January 25, 2014 by Beyond Traditional Math

Elementary Architects: Free Math Project – January 25-27th

I am going to preface this post with a note about me. I am not at all a person who self promotes or constantly mentions things I’ve created in blog posts to sell them to everyone. I don’t use cutesy clip art or decorative borders. My cover pages for the things I create are always pretty straightforward with real photos of students doing real math. The units I write are meant to take students to a deep level of understanding, with research based practices.

In addition, I want this blog to be all about teaching tips, reflections on the best ways for our brains to learn math…not a non-stop promotion of myself. The whole idea of putting items up for sale took me a full year to actually agree to do, and only because the staff members in my building kept on pressing and encouraging me to share to the world what I had created for all of them. My hopes and dreams are to raise enough money that I can design an online math fact fluency program that is all in my head and just waiting to happen.

With all that being said, I did join an event called a Facebook free-for-all. I joined because there are people out there that are just like me, they want their ideas spread because our primary focus is not about making money. We know that the more we share, the more we’ll learn about becoming better for our students. I have been going through the “map” and am amazed at all of the things that other teachers have created and are giving away for free. It’s truly remarkable.

If you go to my Facebook Page and click on the tab right under my cover photo that looks like this:

It will take you to my free resource, Elementary Architects. The reason I linked this to my facebook page, is because there is a map that you can use to find other people who are participating in this same event (you’ll see on the picture it says “click here to find more”. If you don’t have facebook, hate facebook or really hate the whole idea, you can still get Elementary Architects for free in my TPT store. It’ll be free until January 27th!

In Elementary Architects, students design a space, calculate the area of that space and then figure out the cost of flooring. It is sort of cool because it differentiates naturally, and it requires LOTS of precision. I pay my students with classroom dollars if they get everything perfect on the specification sheet which is very motivating to them.

Here they are at work!

What I like best about this project, is the structured days leading up to the actual work that they do. They learn little bits at a time, and I can even introduce the distributive property as a third way to calculate area. I hope you find it useful, and would appreciate any feedback you can give to help me get better!

January 18, 2014 by Beyond Traditional Math

Measurement and Data for Early Learners

Five year old math is SUCH fun math. My daughter and I have been doing our 20 minutes of math every day since the start of the new year.

Our latest math play fun began with counting pillows in our living room. (We have an obscene amount due to a botched couch delivery-they threw in an extra shipment of free pillows!) I quickly realized that we could sort and classify each pillow by it’s color.

That led to this little gem, which we whipped up pretty quickly with a piece of paper, some dot stickers and a marker. Each dot stood for one pillow, and we sorted them and graphed them by color.

This really took the idea of counting up a few notches. Not only could we find out how many pillows we have total, but we could also find out our most common color, and our least common color(s). This could be done with all sorts of things in our house, and as we become more advanced we can practice some adding strategies.

Have you done any early measurement and data graphing at home? Please feel free to share!

January 14, 2014 by Beyond Traditional Math

Intentionally Make Mistakes as a Learning Tool

Last year when I was teaching area and perimeter, we wrote all over the floor with a dry erase marker to block off shapes. When I “tested” it on my own, I was able to wipe the marker away with my finger because the ink was still wet. However, after all the students had written all over the floor, I learned that once the ink was dry, YOU CANNOT WIPE IT AWAY with your finger. Oops. I learned from that mistake! We all learn from our mistakes daily!

We learn from our mistakes in math as well. Sometimes I think the best mathematicians are the people who are the very best at analyzing their mistakes. I’ve noticed for students who struggle, it is very difficult to find their own mistakes.

So I’ve been incorporating a short game called “What’s My Mistake?” each morning during our morning meeting. Here is a photo of the one I had up today:

I let them take a long look at it, and then I pick popsicle sticks. Students always have the option to pass if they aren’t sure, but most times they spot my error!

The most important part though, is to be sure that you’ve shared plenty of examples of the right way (sometimes I make a mistake that is actually correct on an anchor chart that is hanging on the wall). If they haven’t seen many examples of the right way to do it, they won’t be able to spot the mistake.

My students sure to LOVE to prove me wrong!

