in reading is the reason for this; I tend to
approach teaching with a reading frame of mind. Since my first year
of teaching math (and only year since this year!!) I taught it
whole group, this page will be a reflection of how I organize small
math groups in my room. Much of the way that I organize my
math block and small groups is from watching my very talented former
teammate (who is now a math coach- go figure!). So I really cannot
take credit for much of the structure/ organization of this block- I
have simply copied from others!
Schedule
Below is my weekly
schedule. Just like my reading, I approach math with a
combination of small group and whole group instruction.
|
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
|
Whole group lesson. |
Math
mini lesson Meet with two
small math groups
|
Math
mini lesson Meet with two
small math groups
|
Math
mini lesson Meet with two
small math groups
|
Whole group lesson. |
Here is a more detailed
break down of my week:
Monday- I try to
teach a short minilesson in math. This my be something with
the calendar or the hundreds board. Then I usually teach the kids a
some sort of math game. I show the students how to play the
game and then allow the students time to pair up and practice
playing the game. While students are playing, I wander around
trying to help or reteach how to play the game. It is a great
way to see how the students think and how they interact with others.
After we practice the game I call kids back to their seats and they
take some sort of assessment. Usually it is a preassesment
that I use to see what kids know so I can put them into groups.
It is just something I make up. Usually four questions about
what I am going to teach. When I am in the middle of a unit,
then it is a assessment to see what I taught recently and I grade it
to see what I need to reteach. I have created longer
assessments, that cover the whole unit. However, this takes
longer for the kids to take and I have less time for the game.
Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday- I teach some sort of minilesson. This can be
something with the manipulatives, calendar or hundreds board.
I haven't really mastered this part yet! I am still working on
this! Then we break into small math groups. Students are
divide into 3-4 different groups, depending on how students did on
the preassesment from Monday. Sometimes I can do three groups,
others I need four groups. I pull a group. The other
groups are either playing math games (I have taught them several by
now and I introduce a new one every Monday) or doing seat
work. I spend about 20 minutes with the first group and then another
group comes to the table. The other students then switch to playing
math games or seatwork.
Friday-I am trying to get
in an exemplar every Friday. So far this school year, I have
done one, but I think I am more on a schedule now. I also try to
give end of unit assessments on Fridays.
Exemplars are heavy duty word problems that my school has
purchased. They really encourage children to solve problems
with pictures, manipulative and finding their "own" way to
figure the answer.
Planning and Organizing
This is an area I am
still learning. This weekend I came up with this planning sheet.
I am hoping it will help me keep my math groups and planning
organized and contained to one sheet of paper! I just created it, so
I am not sure how well it will work!!!
Planning
Sheet
I am hoping that this
one sheet will last the whole week. The very tops will have all the
information for who is in a certain group. The table on the
top will be the list of rotations through seatwork, centers and
groups. The bottom half will help keep my organized as far as
what I am doing in the small groups. The one thing I would
like to add is a section to write what I am doing each day in whole
group. I have have to work on this...!
I have updated my
math groups planning sheet. I simply added an area for the
whole group lesson for the day.
After I give my pre-assessment, I quickly score the sheets.
Then I look for common errors and try to sort into similar stacks.
I like to have between three to four stacks. Each stack is a guided
math group. If I give a longer pre- assessment that will help
guide placing kids into groups for the whole unit, then I look for
one concept and try to find common errors. Then I keep the
tests and resort them when we are ready to cover the next concept in
the unit.
For example, let's say I was teaching adding with regrouping and it
was a short assessment with four addition problems. I could
have a stack of kids who got it, a stack of kids who just need more
practice and are inconsistent (perhaps making goofy errors saying 3
+ 6 = 8), a stack of kids who add, but forget to add in the
"carried" one and a stack of no clues. Then I have four groups
and I know how to target their needs.
If had given a longer assessment on ALL of the concepts that are
covered in fractions I would just focus in on one objective.
For example, on the fraction test lets say I wanted to cover parts
of a whole. Then I would just look at these problems, sort
these papers into three to four like steps and create math groups.
