#Teachinghack No. 4: A pocket full of math

#Teachinghack No. 4: A pocket full of math


Everything has a place and everything is in its place. Simple, right? Not so simple in the everyday life of a teacher or student!


Here's a little hack to help with organizing an interactive journal. I've already shared how to keep an interactive journal from overflowing, and now here's a way to keep small cards, place value stands and any other math tools in a secure spot.

Use a sandwich bag and sturdy tape to make a handy dandy pocket. In my classroom, we keep all sorts of items in the pocket and if taped down correctly, it will last you all year long.


In the pocket we usually store a place value stand, a ruler, and any matching cards we use for math models.

Pretty soon our pocket starts to look a little like this

I always tell my students there is no down time in class. If they finish a task and are done with their center work, they can come to the pocket to find an activity to work on. The learning has to continue!


You don't have to worry about the journal becoming too thick, because you have rubber band to hold it all together.


Hope you found this #Teachinghack helpful.

Number representation for younger students

It wasn't until my new job required that I model lessons in the lower grades that I began to think about number representations, and also because I have a 4 year old at home who needs some school time built into his summer activities :) 


Last October I modeled a lesson in Kinder about different ways to represent numbers. The following was an extension the teacher and I prepped and built into a center for students to continue practicing.

We used large craft sticks to create these handy learning tools.

The pics above show that we were practicing recognizing a number, its written form, its value on a ten frame and in tallies. We colored the odd numbers red on the ten frame, and the even numbers green.

Later in the year, once the students were very familiar with the numbers, we asked them to sort them into even/odd.
P.S. Ask kids to sort things without giving them categories and see what amazing things they come up with. This particular kinder class sorted the sticks by curved and straight lines, shaded and unshaded shapes and number of letters.


BONUS! You can have kids create matching cards so that they can play a game! They'll need 5 cards per number: 1) number 2) words 3) ten frame 4) represented with objects and 5) tallies.


What other easy number representation activities have you tried?

#TeachingHack No. 3 Keeping your interactive journal from overflowing

Here's a hack for all the interactive journal lovers and stuffers out there. You know... the teachers who make tons of foldables, glue in handouts, notes, samples, interactive graphic organizers. Sound familiar? I know I'm guilty! By December our journals are stuffed with so much (and hopefully students' brains are too) that they barely fit in our magazine files!!!!


Here's a hack that you may find helpful.

You'll need: a journal, single hole puncher, large rubber band.

Ok..... so here's what you can do on the first day of school to ensure that your journals are ready to be stuffed with tons and tons of learning activities.

It really is that simple. Hole punch the upper right hand corner of the back cover, insert and loop a large rubber band and you're done!!


Hope you found this #Teachinghack helpful. :)

#TeachingHack No. 2 Math Study Guide Folder

I'm hard at work putting together some Math Study Guide Folders that my students can use this fall. We used them last year, but they were used to much that some need to be replaced. I will say that laminating them was a great idea because they really lasted well into the end of the year.


Ok... so here's how the Study Guide Folder works.

My students use these folders in a variety of ways. They use them when doing independent work, during centers and as a reference tool for assessments. Some parents have even asked me to make them a folder to take and have at home to refer back to. They really come in handy for many things, including as privacy folders during assessments. I have seen students refer to their study guide when they are unsure about some concepts and I've seen them grow more confident as they begin to master math concepts.

I have also used Science Study Guides during science time.


If you are interested, here's what you'll need:  

2 manilla folders, study sheets, and tape

I am already thinking of how I can create a language arts study guide.

Hope you find this #Teachinghack useful. 

Increase the rigor of student thinking using question stems

From many years of working with ELLs I have learned that one key ingredient in their success is exposing them to the language of assessments- those sentence structures that often stump them. I have had many students tell me they don't know what a question is asking them and once I reword the question they are able to answer it. Finally I had a light bulb moment and decided kids need practice having discussions and writing pieces while using rigorous language.

Description, sequence, cause and effect, comparisons, predictions and inferences- kids can do all these, but can they show what they know using content specific language and more complex sentence structure?

To meet the language needs of  students and to better prepare them with content knowledge, for the past year I have implemented the following question stems to increase the rigor in my teaching and in their thinking. Since my job now entitles modeling lessons K-6, I have seen these work in all grade levels.

