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Digi Blocks are Fun and Engaging!

It is Wednesday and almost Winter Break (7 more school days to be exact) but I wanted to begin chronicling our work with Digiblocks. I have found that in many of the classrooms, I work in, the understanding of base 10 and the ratio of 10 in our number system was a very difficult task. The students at this age level ( k-2) are still continuing to count one by one and also have a difficult time understanding re-grouping. I was on the web and I stumbled upon da da da DIGI BLOCKS. The Digiblocks are a great tool to help with this.!!!! I have tried using base ten blocks and other tools but students still had a difficult time understanding when to create a group of 10 ones and turn it into a 1 set of 10. The design of the Digiblocks creates a very concrete, interactive visual for students about the base 10 system. I am all about using what you got but this experiment with DIGIBLOCKs seems so far  like it is well worth the cost investment.

So, we began using Digiblocks today.  I wanted to make this a fun and engaging introductory lesson. I used a Counting Collections format.  Here is some information about Counting Collections, from Scholastic. It is based on the work of Megan Franke at UCLA lab school, she is a contributor to the theory behind CGI Cognitively Guided Instruction. I have had the awesome pleasure of hearing her speak every year for the last 4 years. She is mathtastic and this coming from someone who did not enjoy math until adulthood.  First, we divided into pairs, then I gave them almost no direction other then count your collections.  And this is what it looked like....

Here they are counting their Collections, We had started with some Number Routines using the 100's chart.

With little direction they were able to count the DigiBlock collection they were counting single digi- blocks (I used the words one, single, units to give depth to their math vocab.) their classroom teacher

( Mrs. Esh) was impressed with their engagement. I was too they were working together counting and counting and counting.  I did set a timer to give them a sense of urgency and it worked. Next, we had to step it up a bit. I had given them a little heads up during our Number Routines by having them count from various numbers for example: I asked them to start at 7 and stop and 52 counting by ones, My question was: How many sets of 10 can you create with this number set we counted? The students were able to circle sets of 10 but really what made this POP was when I showed them the 10 holder.  They were fascinated by these. I had them estimate how many holders they might need and then they began to fill the holders with 10 single digi-units. On the Digiblock website there is a video that shows if each holder does not have 10 the holder would not close to make 1 set of 10. I did not believe it but it is true, it will not lock unless it is a complete set of 10. LOVE THIS ! also their is a tiny embossed 5  inside the holder when it is filled with 5. WOW!! this will be cool and useful in future lessons. 

Here they are they made stacks of ten then put them in the holders to create a new value for 1, 1 set of 10 instead of 1 unit this the most difficult in the base 10 system for young mathematicians to comprehend changing the name of what they counted.  They were surprised at how easily they counted by 10's then the knew instinctively that they could not count the single digi blocks as 10's Not ONE PAIR COUNTED THE SINGLES BY 10's  WOO HOOO!!!! with base 10 blocks this does not happen kiddos usually continue to count the singles by 10's. For example: If they had 4 ten sticks and 3 ones they may count it, 10 -20 -30-40 -50 - 60-70.  Next week, they want me to take their 10 holders and but them into 100 holders to see how many sets of 100 they counted altogether as a class. We are going to open our lesson next week with this idea. I am also going to introduce our Math Notebooks where we are going to keep track of our Counting Collections, Digiblock work and other math work. Today was a good day for these young Mathematicians.

Here they are stacking sets of ten.

Now they have moved on to putting the singles in to 10 holders. NOT one group counting the singles as 10's they all knew to switch back to counting by 1's. LOVE IT. Way to Go MUSTANGS.

I thought this was a great connection. They used their 100 chart to organize their counting. These two boys said" YES, we came up with a cool strategy." when I walked over to take a picture of it. They were right!

FLocabulary!

Okay, it has been awhile. I have had two sick make that three sick kids including my husband but they are all on their way to recovery now. Thanksgiving was great I am thankful for so much but right now I am going to be thankful for my job. I have been modeling lessons in classrooms and one thing that I found to be successful in the kindergarten classrooms was music and math. I sorted my math songs in itunes into one playlist. It was comprised mostly of Heidi Songs and Have fun Teaching.

