Number talks, dot cards and subitizing, oh my!

Hi All!

This year my district is really investing time into Number Talks (Math Solutions.com). We have been to a few trainings, watched videos and tested them out on each other. Now we are doing them with the kids! If you haven't heard of Number Talks, they are 10-15min student led classroom discussion in which the kiddos reason their way through math problems. It looks a little different at each grade level, but the idea is the same.

In first grade, my goal is for the students to develop strong number sense, communication and math courage (being brave enough to be different and knowing that they may not always be right) during Number Talks. I currently do them 1-2 times a week and hope to work them in more often as the kids become familiar with our classroom routines.

Most of the time of the time (80%) have them on the rug in a "U" formation. This allows me to see everyone and for them to look at the speaker when another student is talking-the whole eyes on the speaker thing- perfect for building that communication!

Now we Number Talk!

Right now we are working on subitizing (looking for groups). They are usually quick to pull out combos seen on dice. Subitizing helps them think of combinations to make a whole and reinforces that we can solve the same problem different ways.

I flash them the card. I usually give them between 3-5 seconds before I take it away. Then I ask them "How many dots did you see." If I think they will all/most have the correct answer I solicit it whole group in a whisper; as the answer in this version of Number Talks is not quite as important as the process of finding the answer. If I think they may have differing answers, I have a few share their answers.

Then, we begin the reasoning and constructing of arguments. Right now we are only working on reasoning with math language and agreement. :) They can agree with someone using a special hand signal if they solved the same way.

I ask for one kiddo to explain how they counted and I notate. Then I solicit a different way and notate. And so on.

Once we have discovered all the ways or have exhausted their ways, we are done! Then I use the math talk to identify skills that appeared (one kid counted by 2s, one child is still counting each one) and use that information to guide my math workshop.

Do you Number Talk?

Melissa

Let's Go Shopping!

Hi All!

Sorry for the hiatus... I'll get to that later.

But first Shopping! I L.O.V.E. to shop and all my kiddos know it! So, what better way to culminate our double digit addition (without regrouping) unit than with a little shopping!

Over that past few weeks I have been collecting empty food containers and boxes. I wish I had taken a picture of the giant pile of clean, I repeat it was clean, trash sitting in the corner of my room. And about half way through collecting it took everything I had not to cancel the activity because I couldn't take the trash any more!! But I pushed on and it was well worth it!

After three weeks of working on double digit addition (our math program spirals, so each unit takes longer than a normal text book) I set up our classroom store with all of the "goodies" the kids brought in.

All of that was sitting the the corner of my room!! Bananas!! LOL

 After I set up the store I tagged each item with a small round sticker that had the price. Most things needed to be less than 44 cents so the kids wouldn't need to regroup, but I stuck a couple of sevens and fives in anyway!

Each table of items had a generic label so the kids could fill out the receipt. I matched the colored price tag dots to the colors above.

Because I have 21 kids, I had 7 cashiers/check-stands, 7 customers, and 7 courtesy clerks. This way there were 7 groups of three and they could all easily switch jobs when the time came. But you could do what ever works for you. 

 The cashiers' desks were along the front of the room. The clerks stood nearby to return the merchandise and the shoppers made their rounds. They could buy only two things at a time, but it could be any two things they wanted! I had one kiddo who wanted desperately to make a meal out of his goodies (chicken and pasta) and was so upset when someone purchased the chicken before he could! lol

After the kids found their two items they checked out at their cashier. Since the cashiers hold onto the receipt it was important that they went back to the same cashier every time!

 The cashier wrote down the generic label (dairy or snacks...), the price and did the addition. Then to practice counting coins the customer counted out their money and gave it to the cashier.

The cashier double checked the amount and then yelled "CHECK" aloud so I could run by and make the double check on all of the math! Then the clerk return the food to the store.

 Most kids got to shop three or four times before we switched jobs. Each student got to do each job and we were done in a half hour!

It was a ton of fun and a great way to end the unit! My kiddos LOVED it. 

If you are thinking about doing a store in your room HERE is the receipt that we used. Run it back to back and give each kiddo a half-sheet!

And a little non-school fun... I spent my long weekend on a trip to Walt Disney Words Resort...

I had to take a few extra days off, but my husband and I had a blast... and boy was it nice to get away!

I'll be back soon with a new lap book! See you then!

Solid Figures and a winner!

Hi all!

First things first... if you have already purchased my Off To The Zoo! Unit from TPT it was just revised :) Head on over and re-download!