Then when we were ready to go over the next objective I would look
at a new problem and resort again.
I try to keep the assessments right by my table so in the middle of
the group, if I want to jog my memory on the mistake Susie made I
can check and try to remediate it right then and there.
Since
I am low maintenance and my groups are always changing, I keep my
system for organizing pretty simple. I use different colored
index cards. On one card I write group one and the group members.
On a different color index card I write group two and the group
members. When I ran out of colored index cards, I wrote the
groups in a different colored marker!
I
taped the cards on the white board, similar to how I did guided
reading in the past.
The index cards were on the left (like the cute pictures with clip
art- but easier to change). Then there were two columns next
to the index cards. The first column represented the first rotation,
the second column was the next rotation. I don't have a picture of
this (sorry- it really was nothing spectacular!) I will try to
diagram it out.
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Group One index
card with kids names
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Meet |
Workbook page 28
Math Tubs
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Group Two index card with kids
names
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Games |
Workbook page 28
Math Tubs
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Group Three index card with kids names |
Workbook page 23
Math Tubs |
Games |
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Group Four index card with kids names |
Workbook page 28
Math Tubs
|
Meet |
So, What is Everyone Else
Doing?
This is always the golden question whenever small group instruction
is taking place. It is tough to balance. Especially
because you want whatever they are doing independently outside of
guided groups to be just as valuable and meaningful as what is
happening in the guided group.
To keep myself
organized, I used the above
planning sheet. Next year I will be at a
new school. Apparently all of the planning is online, so I
have no idea how I will plan. I am somewhat worried about
this, but I figure I will cross that bridge when I come to it!
There was a
rotation of sorts. Notice that every child did seat work
everyday. Is this best practices? I am not quite sure! BUT it
did give time for students to practice (old school paper and pencil)
a skill that would be assessed later paper and pencil on the "BIG
TEST." I always assigned something that would be easier for
students. I did not want it to be a new skill- I wanted it to
be something they could do independently and successfully BUT would
also benefit from practice. It was harder to do this at the
beginning of the year, since we hadn't covered as much, but got much
easier as the year went on.
Under the
seatwork section are the words math tubs. I found often that
kids were finishing the seatwork too quickly and were sitting around
with nothing to do. If I let them play games when they were
done they breezed through the seatwork, just to get to the game AND
it got noisy- quick! I tried several different things.
For a while kids selected a sheet of laminated paper copied with a
problem from the
Read It! Draw it ! Solve It! book.
Students were
able to select a problem and marked off any of the problems from a
checklist in their math journals. While this
worked well, it was difficult for some of my struggling math
students. It also was difficult to monitor AND made it more for me
to check. I might go back to this system, but it would be the END of
the year when my kids have had more math exposure.
When I felt like
this wasn't working I switched to math tubs. A lot of the
second grade teachers were trying this out as well and the math
coaches really promoted it to help with automaticity of addition
facts. The tubs are based on the
Math
Their Way ideas. I have not been trained in this approach
so it is somewhat the blind leading the blind! Basically
students were assessed using the
hidden number
assessment (on page 13 of this file) on ways to make ten.
When students could not recall the number automatically, this was
their magic number. They used math manipulatives to construct
this number. Each tub had a different math manipulative and
recording sheet so kids could make their number. They also
practiced making the number that was one less and one more as a
preview and review. To learn more about this, please check out
the Math
Their Way Summary Newsletter. Another activity I
will include in tubbing this year is the
math number family tub ideas from the
School Bell.
I especially liked the
tile card ideas and
ghost card ideas as well!
Two groups
played games daily. Please note that only one group at a time
does this to cut down on noise. Kids can choose any of the
games available on the math shelf. All of these have been
introduced and played on a Monday so kids are familiar with the
rules. The games are on the right side of the shelf (the left
is literacy stuff). I also kept white tubs under the shelf
that were specifically math tubs with activities in them.