We played several games that I will post later that involved physical movement with the songs. I wanted to expand this so I looked through my 4th grade lesson plans to see how I incorporated music in 4th grade. I found a good old friend, Flocabulary. I have been preparing my next set of modeled lessons to include Flocabulary.

 Now, let me tell you all the reasons why I love it.
1.First, I have used it before but since I am a traveling teacher I did not purchase a subscription this year and Flocabulary generously has let me have subscription to use in all my classrooms.

2. The songs on Flocabulary are really catchy and well written and appeal to even the coolest of cool kids. They hire professionals to write the hooks and lay down the tracks and it is very clear when you listen to the songs.

3. It it so much more than just a song to engage students.  Now, you can print the lyrics for the your kiddos to go home a learn or sing along with the streaming video.

4. I was at a training with several of my teachers and one of the most frequently asked questionswas" What do you do if they do not know their math facts?" So I began to research and found a couple of neat books that I will post about later.
Mastering the Basic Math Facts in Addition and Subtraction , By Susan O' Connell and John SanGiovanni I previewed the book online and loved that it focused on both fact fluency and conceptual understanding. When you add Flocabulary to these lessons you have a 21century lesson based on conceptual understanding and Common Core Standards.
Here is an example of a Common Core aligned math Flocabulary video

This lovely video is about basic math fact adding 0. 

• CCSS.Math.Content.1.OA.C.6 Add and subtract within 20, demonstrating fluency for addition and subtraction within 10. Use strategies such as counting on; making ten (e.g., 8 + 6 = 8 + 2 + 4 = 10 + 4 = 14); decomposing a number leading to a ten (e.g., 13 – 4 = 13 – 3 – 1 = 10 – 1 = 9); using the relationship between addition and subtraction (e.g., knowing that 8 + 4 = 12, one knows 12 – 8 = 4); and creating equivalent but easier or known sums (e.g., adding 6 + 7 by creating the known equivalent 6 + 6 + 1 = 12 + 1 = 13). 
• This hits this CCSS pretty clearly. Then I found Chapter 3 of Mastering basic math facts had a series of conceptual lessons about Adding pretty dang cool alignment. 
• 5. I went further in Flocabulary to find many other resources as well, like problem solving test using algebraic thinking.  There is an abundance of resources on Flocabulary well beyond these it also has ideas on how to teach the creation piece, how to get kids to both analyze and create their own interpretations of the Flocabulary videos. Thusly it truly is bringing Common Core into your classroom.

Okay, so those are just 5 reasons I have many more but I would like you to see and listen for yourself. 

Here is one of their great math videos on youtube! Check it out These are so fun!

Happy Teaching!

Five for FRIDAY !

It's Friday, Friday  Everybody loves Friday!

So, my week has been interesting to say the least. This week the entire district was benchmark testing and it really altered my schedule. However, some good things have come out of this week.

Well, I finally received my copy of Christopher Lehman's Close Reading book. YAy! I have not started reading it yet but excited to be able to read it.

I spent part of my week doing this. Holy Moly Gucamole! This is necessary but not fun at all. At two of my school's this week. I helped out with the benchmark scantrons. Students in grades 1 and 2 fill answers directly in test booklet. This information needs to be transferred to a scantron so it can be scored.

So, I am watching the Story of Math because that is the kinda gal I am. I want to know why and how the place value system came to be. Not necessarily to teach my 2nd and 3rd grade students but to understand it better and provide more conceptual info about place value.  Right now as I type I am listening to how Pythagorus' Theory was born. 

This week I received the news that one of the grants proposals I wrote was accepted. Goodie Gumdrops. We have been granted! We now will start our cohort and begin work on learning about CGI math. One of the best parts is that we will be able to collaborate with a cohort at another school studying CGI as well. 

The best of all. My kindergarten math teacher and I were able to develop a Math Routine worksheet aligned to the Mountain Math subscription( which is not Common Core Aligned) and the other existing math routines. 

That's it Five for Friday almost Fraturday! And a 3 day weekend is coming so I need to post this so I can start enjoying my weekend. 

Happy Teaching!

LOOK WHO'S TAlKING!!! NUMBER TALKS!