And congrats to the winner of the giveaway....commenter #9 Kate! Check your email!

Alrighty...

This week has been all about solid figures. Now this is not new to the kiddos (solid shapes are discussed in kinder) but, honestly, they have the most difficult time remembering the names of the figures and counting the faces and corners! So I thought it would be worth it to give them a fun review this week!

Since my kiddos loved the coin flipper, I had them make a sold figure one too... They loved it just as much... first graders are so easy to please :)

nothing super fancy... but if you are interested in the project let me know and I'll post the patterns and pieces!

Then we began to classify and sort our solid figures. I've seen this hula hoop venn around the web a bit so I had to give it a try... Super fun!

 The kiddos helped me sort the solid figures by the type of face it had... we used some actual solid figure blocks and some realia... the kids were really crossing their fingers that there were graham crackers in that box and we weren't using it for math... nope! lol

Today we worked in small groups to investigate the solid figures. I only have one set of blocks so I broke the kids into groups of two and three. I assigned them each a solid figure and they had to create a poster that told us about their figure (it had to include the name, a picture, the number of faces and corners and if it was flat or round).

I LOVE seeing firsties working on group projects!

Here is a completed poster.

P.S. I NEVER, I mean NEVER let them use markers in class, but they have been so unbelievably awesome lately, why not? right? So I handed a box of markers to each group with the instructions... "trace and decorate your poster" ... A hot mess? ... No...I think they turned out great!

And... I had totally planned on posting some solid figure freebie worksheets that we did with our investigations... but I left my thumb drive at school... so I'll post them tomorrow :)

Till then.. :)

Just a bit of Money...

Well, I'm back to school this week (good-bye spring break) but honestly I was happy to get back and get going! We are about to dive into our big Zoo unit, which coincidentally purposely coincides with open house in a few weeks (pics to come)... And we get to start money!! Yea! My kiddos are pretty good with base 10s and tallys, so hopefully this whole money thing will be a breeze (fingers crossed!).

We started yesterday with a money intro. We've been doing coins in board math for weeks, but this was a little more in depth.

We did our poem...Click the pic to download :)

We created a chart that compared the coins...

Those gray blobs are coin rubbings. I couldn't believe how many of my kids had NEVER done a rubbing! They were in awe!

And then we made this flip book! I am LOVE with this, as are the kids. They were really excited to practice/quiz with their friends... so cute :)

 You can get the chart HERE and the flip book HERE! I hope you can use them.

And, on an organizational note I saw this idea on a blog last week, can't remember who's... but, seriously! What a great way to store money! I just had to do it too! So, I grabbed the play money (from our math program) and mini tubs from the Dollar Tree and put it together...Love it!

and... a Food Network magazine (the chocolate one from last month.. TO DIE FOR!!)

Have a great night!

Syllables, St. Patty's and a Freebie

Happy Friday! It's been awhile, so let's catch up! Here's what we were up to this week...

We have been doing a bit of syllable work. Identifying words with 1 syllable... SO HARD for my kiddos! So we played a scoot game to practice syllable counting. When I moved into my classroom last year I was lucky enough to find these digraph and blend tubs from Lakeshore!

a $70 value... FREE for me! Super Score!

They have come in VERY handy and they worked perfectly for this game too! I placed a number and a "toy" on each desk. Then the kiddos rotated around the room counting out the syllables for each item and recording it down.

 I have to admit having them all counting out different words at the same time was loud, but SO great to see! After each child brought the toy from their desk and counted out the syllables in front of the class and we checked our recordings together! We just used a plain sheet of paper that day, but I created this one to use for the next time we play... you can get it HERE.

In St. Patty's day news... well, a whole lot didn't go on...  Since we didn't have school today, I had to squeeze what I could in on Thursday, amidst specials and a second grade musical performance, there just wasn't a whole lot of time. But, thanks to some great bloggers out there I was able to borrow some fun ideas like...

this worksheet from Michelle over at Fabulous in First that went with a Scholastic easy reader

and...

this add and cover game from Nicole over at Mrs Ricca's Kindergarten (P.S. if you want to stock up on March goodies for next year go to her blog NOW she has a ton of March themed goodies for free!)

Alright on to the free stuff! I have been gearing up for April's math activities so here are a couple of freebies I hope you can use them. Just click the pics to download and leave some love :)

I was lucky enough to have the day off today as I roll into my spring break, so I have been catching up on some work... let's be honest... blog stalking and TV... thank you DVR (ha ha)!

Hope you all have a good one!