I prep the sentence stems by having them cut, laminated, and held together using a small binder ring and I carry a set of 6-7 of them every time I go in and model a lesson in any grade level.

In all content areas, when I want students to show their thinking as they describe, sequence, cause and effect, compare, predict and infer I ask them to use one of the stems from the appropriate color. The kids get so used to using them that the skill eventually transfers to their writing! This is a nonnegotiable in the classroom- they HAVE to refer back to the stems so that they acquire practice and eventually fluency in complex sentence structures.

Below you will find an example of how I used the stems with  4/5 year old, PreK students during an activity for comparing 2 animals. (This is part of training I am providing for all teachers in my school who have ELLs so that we can learn some strategies to meet the increasingly demanding requirements of TELPAS).

We used a thinking map to show we are comparing animals. (These cool animal cards are from Target $1.00).

After adding some ideas, I wrote 2 sentence stems and we discussed what we could write using the graphic organizer. It is important to first start to compare orally, and once our ideas are cemented, we move on to showing what we know in writing.

Even at this age, students can demonstrate their thinking using more and more complex sentence structures.

I hope that you found this post helpful. I know that the use of stems has helped our ELLs tremendously, but they can be used with ALL students. It's about thinking, therefore it's about increasing the rigor in our teaching!

#TeachingHack No. 1

Teaching is such a difficult, but rewarding calling. I am fresh into summer vacation and I'm thinking of some new posts I want to make on a weekly basis.


The first series I will be starting is the #TeachingHack
I'll be posting a simple "hack" each week in hopes that it will be helpful to at least one person :)


This week's #TeachingHack is a folder I LOVE LOVE LOVE to make with my students. I saw my mentor teacher make it in her classroom and I have used it in my classroom every year since. Here's how you can make a simple 4-pocket folder.

*2 sheets of large construction paper and a stapler

 

 Steps: 

1. Fold the 1st sheet in half horizontally

2. Fold the 2nd sheet in half vertically. 

3. Fold the 2nd sheet in half horizontally. 

4. Tuck the 1st sheet inside the 2nd sheet. 

5. Staple the edges. Staple as close to the edge as possible so that you'll leave plenty of room for handouts.

I have used this folder for so many things, including: 

*STAAR Review (we assign each reporting category to a pocket)

*Homework folder, notes for home, unfinished work

*Tutoring and Saturday school

*Keeping track of handouts

Hope you find this #Teachinghack helpful. Stay tuned for more hacks that will be posted each week. 

 

Math Mapping

Have you tried Math Mapping? I was looking for a fun way for my kids to create a large visual of major concepts we have learned in math this year, so I thought we could make a mind map. We started out with a large piece of white paper. I set the expectations that they would have to be neat, use colored pencils only and that our math word wall, anchor charts and math journals would be their resources to find information.

It started out something like this.

Yep- a plain white paper. Then, I asked them to think back to the beginning of the year. They remembered we started learning  place value and so...


Kids remember we learned different ways to represent numbers, rounding and comparing decimals. At this point, most kids pulled out their journals and started looking back.

I did one more major concept whole group: FRACTIONS (insert sad, angry, maybe sick emoji). We went through finding common denominators and sketch models for the 4 operations.


Ok, now that I saw that the majority of kids had the hang of it, I paired them up to continue working and pulled a small group to my table. This is what we came up with.


Operations with decimals (and some models)- Here some students brought up some procedural errors kids could make and we took note of them so we would be alert to NOT do them!


Numerical patterns- we represented them 4 ways.



Perimeter, area, and volume- key words and models.


Hierarchy of 2D shapes- quadrilaterals and triangles.


Coordinates- a simple concept for kids!


Data representation- quick sketches to remind us of each graph.


Personal financial literacy- quick definitions and examples.

AND... the finished product

 
 Pardon the blurry pic- we were super caught up in our math!!!

I absolutely loved this activity and most importantly, it helped refresh our minds about all the math learning we did this year. Since STAAR is about one week away, I wanted to do this so that next week when we are reviewing using games (I created 4 games, each for a different reporting category that we will be using to practice as we have fun), stations, technology, and whole group conversations we can look back at out Math Map to help us make connections. Kids LOVED the strategy so much they want to make one for reading and science!!!

Give Math Mapping a try in your classroom!!!