Happy Friday, I have so much to blog about much more than I can actually keep up with but I decided that I would blog something I saw on Thursday this week. Thursday aka Halloween  morning was overloaded enough to cause me to drive to work with no purse. YIKES! So, I drove back home got my driver's license and other necessary goods. I began to think maybe this is not going to be a good day. I went about my regular schedule and I was Creepily Surprised by the first grade classroom I was walking by.  The first graders were working on a Number Talk they were on the Number 31. There were so many great things about this that I need to start showing some pictures of it. First of all the Number Talk was on the Smart Board. Check it out!

Pomona USD Teachers Check out and sign up for the STARBUCKS raffle below!!!!

This little guy is adding his chart where he drew a 10 more 10 less 1 more 1 less chart,on top of the 31 on the number line.
Here are some samples of the work the students were doing on their white boards. The reason why I am putting these on here is because I have never done a number talk where the students write their work on the white board before sharing. I see this as a way to give them more think time and the boards were a visual tool to help students really articulate their metacognition. However, at the seem time I wonder if writing on the boards takes away some of the mental work?  I have not decided because I was so happy that I could show you these and you can see their metacognition.

This is one of my favorites. The thought that went into these equations is great. Especially since the day before a different student came up with it Wednesday and on Thursday other students are modifying and using it.

CHECK OUT THE NUMBER TALK CHEAT SHEET ON MY TPT STORE! and Sherry Parrish Book Number Talks.

This student used a number bond. 

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Pomona USD Raffle. Sign up above to win a STARBUCKS CARDS!

As I walked around the room I did not see two whiteboards with the same way to show 31. This proves to me that we all learn differently and teaching one algorithm to 32 students is efficient but maybe not effective. Keep on Talking, Number Talks. Thank you Mrs. Jones First Graders.

Dollar Days GiveAway!

I have made my first $1.oo of profit from Teacher pay Teachers. In my excitement I am ready to giveaway some goodies. I thank everyone who purchase items from my store. I have just begun this new journey into Teachers pay Teachers and blogging for more than just my classroom. I am blogging to share information and learn about teaching as I go. Thank you again! I wanted to have a quick little giveaway to celebrate. I have two products that are 1 dollar. I will give both of them away for free to Celebrate!! Thanks a Bunch!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway If you do not win my raffle FREEBIELIOUS is turning 1 and having an amazing raffle check it out. Their raffle inspired me to raffle as well. (As always if you are a Pomona Unified School District teacher just send me and email and I will send you everything on my TPT store)

Happy Teachings!

All Things Upper Elementary: Using Backward Timing to Work on Math Fluency

Here we are and the question is short but not simple. What is Fluency with Math Facts?
This idea has been floating around and reappearing in my life for the past few weeks.

  First of all, my daughter has been feverishly working on memorizing her time tables for her weekly quiz. She writes them over and over because she is a visual learner and challenges herself each week to surpass her last week scores. I quiz her in the car and so on and so forth. Fortunately, she is really able to memorize these facts and I taught her a few tricks as well.

  Next, As I go from school to school I see a variety of different timed tests at my schools. I see students talking about the Friday tests and how they are going to do. I see cool bulletin boards and other visuals to show student progress on memorizing facts. MEMORIZING FACTS I thought we were moving away from this type of learning with CCSS. Well we can't yet move until we have something to replace it with.

After this I read, well kinda skimmed this article because I knew I already agreed with this idea,
http://joboaler.com/timed-tests-and-the-development-of-math-anxiety/ which was sent to me via my work email.  It basically says that we should not use timed tests because we are created a culture of students with math anxiety.

 Then, last night reading this blog made me think! Yes, I Think! sometimes. What an amazing idea and a great way to differentiate math fluency without the anxiety and such a simple twist on what we are already doing, Backward Timing. Here is the blogpost it is quite simple and quite amazing. It involves goals setting and really brings into play the idea of gamification. Students are trying to beat their own levels to get to the highest level they can. Not to receive a lollipop on Friday but to progress to the next level.

All Things Upper Elementary: Using Backward Timing to Work on Math Fluency

Finally, in conclusion this is a great idea that I felt was worth sharing. If I had a classroom this would truly be something I incorporated into my Math Workshop!!!

