So, lately my kids have been making some really great observations about numbers. They’ve been noticing patterns in our hundreds chart and they’re pros at skip counting {by 5’s & 10’s, anyway ;)} I really want to start adding the concept of odd & even numbers to our calendar routine, but before I started with …
One of my favorite activities for introducing the concept of a function in Algebra 1 is to host a Function Auction. The first year I did this, I threw the
3 Math Routines to Build Number Sense - Discover 3 strategies that you can instantly use in your classroom to support number sense and place value.
If your kids struggle to add large numbers, these place value mazes will provide some much needed support. They're simple, low prep and fun for kids!
Need help putting research about combining motor movement & math skills into practice? Here are 3 ideas ways to implement motor math activities.
Learn different ways to use Spiral Math Resources in your classroom; Including Spiral Math Homework and Spiral Language Homework.
Use your light table for these fun math activities to engage your students and give them opportunities to learn in different ways! There are ideas for counting, graphing, measurement, colors, shapes, number recognition, and more! You are sure to find some math light table activities that are perfect for your classroom needs.
Happy Friday peeps! Lindsay here . . . Well I'm back today with another edition of Favorite Pins Friday {a linky with The First Grade Par...
This awesome idea was from Fun in First you can get the writing printable from her. The students loved this project. Their writing was fun to read. I forgot how great this book was! They just traced shapes and the eyes and then cut the rest on their own. The Very Greedy Triangle Play
So many math series teach place value at a low level. Check out these 5 place value activities that are fun and easy to use!
Teaching area is engaging and authentic with this hands-on applied math activity! Students arrange furniture to find the area and perimeter of their house.
I am not doing well keeping up with my blog, but I just made this for my class so I thought I would to a quick post to share. I will ...
I have been on a math kick lately. I think it is because my kids are strugglingggg with basic math concepts lately and it’s killin’ me! We have been learning addition strategies and practicing addition within 20 for two weeks now and my class has just started to pick up their momentum. They are […]
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5 Hands-On Activities for Teaching Fractions that your Students will LOVE!
A few weeks ago, @lmhenry9 sent out a tweet asking about Cornell Notes in math class. This morning, @aanthonya sent out another request. Since Cornell Notes are a staple in the AVID classroom, I thought I would post a "how to" on using Cornell Notes in a math classroom. Rationale If you do a google search on Cornell Notes, you will find pages and pages about the history of Cornell notes, why you should use them, what the benefit is, etc. However, what is harder to find is the down and dirty, how do I do this, what's so special about C-Notes, etc. Honestly, when I first heard of them at the start of my AVID journey, they scared me. I remember sitting in my first AVID summer insitute stressed because I had NO CLUE what they were talking about! Unfortunately, I felt that stress for quite a while because it took time for me to understand that C-Notes weren't as scary or weird as they seemed. They are really just the same notes I had taken for ages in a slightly different format. Setting up the Page If you've heard of C-Notes, you've probably realized that there's some formatting that needs to be done. There are C-Note generators online or you might create your own C-Note blackline master (see the one we use in our AVID classes here). However, both of those require you to run off copies, which may not be feasible, depending on your allowed copy count. :) Enter in the Cornell Notes Bookmark. This is an idea that I got at the AVID training several years ago and I instantly loved the idea because I could have put contact info, important formulas, etc on this bookmark and kids could also use it to draw a straight line down their notebook paper to create their 2-column format. Of course, cutting out 100 of these bookmarks isn't the most fun way to spend the week before school starts in August, so I definitely suggest finding a great TV show to help keep your mind occupied :) So, now that all the bookmarks are printed on cardstock, cut out and 3-hole punched, kids are ready to start making their notes. Lay the bookmark on top of your notebook paper and use the edge as a guide to create your left/right columns: C-Notes have 4 main parts. The heading, which is where the name/date/hour/topic information goes, the left and right sides, and the summary area. Some of the newer versions of C-Notes also have an area for the Essential Question (inspired by UbD). Here's the general layout of the page: Let's take some notes!! So now that the format of our notes is all done, it's time to take some notes. You'll notice above that the right side of the page is a bit wider. This is the area for the bulk of the notes. The right side is the same type of notes that you've always taken - the fast and furious scribbling of all of the information that you could get down at once. (This is obviously not a student paper - I did it this morning to show you an example) Right side filled in: You'll notice that the above picture really looks like a traditional page of notes. The beauty of Cornell really is in the left side. After the notes are taken in class, students are supposed to review the notes within 24 hours and fill in the left side. They are supposed to read over what they wrote on the right side and put short reminders and cues to themselves. You'll see below where I went back and reviewed my notes to fill in the left side. Left side filled in: Now if you noticed above, I said "students are supposed to" twice... that means, in my experience this rarely happens :) Typically what happens in my experience is that they fill in the left side as they go with topic changes, subtitles, etc. The beauty of the left side, whether done at the same time or 24 hours later, is that the kids don't need to read ALL of the right side scribbles in order to get the gist of the lesson. They can scan through the left side cue words to refresh their memory or to find something quickly. (This has been a brillant addition to my note-taking during PD as well :) Love being able to quickly scan the left side!) The final part of the C-Notes is the part my students hate the most. :) The summary section is admittedly the toughest part for students and teachers to do. Again, students are supposed to revisit their notes 24 hours later or so (comes back to that whole "forgetting curve") and write a brief summary of the notes. My students complaint was a valid one... they summarized what the teacher said/wrote on the right side. Then they summarized that again to write their cue/questions on the left side, now they were expected to summarize again at the bottom and they were just summarized out! But kicking and screaming, I recognize that being able to summarize was an essential skill for academic success. To combat some of this, I would sometimes let them do a "tweet" (limiting their response to 140 characters) or a "6 word memoir" of the lesson, which really shows off how much you can say in just a few words. Summary filled in: I've taken notes... now what?? I've already shared above my love of the left side. But there are other benefits to C-Notes as well. You can use the left side to predict test questions that the teacher might ask or commonly, use the C-Note format as a study guide. For many of my students, they would work their test review in C-Note format, with the problem on the left side and the work/solution on the right side. Then fold their paper on the line and you have an instant "flashcard" like study system. Now in case you are thinking - well, that's all fine and good, but I'll never use something like that!, let me leave you with a real-life page of notes that I took at a workshop. You'll notice that I'm just as bad as my kids in the summary section, but look at the benefit of that left side! MUCH easier to scan down the left side to see what I want than to read all that stuff on the right side! :) Good luck on your C-Note journey!
Well, with the new school year well underway I am delighted to be working with 7 classes of students at Charlie Lake School again this year. I am fortunate to have a room to base my math lessons in…
Here's a fun little one page download to use in your Math Tubs/Centers. My kiddos call it their Fraction Helper. It's a great visual for young children being introduced to fractions. Hope you enjoy! Click the pic to download! Hope you enjoy! Peace and Love! Laura
Do your students really understand fractions? Having a solid understanding of what a fraction really means begins with being able to compare fractions.
WHAT IS SUBITIZING? Subitizing is not a term that we use often, but it is an important mathematical concept that can greatly benefit student
Waldorf inspired multiplication crafts. Multiplication circles, multiplication flowers and weaving.
Roll the dice, add and make a simple graph... Write the number to practice handwriting or... Roll and write the addition sentence...
Well, the sickness finally did me in. I made it to school this morning, but after about an hour of teaching, I felt a whole new wave of sic...
What’s your favorite color? What’s your favorite food? Favorite movie? Favorite sport? Is this how your typical graphing unit goes? Mine too! Until this year, my students were always graphing the same boring answers to the same types of boring questions. This year I decided to make our graphing activities more meaningful. I wanted to […]
Last week, we returned to school after Christmas break. Monday was a teacher workday, so I worked all day on grades and lesson plans for the week. In googling ideas for activities, I came across this site. There I found an inquiry style worksheet to help students discover the sum of the interior angles in a triangle. The file I found was actually a key, so I created my own based on that and tweaked it to fit my interactive notebooks (INBs). On Tuesday, I gave my students the worksheet and a half sheet of (their choice of) colored paper and a few minutes to work on the activity. We had a discussion about what they found, then they glued it into their INBs. They seemed to like it so much (or maybe that's just how I perceived it!), that I made another one for discovering the relationship between the two remote interior angles and the exterior angle for Wednesday. Triangle Angle Sums Inquiry Wkst This is what it looks like in the INB. Exterior Angle Theorem Inquiry Wkst This is what it looks like in the INB.
Grab some fun and simple practice with this free ordinal numbers game! This printable board game will help kids understand position with ordinal numbers.
Just a super quick post…this week is crazier than usual…probably because I am missing Friday and Monday to go visit my brother in Palm Beach, Florida and see him play lacrosse! One of m…
Great resource to test learners understanding of angles in parallel lines. Resource includes a table for learners to write their answers, including their reasoning. Learners love the unusual approach to this task and are challenged to think and use all their angle fact knowledge. ...
Pinay Homeschooler is a blog that shares homeschool and afterschool activity of kids from babies to elementary level.
Currently my PreAlgebra students are working through a chapter on writing linear equations. I wanted to come up with some centers for them to review what we’ve been working on in class. I did…
As we are nearing the culmination of time before our 7th Grade STAAR testing for Math, I spent some time reviewing some key concepts that were tricking my students this past week. I was so happy to come across these awesome task cards by Miss Math Dork where my students were required to find the ... Read more