Math Games and Activities
Reinforcing Number Sense
(including skip counting)
Place Value
Addition with Regrouping
Glyphs
Fractions
Geometry
Reinforcing Number Sense
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Skip
Counting
I was just talking
to my former teaching partner (and math whiz) about the
importance of teaching skip counting and WHY it needs to be
taught. I just didn't get it. And she enlightened
me on how it reinforces counting change and money AND is a
foundation for multiplication. A big "Ohhhh" moment for
me. So, I have been trying a few things to get kids
ready for money and multiplication.
I found this skip
counting cadence on Proteacher.com We have been chanting
this at the beginning of math times. I have introduced
each "stanza" one at a time so we can focus on the numbers.
Skip Counting
Cadence
I have read aloud
the story What Comes in 2'3, 3's & 4's? as an
introduction. This is an adorable book! It fins things
students see everyday and shows how they come in sets of 2,3
or 4. When I focused
on skip counting by two's I only read this portion of the
text. When I focus on 3's, I only read this part and so
on.
Then we created
what ever number we were studying pattern on the hundreds
board. Then students were given a large copy of a
hundreds chart and "jewels." These are really just the
pretty, large stones that can be found at the dollar store foe
the bottom of vases and aquariums. Students then created
the pattern with the number on the hundreds board with the
"jewels" as I walked around and watched.
Finally, when
students have done this, we go back to our seats and complete
our skip counting book. Students each have a book with a
skip counting page from 2 to 10. I copied this two to a
page to save paper and then sliced the copies so that each
book is the size of a half sheet of paper. We completed
2, 3, and 4 together as a class so that students could get
used to completing this. Students must complete the
hundreds board pattern in PENCIL first and then show it to me
before they color it in with markers, because that can
sometimes mess this up.
Skip Counting by 2's
Skip Counting by 3's
Skip Counting by 4's
Skip Counting by 5's
Skip Counting by 6's
Skip Counting by 7's
Skip Counting by 8's
Skip Counting by 9's
Skip Counting by
10's
This was a great
activity, but I found it REALLY time consuming. I am not sure
if the benefits out weighted time spent. I actually
stopped somewhere around 6 because of time. What I might
do next year is choose 2,3,4,5,10, because these seem to
be a good introduction and kids understand these patterns.
What I found that was actually better than this, was a Skip
Counting tape a colleague lent to me. I think the
singing clicked better with my kids.
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Hundreds
Board Activities
Last year I did not
know how to use the hundreds board. It wasn't until a
colleague loaned me this
book that I began to see the possibilities. I ended
up using many of the activities from this book as my mini
lesson during the second half of the year on days when I
wasn't sure where to go next. This upcoming year I
will use these activities in the BEGINNING of the school year
to develop number sense. Unfortunately this book is no
longer in print. I did find the books below on Amazon,
but I have not seen them personally.
However,
Mathwire has
tons of great ideas to use with the hundreds board. They
are free and ready to print!
This
link
discusses using hundreds board puzzles. I had these out
almost all the time and my kids loved them. I had
several different sets.
This
link discusses the hundreds board magic. I have not
done this yet, but I went to a workshop and saw this.
I thought this would be a very engaging beginning of the year
mini lessons! The kids would do this over and over!
This
link
is to a PDF file from
Mathwire that gives clues using the hundred board so that
students guess the number. Great logic puzzles!
I found this great
posting on
www.Proteacher.com. It has an attachment of designs
that can be made using the hundred board. To use this you will
need a hundred pocket chart with two color sided numbers.
Although the design says 13, I would not give the number 13.
Instead, I would give a clue. For example 7 less than
20. Then the student that got it could turn the number
card over. Continue giving clues until a design emerges.
The kids LOVE guessing what the design could be! |
Place Value
This game can
reinforce place value and addition with regrouping.
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This is based off of an ETS game called
Race for a Flat:
Students need:
-
base ten blocks
-
place value mat
-
three die
This game is played in pairs.
