As I've already shared, my boys and I have been doing work with Clothesline Math. This is the second time we did it, but this time I used some single digit addition and subtraction in place of single digits. Take a look at the learning that happened:

Disregard the four year-old shenanigans in the video.

There is a lot of rich learning happening throughout, and I am looking forward to the next time that we do this.

Most parents have access to a string, a line, or something similar.
Most parents have access to paper.
Most parents have access to a marker.
Most parents have access to two chairs.

With that said, teachers can send this home, asking the parents to work with their child and see what happens.

My line of questioning in the video isn't perfect. In fact, I caught myself saying "this one" and "that one" way too much. As my son is learning, I need to be more direct about what I am asking so that he is aware of exactly what my questions and expectations are.

One part of the video that I really liked was around the 3:45 mark. What happened there? How could I be better?

Starting off with only a 0 and 10, we built out number line.

As he added more tents to the line, the spacing became more even and there was even some shifting and sorting.

Although there were still some minor errors, he was so happy to move the tents around the line and explore what happens when the line becomes more precise.

Happy "Clothesline" Fishing

If you've been following my journey as the parent of a first grader, you will know that I am learning. Very slowly learning, but learning. Recently, I sent his teacher a Would You Rather post and asked if it would work for her class, I didn't think this would happen:

OH MY GOSH! This is so cool!

This is my email to her. Thank you to all of you who are helping me be better as a parent, an educator, and supporter.

​So I reached out to a few of my friends on Twitter who do consulting (and teaching) with elementary and this is what they had to say (their responses are in italics, while mine are not):

Ask students "What do you notice happening to the numbers 29, 39, 49, 59?". Draw pic of how you figured it out. Guess next 2 numbers & how you know. Might ask student & grownup to practice counting on by 10s starting with 25, 45, 17, 31 & have family write reflection &math discovery
@pearse_margie

I like the idea of sending the counting activity home as homework. Have parents start at each of the numbers above and count up by tens. All parents can start it and those who struggle can show the learning with their child.

Set up stations. Each station has a # card (78) in a covered bucket & base 10 rods in 2nd covered bucket. They reach in & grab card for 1st addend then pull out rods from 2nd bin. If team writes equation correctly, they earn a coin (or something)..& rotate to next station. Once they earn 3-5 coins (however many shows mastery) they move to level 2 of the game… mystery round. Mystery round is vertical strings hanging from ceiling w/the vertical number sentences & missing number. Same thing- solve correctly, earn a coin & rotate.  Once they earn a total of 8-10? coins for day, they earn Math Master status and beat the game! 
@MollyBabcock

This is a really fun idea. You can even set it up so that the bucket is the differentiator in the class, offering a more challenging problem to the students who understand it and a more basic one for those who do not.

how about doing counting circle, starting with 'nice number' like 30, then move to ones+  like the 28. Then connect counting to the addition....maybe show on number line also
@BuildMathMinds

In a Counting Circle, the class gets in a circle and you have one student start with—in this case—30, having each person add ten and give their number. One the class is comfortable, you can throw a wrench in there with 28, 17, etc. After the class is comfortable again, have them go up by 20 (or something that you are comfortable with). A big help here is to plant a seed that will be wrong, then start the Counting Circle by saying that you "have chosen some classmates who are going to give you a wrong answer, so make sure you’re listening.” This alleviates the feeling of looking bad in front of their peers, even if you didn’t plant a wrong answer on a student who is incorrect.

I don't know if I am a fan of the numbers mixed with base 10 in those equations,so how about putting the problems, 78+20=_, 17+50, etc and then ask them to write a few equations of their own they think are similar to those. The convo the next day is not the answers as much as about the patterns they noticed and then have them use the base 10 blocks in class to show why that pattern is working that way.
@MathMinds

I’m a little skeptical of this as well. Do you usually teach numbers mixed with the base 10 blocks? If so, do you have manipulatives on their desk to play with? I’m asking out of sincere naivety here. I really like what Kristin suggests here about writing equations that they think are similar, then coming back on day two to discuss the patterns.

What do you think? Is there something in there that you could try?

Happy "Parental Progress" Fishing