January 13, 2014January 13, 2014 by Beyond Traditional Math

Top 10 Tips for Teachers of Elementary Math

I saw this awesome pin today on pinterest, and haven’t been able to get this post out of my head, so I thought I’d author it and link back to the original author, Love, Laughter and Learning in prep (click below to see her page!):

So here are my top 10 tips (basically the top 10 things I wish I had known as a first year teacher) for teachers of elementary math:

1. Stop being scared of math! I spent a good two years being terrified of math because I was terrible at math my entire life. If you can embrace the fear right now, you can also do tips #2-10.

2. Make a lot of mistakes. In fact, make a TON of mistakes in front of your students. They will love you for it, and it helps them see things they wouldn’t see if you always did math perfectly.

3. Allow your students to make many mistakes. Don’t grade everything they work on, give them time to practice. If they make mistakes it should be without worry of a grade so that they can analyze them.

4. Make your students analyze their OWN work. If you correct their work, hand it back with a note that has all the right answers, they are done learning. You are the only one that did any of the learning unless they can analyze what they did wrong.

5. Get in their space. Walk around a lot and get down next to students, work with them and talk to them about their thinking. Keep them accountable with group shares and math talk.

6. Let them share. You aren’t the only one with great tricks and strategies, let the students share their thinking so that they can inspire their peers.

7. Give immediate feedback on their performance. Allow them to take home work occasionally, but encourage most of it in class where you can correct misconceptions right away.

8. Practice doesn’t have to mean a worksheet. I use worksheets from time to time, but that isn’t the only way to practice skills. Pull out the manipulatives, dry erase boards or other tools. Let them draw their thinking all over the easel paper and chalkboards. Let math be messy, and let it take on the beauty that it really is.

9. No matter what, ALWAYS connect math concepts to their world. Math does not have meaning unless they care about it, and can use it in a setting that is motivating to them.

10. Use data to drive your instruction. Using exit slips for every lesson is a very powerful way to form groups, and to figure out who needs what immediately.

Good luck to all of those who are beginning a new semester or a new school year. I wish you lots of math love!

January 11, 2014January 26, 2023 by Beyond Traditional Math

Give the Dog a Bone: FREE Number Sense Game Online

Give the Dog a Bone is a great little game for early learners (or for those students who struggle with number sense), encouraging them to think about patterns to find numbers on a blank number line. In the game you need to find 10 numbers on a blank 100 chart in 1 minute. It is pretty fun and addicting!

What I like best is that the added time pressure encourages them to think about patterning, rather than simply counting one square at a time. For example, in the situation below they might count by tens to get to sixty one, rather than count 61 squares. To get all ten bones in a minute, they’ll need to think this way!

This game could be used as a link from school to home, as an activity in the computer lab or with small groups!

January 9, 2014 by Beyond Traditional Math

Drop Everything and Try it! Multi-Digit Multiplication Interactive Tool

I was told about this *amazing* online tool today. It can be used in SO many ways. Here is one:

There is a core groups of students who have been absolutely flying ahead of the others with multiplication. They are ready to go deeper and play around with double digit by double digit numbers. The last thing I want to do is try to teach them the traditional algorithm I was taught in school at this point in their learning. I’d like them to understand what is happening conceptually first.

So I brought up the dreambox learning teacher tool page today during our computer lab time. I pulled that group of 7 students over to take a look at the Fourth Grade Multiplication and Division section. You are looking specifically for the tool titled Multiplication: Open Arrays – Students compose arrays, use partial products, and develop understanding of the distributive property to mentally multiply up to 3-digit by 3-digit numbers.

THIS IS AN AWESOME TOOL. My group of third graders went crazy over it. After I showed them a few examples (like below). They were so excited to be multiplying such huge numbers. Not to mention the fact that it helps solidify the concept of arrays and area.

This is a screenshot of the game. It totally walks them through the entire process. Since they just recently learned how to multiply by multiples of 10, they were eating it up.

The best part? It’s FREE!

P.S. Just as an FYI, we had a lot of problems with googling it, we had to actually type in http://www.dreambox.com/teachertools.

January 7, 2014 by Beyond Traditional Math

Pre-Algebraic Thinking for Elementary Students

We came back from winter break with a two day week last week. I really wanted to do a review of multiplication concepts, because we had been away from school for twelve days. So I had planned some games to practice their facts.