Students roll the die
and add the three numbers together. I did this to reinforce
adding with more than two addends. You could do the same with
four die if you wanted or just two die. The students with the
highest roll goes first. The students roll the die and add
them together to find the sum. Then they "show" this amount on
their place value mat. Then the other student does the same.
Students continue to take turns and add their rolls to their mats.
Students must look at their mats to decide when it is time to trade
in (regroup). Students continue playing until one students
reaches a flat (hundred board) and is the winner.
I like this game
because it reinforces the idea of regrouping and trading in.
Place Value Matching Cards
This year for a
mini lesson I will have students match two cards, the number
to the word form. As we learn more, I will add more to
the matching activity included the base ten blocks and then
the expanded form. I will do this as a pocket chart
activity and then will leave it out as a center activity
during guided math.
Place Value
Concentration
page 1
page 2
I looked all over
and couldn't find a place value concentration printable. I am
sure there are some, I just couldn't find them! So I
decided to create them myself! I this game, students
match the number to the base ten block representation.
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Addition with Regrouping
I have just started
addition with regrouping with my second graders. Much to my
surprise, all of my students were able to add with regrouping and
just needed some instruction on how to use models to show what
addition without regrouping means. Then we rolled into
regrouping!
This is a game that I
made up, but I am sure someone else has it published somewhere.
I call it High/ Low:
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Students need:
This game is played with 3-5 students.
I played this game in small math groups
to introduce adding with regrouping.
Students each draw one of the number ads.
The students then each build the number and I check it. We
talk about adding another card to find the sum and whether or not
they need to clear their mats (for some reason they all want to
clear the mat and start all over!). student then draw a second
card and build this number to find the sum between the two numbers.
After I have checked (this just takes a second and I can watch as
students build) students go around and announce their sum.
Students talk and compare their sums. Students with the
highest and lowest each get one point.
So not only are
we adding and regrouping but also comparing!! It is neat to
see the kids beginning to notice if they will be low or high just
based on the cards they draw.
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This is not necessarily
addition with regrouping, but it does encourage a great deal of
mental math.
Glyphs
I am just entering the
world of teaching math and lower grades (since I taught fourth grade
language arts for so long!). Here is my best effort!
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Apple Glyph
Apple Glyph
I wanted a back
to school glyph or a glyph I could use with some of the
activities I do for Johnny Appleseed. I searched online
and found
this apple glyph by Judith Rohlf at
Tiddlywinks, an ESOL site. I took her ideas and just
put them into
this form,
so I did NOT create the glyph, just the format.
Here are the
tracers for the apple glyph. Copy these on card
stock and cut out. Students can then use these as
tracers to create their own glyph! I usually have about
4 sets of tracers so a group can share them.
Turkey
Glyph
I found this excellent
turkey glyph with a detailed lesson plan at The Educator'
Reference Desk by Tina Vecellio. Since I don't really
celebrate Halloween at school , I wanted a fall glyph (I will
use the scarecrow for my "Halloween" activity) and a
Thanksgiving glyph. Click
here
for my format of the turkey glyph. I once again took someone
else's ideas and just formatted them in a way I liked. I
don't want to take credit for someone else's hard work.
Here are the
tracers for the turkey glyph. Here is
page one and
page two. Copy these on card stock and cut out.
Students can then use these as tracers to create their own
glyph! I usually have about 4 sets of tracers so a group
can share them.
Scarecrow Glyph
I found this
scarecrow glyph and decided to "pretty it up " for
my second graders. Click here to see my
printable version. They will create the glyph as
part of one of their math stations. After everyone has
created their glyph and we have hung them in the hall, I will
send students out to read the glyphs
using this sheet. As soon as I create my sample
(this week), I will post it!
Snowman Glyph
I found these two snowman glyphs on
on www.mathwire.com.
Neither were exactly what I was looking for, but
both were very close. One glyph was created by
Mrs. Ritenour and the other was created by
Ms. Weber. I combined the ideas from both to create
this glyph. Please take note that I did NOT create the
glyph, but compiled it based on the ideas of others.