One final thought to further encourage students and make this a positive experience. I wanted to link up with  Head Over Heels for Teaching. There are some great Shout out Cards! This would be a great way to have students reflect and provide feedback to their peers progress. Check it out by clicking the image below. You will love it simple and Edusational!

SGVCUE Tech Fair!

This weekend was the SGV CUE Tech Fair. It was a fun day with a great 200 educators learning and sharing on a Saturday @ MANZANITA ELEMENTARY IN COVINA VALLEY UNIFIED. 

I wanted to share some of the resources that many felt were super valuable.

Brent Coley  Google Resources

Bill Selak   Interactive You Tube videoshttp://www.brentcoley.com/1/post/2013/10/another-use-for-google-forms-parent-contact-log.html

Batch Geo

Mini Flip your classroom

Jo Ann Fox The 4 C's

Chrom Exstensions ~ JR Ginex-O

D Grice - Making Video Without a Video Camera

Flipping the English Class - The Tech Classroom

Flip Model

Telling Stories with Google Maps , Moss Pike

INFO GRAMS

 These were the highlights from a great day SGV CUE TECH FAIR. 

Happy Learning!

Base Ten Number Talks.

Hey Hey Hey, So I tried something today it was a modification of a kindergarten concept in Second Grade!

I have been working every week with an amazing 2nd grade team of teachers. This team is awesome every Monday they plan together and then give me some ideas of what they need as well as a lesson they are willing to let me model in their classrooms on Tuesday. Well, last week went well but today not so great. I am only going to tell you about the parts that went well.( because it is my blog and I can do that)  The Number Talk opening fluency activity went well! Yay!. The focus was to build understanding of place value as a way to organize numbers in different ratios (ratios of 10). Well, I did not say all that but I did say we can organize a number value differently and we call the organization different names like groups. Like group them using one units, tens sticks or hundreds. I really wanted to make the connection between the visual model and the ways to organize it.  I began to think about Sherry Parrish Number Talks, and how they build subitizing in kindergarten with dots. Then, later that afternoon, I overheard a 3rd grade teacher talk about her struggles with the 3rd grade Common Core math because some of the students have not been exposed to the early kindergarten Common Core lessons, to build a foundation from. I began to think how can I take the kindergarten idea of using dots to build fluency in subitizing and make it more geared toward second graders. What I came up with was this a set of powerpoint slides where students used formal base ten blocks to determine and convert models into numbers and vice versa numbers into models.  I also created some different ways to group and organize the same value number to see if they made and connections to why the system was developed. For example I showed 100 as 10 ten sticks next as 1 100 block next as 100 1 units. The students truly enjoyed this part of the lesson they were engaged and really having great mathematical discourse.(also called talking about numbers)

Here is a sample of what they looked like!

I am hoping to have  a more organized and comprehensive set available next week on my TPT store.
Anyone,who leaves a comment on this blog in the month of October I will send a free copy of the complete set. They are geared for Second Grade  I can't wait to hear your comments! Maybe I will even tell your about the part of the lesson that did not go so well. But then I might have to kill you! So not!

Happy Learning!

Who is in Charge?

Who is in Charge?

More and more as I have begun to implement and learn about the Common Core, CGI Cognitively Guided Instruction, and reading and writing workshop I have asked myself; Who is in Charge?

All my teacher training lead me to believe it had to be me. I had to lead and my students had to follow in line all the same and they better keep up and not move ahead of the group. 

I still think they need to follow but they need to follow me in as I continue to learn, change and grow everyday. I still struggle with how to fit it all in and do it with limited resources and funds. Every once and awhile I need to be reminded that many before me and after have done much more with much less this is why I go back to this TED talk to inspire me to have the stamina to continue.  John Hunter got a job with not much direction, tools, curriculum, funds or resources and he created something magical powerful and authentically powerful learning. Yet he still asked himself; Who is in Charge? Check out his TED talk below. It will definitely inspire you to continue the great work you are already doing.

Happy Learning!

CLOSE READING!

Well, we heard all about it we were directed that this is one of our focus instructional tools this year but, what is it Close Reading. So, I have been doing some research and observing intently for great examples of Close Reading. I began by following a great blog a thon by Christopher Lehmann. It has been going on for several weeks now and it is a powerful tool for understanding and furthering understanding of Close Reading.

