Thinking About Math Routines...

As we finish all the literacy testing, I thought people may be turning some attention to math.   When you are planning your math routines this year, please be mindful of including starters and fluency practice in your lessons (whether you have chosen to do work stations, whole class or a combination of the two).

While watching the Virtual Math Summit, I am always sure to watch Steve Wyborney and this year proved to be equally valuable.  He has a variety of interesting starters that can be added to your math routines or used as mini-lessons depending on your intention.  This year he has created lessons for the first 20 days.  The nice thing about this is that these lessons are all completely new so if you use them, you can still go onto his site and use the Esti-Mysteries, Splat, etc.  These activities promote number sense and flexible thinking.  Have fun!

https://stevewyborney.com/2019/02/20-days-of-number-sense-rich-math-talk/6hh

Teacher Collaboration

Updated TQS 2A: A teacher engages in career-long professional learning and ongoing
critical reflection to improve teaching and learning.

-collaborating with other teachers to build personal and collective professional capacities
and expertise.

As a beginning teacher, I started this school year with many ideas of different ways I
wanted to teach grade 3, many of which had come from pinterest. Of course, I soon
realized that what you want to do, what works for your students and what you actually
have time for doesn't always match up. Having the opportunity to work with my mentor
teacher and others who have more experience in a specific subject was incredibly helpful
in helping me tailor my lessons to be more engaging and beneficial to my students. By
sharing my ideas and asking for feedback I feel my teaching has improved compared to
the beginning of the year.

Having the chance to collaborate with coworkers who have either more or different
experiences with teaching can be very rewarding and informative. I believe it is important
for teachers to share their experiences in the classroom and to collaborate not just with
those at their grade level but others as well. During the school year, I reached out to some
teachers in other grades to get other opinions and advice, every time I have come away
with something I can use or an idea to try.  More than once I have gone to pick something
up from the printer, seen an interesting assignment or lesson waiting to be picked up from
another teacher, and got an idea to use in my class or I’ve also made a copy of it for myself.

I think the following piece from an article I found explains teacher collaboration the best.

Benefits of Teacher Collaboration

When teachers come together to share information, resources, ideas, and expertise,

learning becomes more accessible and effective for students. Collaborating means

purposefully building interpersonal relationships and working towards healthy

interdependence, which occurs when teachers are comfortable giving and receiving

help without forfeiting accountability.

When we get teachers co-planning and co-teaching based on a shared vision, here
are some of the benefits we can expect:

• Increased Academic Effort—Since teachers who collaborate on instruction

are all on the same page, they can increase the level of academic rigor to match

the core competencies they want students to meet.

• Increased Understanding of Student Data—Teachers are better equipped

to deconstruct relevant data (and implement effective solutions) from both
formative and summative assessments. They also have a sense of shared
responsibility for celebrating success and analyzing failure.

• More Creative Lesson Plans—When teachers communicate and share ideas,

they also share an enlarged repertoire of instructional strategies that encourage

creative instruction. Colleagues may be influenced to try different approaches or

have opportunities to help a peer with a new approach.  

• Less Teacher Isolation—While teachers should not feel forced to collaborate to

avoid any “contrived congeniality,” having the opportunity to share ideas and information
combats professional loneliness and frustration which improves staff morale and professional
satisfaction.

The best part about the benefits of teacher collaboration is that they can be a reality—as they are in so
many learning communities around the world. The key is acknowledging, understanding, and working
diligently to overcome the challenges and obstacles standing in the way of high-quality teacher collaboration.

https://www.schoology.com/blog/teacher-collaboration-how-approach-it-2018

Establishing Criteria in Writing

I had been feeling fairly ineffective when it came to writing this year. In order to address this area of struggle, Erin and I decided to create a writing unit to help guide students in a step-by-step writing process.

A key part of this unit was a focus on establishing criteria. While this isn't groundbreaking work, it was something that was lacking in my writing instruction and has already had some significant impact on my students.

To begin, we introduced a rubric that is posted on a prominent bulletin board.



Afterwards we introduced how the rubric works, using keywords that appear throughout the guide, as well as levels of achievement that match our reporting terms: Exemplary, Proficient, Developing and Beginning.

