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
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
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