Here is a copy of the
snowman glyph in Word and in
PDF.
After everyone has created their
glyph and we have hung them , I will send students to read the
glyphs
using this sheet.
Here is a great example a student created:
After we created the snowman glyphs
I did a word problem involving snowmen as well.
I decided to get more "bang for my buck." We completed a
word problem with the tracers the next day.
Students each got a copy of white
paper. They traced the body of the three snowball
snowman tracer from the glyph and cut it out along with the
top hat which they cut out on black paper. Then students
were given the word problem which we read aloud and figured
out what the problem was asking. Students then solved
the problem with pictures on the middle snowball, words
(answer in a complete sentence ) on the bottom snowball and
numbers on the hat. We used special Gel Effect
markers by Crayola on the top hats to write the number
sentence on the black paper of the top hat.
Here is a copy of the
word problem. They turned out really cute!
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Fractions
We have started a unit
on Fractions this last few week's I felt my students needed a
break from addition with regrouping before we jumped into subtraction
or skip counting money. Here are some excellent
resources I have found (but did NOT create).
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Fraction Man
I found this resource on the Second
Grade Teachers MSN Club. This is a wonderful web group
to join if you teach second. There is SO MUCH shared on
this site.
This adorable little guy is
fraction man. We created this on one of the early
release days and the kids really enjoyed it. It took
longer than I expected (about an hour and a half) but my kids
were all engaged. It le to some GREAT discussion on
comparing fractions (would you rather eat 1/16 of pizza or 1/2
of a pizza? Of course all the kids said 1/16 so I made
them look at the red construction paper and compare it to the
yellow).
Here is the link to this great
activity:
http://www.marshall.edu/coe/toyota/thematic/fantasticfractionfun.pdf
Fraction
Bingo
Another great resource shared on
the Second Grade MSN Club was fraction bingo Another
teacher, Donna Perry, painstakingly created these wonderful
bingo boards. I copied them into Word because I feel it is
easier to work with than Excel in which the sheet was
originally created. Then I cut and pasted to slightly
rearrange the boards. Once again, I did not create
these boards, I was just lucky enough to find them!
Fraction Bingo
card 1
Fraction Bingo
card 2
Fraction Bingo
card 3
Fraction bingo card answer sheet
Fraction
Shake
This is a game we are playing in
small math groups to reinforce fractions of a set.
Students are given a small plastic container that the
cafeteria shared. It is a small ,sweet cherries
containers, but a to-go container would work just as well
(like the picture below). Students also need double
sided counters, dry erase board and marker.
I drop in
handful of double sided counters. Students shake the
container and then write the fraction of the red counters that
is facing up on the dry erase board. They love this
noisy game! I just watch them do this over and over and
monitor that they are able to find a fraction of a set.
Then I ask them to close their eyes, I pop open the container
and change the amount of counters. Then I watch the kids
to see if they know to change the denominator when they create
the new fractions.
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Geometry
I have already finished this unit on
geometry. Our math coach ( and my former teammate I taught
with) created this GREAT lesson to introduce plane shapes and then
an art project to practice identifying plane polygons.
Thank you, Julie!
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Introduction of Plane
Shapes
To introduce
plane shapes I used Julie's lesson plan. I passed out
each student a geoboard with a handful of rubber bans (of
course we discussed procedures and how to handle the geoboards
BEFORE I passed them out !! : ) I gave students time to
play with them first.
As the kids were
playing I put up several pieces of chart paper on the white
board. After a minute or two I called the kids attention back.
I read aloud the story The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn
Burns.
As I read aloud
the story I stopped for every plane shape the triangle wished
to be starting with the triangle. I read the first few
pages and then stopped and asked the kids to make any kind of
triangle on their geoboards. As the kids were making
their triangles, I wrote (in a red marker): Triangle at
the top of one sheet of chart paper and then listed
underneath: ____ edges, ___ vertices, _____ angles. Then
I told kids the definition of each and we figured out how many
edges, vertices and angles their triangle had. Then I
called up 3 students (the same number of edges, vertices and
angles) to draw their example of a triangle. I tried to
choose a right, equilateral and isosceles triangle example
(although the kids had no idea of these terms).