Here is the link: http://christopherlehman.wordpress.com

Three statements Christopher Lehmann thought should drive our planning and revising;

"Always returning to student work"

"Looking for Approximation"

"Lots of Professional, reflective conversation"

 I stumbled literally stumbled, I was walking by a classroom on my way to lunch and overheard music coming out the door. So, I walked in of course. As soon as I walked in I found Student work.

Here are some samples of students working on understanding the text/lyrics of "Man in the Mirror" the Micheal Jackson song. 

Here is the link to a printable of the songs lyrics:

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/michaeljackson/maninthemirror.html

These questions were formulated after their second read. Once they read it independently then the watched the video of the lyrics.
Here is a link to the video: 
http://youtu.be/P5vz6iwV38U


Upon having a conversation about their questions, the teacher was able to "Look for approximations" some of the questions were amazing and thoughtful and some were still being developed.  The students had guided the conversation and answered some of each others questions. In the end the class was close but not quite there yet, the teacher quickly collected the passages and placed them in the student folders. She knew that this was going to require another reading. 

While the video was still playing the teacher began to analyze and collect student questions.  Next she began to ask me questions about the student questions not for judgement but for another set of eyes and ears to determine where to go next with these questions. I was hooked into this lesson as an observer I started to walk the room gathering and analyzing questions as well. We were able to have a quick reflective dialogue "Lots of Professional, refelective conversation" I was able to see these three statements in action radically changing student's learning. Wow! Impressive, it was not perfect but it was a perfect example of how we are moving forward and changing the way we teach.  

How does Close Reading relate to math. I think it is essential to help students understand how to solve word problems. They need to apply this same close reading strategy to their word problems to fully comprehend the problem and the computations needed to complete the problem. 

Happy Learning!

Second Grade

Today, I tried a new lesson from the Georgia Tasks, on page 54 in Unit 1. This lesson was called;

CONSTRUCTING TASK: Building Base-Ten Numbers 

 It is actually suppose to take 2 days but we got started in one day. To build fluency we started with a Number talk.  I did not spend too much time on re framing the equations because this was my first time working with this group. I did try to annotate as much as possible there thinking. The students were thinking very linear and mostly started solving left to right ( this is a great skill to have when moving into algebra) However, the began to build ten quickly.  Happy Happy JOY JOY one boy Jackson was able to use a derived strategy he was able to look at problem B. and use it to answer problem C. because all the numbers are the same they just added a 4. Very impressive!!! I can not wait to see what happens next week!

Next we moved into the lesson which was about place value and representing numbers in different forms. 

 Here is the gist of the lesson:

Common Core Standards

MCC2.NBT.1 Understand that the three digits of a three-digit number represent amounts of hundreds, tens, and ones; e.g., 706 equals 7 hundreds, 0 tens, and 6 ones. Understand the following as special cases:

a. 100 can be thought of as a bundle of ten tens — called a “hundred.”
b. The numbers 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 refer to one, two, three,

four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine hundreds (and 0 tens and 0 ones).

MCC2.NBT.3 Read and write numbers to 1000 using base-ten numerals, number names, and expanded form.

MCC2.NBT.4 Compare two three-digit numbers based on meanings of the hundreds, tens, and ones digits, using >, =, and < symbols to record the results of comparisons.

Mathematical Practice Focus: 4. Model with mathematics. 

Lesson Formative Assessment:  Students will be able to represent a number in 3 different ways, standard form, model drawing, expanded form, explain how to change the value of the number by moving place of digit

 To prepare for this lesson the students needed dice. I had did not have enough for each team to play so here was my solution which worked out well not one die was destroyed.

Here is the website where you can print out the die,I printed them on card stock and hot glued them together. They are large but fun and it worked.

www.timvandevall.com 
http://timvandevall.com/printable-paper-dice-template/

 

As, a group we practiced this game then I sent them out on their own to play.  The students did some great work. They still need to work on several areas but it was a great start.

 This little guy drew a model with the accurate number but he made them all look the same. This is something we are going to work on for next week.   I was very impressed with the amount of intuitive thinking these students had. They had never been exposed to the term expanded form but they were able to figure out what it was and begin to apply it. Next, week we will review this and move onto 4 digits for the more advanced students.

Happy Tuesday!