That’s when I saw this on Pinterest:

$Math Activity$

Click the picture to go straight to Amber’s post!

Amazing! I’ve seen the “all about me in numbers” things on Pinterest, but this one gets them thinking deeper (because they have to make an appropriate number sentence that matches the number!) I dropped my lame game from my plans and whipped up my own version in about 5 minutes on the easel. Clearly, I am not even half the artist that she is! (Also, I have WAY bigger feet!)

All of the number sentences could have been ___ x 1, but we brought it up a notch!

I showed them how to make it, and we talked about challenging ourselves with the number sentences. The students who were comfortable could take this pretty far! This project totally differentiated itself naturally, AND we have the added bonus of trying to figure each other’s posters out. This type of thing really helps develop pre-algebraic thinking, which can be very difficult for third graders to understand. The activity was age appropriate and helped them see how multiplication and division were related!

Here are some of the student samples:

He *really* likes pigs.

She actually measured her hair!

Thanks to Amber Thomas over at Shut the Door and Teach. I love that the more we share, the more we learn in education!

January 6, 2014January 6, 2014 by Beyond Traditional Math

You Call That a Multiplication Table? THIS is a Multiplication Table

Have you even seen this yet?! Click on the image to go straight to the PDF of this amazing multiplication table by David Millar of thegriddle.net. It is free to educators to print and use in the classroom. Even better if you go to the educator section, there is a black and white version that is both with and without numbers.

My mind is churning with the possibilities for using this in the classroom! I think it is the best multiplication table I’ve certainly ever seen. Talk about helping students conceptually understand multiplication, connect it to arrays as well as the concept of area.

Outstanding!

January 5, 2014January 13, 2014 by Beyond Traditional Math

Bump and Wild to Three in a Row: A Math Play Activity

I have to say that social media has really opened me up to be a better parent and teacher. The amount of things I see on a daily basis make me a better thinker and person. I’ve been on a mission to do 20 minutes of math play with my daughter, and was inspired by these posts by Pre-K Pages and Scott’s Brick by Brick.

The ziploc quilt is extremely easy to make and the building of this game was an entire 20 minutes of math problem solving for one day alone! We made our quilt out of stuff that we already had around the house:

colorful duct tape
ziploc bags
paper
masking tape
giant duplo blocks

All we had to do was make a simple array. While we were making it we talked about skip counting by three. I made mine with 12 ziplock bags and made a “quilt” by laying them onto the sticky side of the duct tape. Then we covered the sticky underside with masking tape so it wouldn’t stick to the floor.

The object of the game? Simply get three of your game pieces in a row horizontally, vertically or diagonally.

For our first game I made a deck of cards for the draw pile of three types to be played in the following way:

Numbers 1-12 in standard form: Find a matching representation of that number on the board. (If your number is already taken due to a bump or wild card, you lose your turn.)
Bump card: bump someone’s piece off and replace it with your own.
Wild card: place your game piece on any open space.

Then I made 12 cards to slip into the ziplock bags for the game board. I mixed the representations up and made tally marks, word form and dots to make the standard form cards. I wanted to make five and ten frames but I wasn’t sure I could draw them evenly enough (and our printer is out of ink!). I’ll probably try that next time.

Playing with three players made each game both quick and fun. We were totally addicted. I think the three of us played for an hour straight. The game wasn’t purely about matching, but included thinking about where to put a wild piece, as well as which piece would be the best to bump. My five year old began picking up strategies and we were amazed at her thinking!

The possibilities are endless for what can go in the quilt!

I think I am going to see if we can make these in my third grade classroom for the kindergarten mentors we work with! Making them will mean that they’ll need to use their multiplication skills to make the quilt.

This is a great after school play activity!

January 4, 2014January 4, 2014 by Beyond Traditional Math

Inquiry Learning: YES!

A little while back I wrote about letting students discover math patterns and connections on their own. Inquiry learning truly does help students do the majority of the learning.

Well, check out this blogger from The Research Based Classroom. I love her post this morning citing Piaget:

“Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently from understanding it completely.” Piaget

Right on Brandi!

How do you all help your students discover concepts on their own?

Beyond Traditional Math

Fostering conceptual understanding with real world connections.

Category / project based learning