Then kids put the
geoboards down and I read the next part of the story about the
triangle wanting to become a quadrilateral. Then I picked
another color (I used blue) and labeled another sheet of chart
paper Quadrilateral and wrote ____ edges, ___ vertices,
___angles. I once again orally defined it and we realized that
a quadrilateral has four of each. Then I asked students
to make a quadrilateral on their geoboards. Then I choose four
students with four different looking quadrilaterals to draw it
on the bottom of the chart paper, also in the blue marker.
I continue to do
this with the pentagon, hexagon, and octagon, choosing a
different color for each shape. If the students draw the shape
(especially with the hexagon and octagon) where it is
difficult to count the edges and vertices, trace over it with
the marker to exaggerate it visually for the students.
Geometry Art Collage
This is a great
project that took SEVERAL days for students to complete while
I pulled kids in small groups.
The next day, I
introduced the polygon art collage. We talked about the
different polygons we had learned, then I showed them an
example of the collage. I do not have a picture of my
example, I am sorry! I sent all my student examples
home!!
Each student was
given one copy of the sheets below. These sheets are
blackline masters from Van De Walle's book Elementary and
Middle School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally.
Click
here to read about this book and see other backline
masters.
polygon sheet 1
polygon sheet 2
polygon sheet 3
We then
identified some of the polygons. We colored the
triangles red, the quadrilaterals blue so that the polygons
were color coded to our charts we had made the day before.
Each student was
given a large sheet of white construction paper. in the top
corner they drew a key with a red box= triangle and a blue
box= quadrilateral and so on. After students colored in
the shapes they carefully cut the shapes out. They then
glued them down to the paper in a random design of their
choice, careful not to cover their key.
Graphing Art College
Then I modeled
how to create a graph of the number of triangles ,
quadrilateral and so on. Students created a graph using
this
sheet. Students wrote the polygon on the left side,
then drew a picture of the polygon. Students created a
title to match. Collages and matching graphs were
SUPPOSED to go in the hall, but I never got around to putting
them up! My coworker did and they looked great!
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|
The Georgia DOE
has several great geometry projects listed on their website.
I used several of the projects/ activities in my geometry
unit. Click
here to see all of the activities! It has vocabulary
and essential questions!
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| After
teaching geometry I realized the most difficult part for my
students was absorbing all the vocabulary. There was
tons and tons of vocabulary for the kids to take in- my
highest readers struggled and some of my ESOL kids got lost.
It took a HUGE amount of review, daily review, to even make a
dent. I fell in love with this activity because it is
hands on way to teach the vocabulary- and it is fun! Who
doesn't love tangrams?!
Learning Vocabulary with Tangrams from the
Math Solutions
website.
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Great Resources
This is a section I am just starting, but
here are a few great websites:
http://www.mathsolutions.com/index.cfm?page=wp9&crid=65
FREE Marylyn Burns math activities
http://www.mathwire.com/
Just TONS of GOOD stuff!
http://home.nyc.rr.com/teachertools/mathliterature.html
List of math literature matched to
standards
http://www.ed.arizona.edu/ward/TTE%20521/book-list.doc
This is another awesome site with five
pages of trade books matched to a math concept!
http://www.georgiastandards.org/mathframework.aspx
The Georgia DOE has created to unit of
activities and projects to match all of the objectives for each
grade level. Many of the activities are really good!
http://www.myteacherpages.com/webpages/JGriffin/guided_math.cfm
Several ideas for guided math activities.
Make sure to scroll to the left hand side of the page to see all of
the links to other guided math activities!
http://www.mspowell.com/otherwebpages/centerpics6.htm
TONS of ideas for math games plus
printable game directions!
http://www.brokenhilld.det.nsw.edu.au/card_games.htm
Tons of games for math games using just a
deck of cards!
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