Math Centers

Students this week in second grade are working on perimeter and area. Their center work reinforces the skills they are practicing.

Students review vocabulary concepts by writing their ideas on posters around the room. they were in this way able to practice all of the key words and concepts for this math unit of study.

Math Centers

Graphing

Students practiced making graphs and sorting items into categories. These graphs required the students to make the units more than one. For example, each block on the graph represented 2 or more items in real life. After finishing their representations, they wrote questions about their graph for other students to answer.

First Grade Geometry

Students in first grade have been learning about shapes. They have been working on creating 3-D shapes out of toothpicks and clay. Here are some of their creations and writing.

Math

Students in this math group work on a problem assigned by Ms. Guynn.

More Getting to Know You

In math this week, students are completing surveys and asking each other questions. This allows them to practice both math skills like graphing, as well as providing a way to get to know their new classmates.

Tessellations

Students in first grade math this week are working on tessellations as a culmination of their geometry unit. We have been learning about slides, flips, and turns, as well as the different shapes in math.

Geometry

First grade students are currently learning about plane shapes. These are the 2-D shapes like circles, squares, rectangles, pentagons, etc. Today we did an activity called Hold and Fold that challenged the students to make as many shapes as they could out of a square piece of paper. We talked about congruency and symmetry, as well as the root words in the shapes like penta, hexa, etc.

Show me the Money

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We have been practicing making amounts of money in as many combinations as possible. Today we used a program on the smartboard and the students showed me their coins as each item for sale was displayed. We also practiced trying to make the amounts with the fewest and the greatest amount of coins possible. You can try this at home with real coins for even more everyday learning.

Math Conceptual Unit

We have started a new conceptual unit in math this week. Students are learning about comparing, ordering, and even & odd. We took a pre-test today to see what everyone's starting point is, and will divide into groups from there. After our test, the students practiced comparing numbers with a game. We will work on this same concept tomorrow with a different, but related game, and start more traditional paper pencil work as well. Remember, every unit begins with hands-on learning moving towards paper/pencil activities. Every day students will practice math facts, complete a DMR (Daily Math Review), participate in a mini-lesson, and play menu math games to reinforce the core curriculum concept.

A picture of our Math Vocabulary Wall

Musical Math

We have continued our learning of addition and subtraction strategies for math. Today we practiced counting on and counting back again, using some instruments. Students had fun using them to count each number that was added or subtracted. A bonus was that they couldn't use their fingers, something I had not thought of when I planned the lesson. They truly had to think and try to hold the numbers in their heads, even though the music was helping.

Doubles Painting

In math we are continuing to explore addition and subtraction. Today we worked on adding a doubles fact. A double is the same number added together, like 5+5 or 7+7. Students then used that knowledge when they were painting and predicted the answer before folding their papers. Each side was covered by the same picture and the students wrote an equation to match the painting.

Place Value

We have started a new unit in Math Workshop on place value. Place value is part of number sense, and helps us understand counting, writing, and grouping numbers. It will provide a foundation for students to work with bogger numbers as we learn double digit addition and subtraction.

For this unit we will be using a Marilyn Burns Replacement unit. It is very hands on, and has a lot of writing in it as well. So far we have talked about the 0-99 chart and patterns the children have noticed. They have practiced different grouping strategies, with an emphasis on grouping by tens. Yesterday we learned how to play two new menu math games: Cover a Flat and $ Signs. The first is played much like Race for a Dollar and involves rolling a die and exchanging groups of 10 cubes for a stick worth the same amount. Whoever can get 10 sticks to trade in for a flat wins the game. $ Signs has the children using the clock to time 1 minute increments, and then counting the $ signs they draw in that amount of time. Counting is done two different ways and is encouraged to be grouped in tens once again. We will be learning other games in the weeks to come to practice these skills.

Money Games

This week in math we started a new unit of focus on money. Although we will still be doing some worksheets during this study, many of our activities will be based on role playing and manipulative games. We learned two new games today to practice recognizing coins and exchanging values of coins.

In the sock game two students play together and take turns reaching into a sock to pull out a coin. The other student is challenged to find the same coin just by touch. It sounds like a very simple game, but the kids really love playing it. In the process they internalize the names of the coins quickly.

The second game is called Race for a Dollar. Students take turns rolling a die and getting coins on each turn. For example if a 4 is rolled, then the student takes 4 pennies and places them on his game board. In each turn more coins are added to the board, and students trade in pennies for nickels and dimes, then quarters, and eventually a dollar. Whoever makes the dollar first wins the game. This game helps students learn about money combinations and equivalencies.

Frog Pond Game

We have begun playing a new menu math game today to encourage logical thinking. The Frog Pond Game is an adaptation of a Chinese logic game. It encourages students to think creatively, look for patterns related to the number ten, and refine strategies based on change. The game consists of a game board and 10 plastic frogs that are placed on the lilly pads. The two students take turns picking up either one or two frogs on their turn. It is their choice of how many to select. The goal is to be the person who picks up the last 1 or 2 frogs.

Doubles Painting

We have been learning about computation class the couple of weeks. One strategy that helps the students is using what they know about doubles to solve other problems. A double is a problem such as 5+5 or 8+8. We practiced our double facts by painting and making prints.

Quilt Squares

We have been working on making quilt squares in Math Workshop this week. We read several books about quilts and patterns, and watched a Reading Rainbow video on it as well. Students selected a pattern to replicate on paper and discussed in their group how to make the shapes. Each shape begins as a square, and it was up to them to decide how to transform it into the triangles and rectangles found in the pattern.

I hope you will be able to visit the school next Thursday night for the Art and Education event. You will be able to see your child's artwork from special area class, as well as work they have done in our classroom.

Hold and Fold

Today we worked with shapes some more in math workshop. Students were given a square piece of paper to manipulate and transform into other shapes based on initial folds we did together. The point of this lesson was to help students become more familiar with shapes they don't use all that often, as well as to help them understand that some familiar shapes do not all look exactly the same.

We were able to revisit vocabulary terms such as congruent, parallel, angle, corner, side, and rotate. We also reviewed prefixes and number word roots like penta, hex, and tri. Students discovered shapes that were different such as the pentagon and trapezoid, and realized that as long as the shape met the basic requirements it could still be the same shape and look different. For example all hexagons will not look the same, but they do all have six sides and six corners.

We did a lot of discussion today and students were encouraged to justify their answers and share how they discovered the different shapes. I was able to observe their willingness to take risks, and how inventive and flexible they could be in be with their work.

Geo Shapes

New games are always fun to play, especially when they are a part of our new unit on geometry. This game had students working together to be the first team to complete two shapes on their game board. Every team had a circle divided into fourths, as well as an irregular shape to fill with other pieces. Students had to make decisions about how to obtain new shape pieces for their section and which ones to discard after each turn.