Once students had some familiarity with how the scoring guide was used, we marked one story together, the students were then put to work and asked to score an exemplar. Many of my students surprised me. After only one short lesson and group practice they had already begun accurately scoring the story and were using the same key terminology in their discussions that appears in the rubric. Though there is lots of work to be done, I have a feeling that using this throughout the school year that my students will become even stronger at assessing their work and work of their peers.
They were even beginning to assess and score storybooks that we were reading aloud in class using the writing rubric.

To finish, I have already had a brainwave (careful, this doesn't happen too often) and am looking forward to applying this practice throughout my writing units and teaching skills like self-assessment and peer-conferencing in the next few months and next year.

Multiplication Fact Fluency

We have long complained that kids don't know their math facts.  The focus of this blog post will be multiplication, but many of the ideas can be used in all of the operations.

Christina Tondevold's website, Build Math Minds, is full of good information for building number sense.  She says that for kids to be successful in math, there are 4 early numeracy concepts that are critical for setting the foundation for all the operations.  These are:

• verbal counting (sequencing)
• object counting
• cardinality (number of sets in a group)
• subitizing (ability to see groups)

There are also three main areas to developing fluency in math facts:

• ACCURACY
• EFFICIENCY
• FLEXIBILITY

There are a few different orders to teaching the multiplication facts, the one Tondevold recommends is to start with doubles (and then use them to help with 3s and 4s), 10s and 5s, then go to 6s and 7s, using 5s as your benchmark.    

Dr. Nikki Newton recommends 0 and 1 times, 5 and 10 times, 2, 4 and 8 times, 3, 6 and 9 times, 7 times.

I am going to go out on a limb and say the order is less important than challenging kids to see the patterns and relationships between the facts.

That being said, there are a number of ways to help with fluency.  

Use Visuals

• Arrays are usually a go-to for everyone and they are certainly helpful, but should not be the only visual we use.

4 groups of 5 or 5 groups of 4

• Use flash cards of groups of numbers.

4 groups of 3 = 4x3

• Division 1 has long used 10 frames in their addition and subtraction practice.  This should not have been such a happy surprise to see how well it would work for multiplication/division.  It is a perfect visual and can be used as flash cards for subitizing.

• Rekenreks/number racks can be used like 10 Frames to show distributive principle.

Use Number Strings

• Number strings help students to see the relationships between numbers.

2 x 6

4 x 6

4 x 12

14 x 6

4 x 16

24 x 16

4 x 0.6

Play Games

As Dan Finkel, of Math 4 Love says, "What books are to reading, games are to math."   Kids used to play more games at home and as a result, had better number sense.  Playing games allows kids to engage in math without necessarily even knowing they are practicing a skill.  Some game suggestions include:

• Multiplication War (can be used for any operation)
• Zap or Kaboom
• Salute (now I did not know this was the name of the game.  It is the one where 2 kids put a card on their head.  The third gives the product so the other 2 figure out their factors).

• Prime Climb

• Yahtzee
• There are numerous games in Math Games for Number and Operations and Algebraic Thinking

• Of course, Box Cars and One-Eyed Jacks has games available
• Multiplication Squares

Really the list could go on and on.  In the end, fluency practice needs to happen regularly and be related to what kids already know for it to stick.  Have fun playing with it.  If you have fun with it, the kids will too!  

Taking time for Relationships

Building relationships

Building relationships and trust with my students is a very important aspect of my classroom. I was lucky to be gifted a period with just my girls as Mrs. Scott had a hygiene presentation for all the grade 5/6 boys. I thought for a long time how I wanted to fill that 37 minutes of girl time in my room. Through my experiences as a member of the Delta Gamma women's fraternity at the University of Alberta, I was able to build relationships with many diverse women in a trusting environment. Thinking back to these 'team building' opportunities I decided on two separate activities that would lend themselves building the self-esteem of my girls and their bonds with me as well as each other.
After reading parts of Jody Carrington's book Kids these days it has only reaffirmed my goal of being a personal connection based teacher.

First, we would start our period with the preface that anything shared in this lesson was private and not to be shared and feel free to be open and honest but remember that these activities will all be silent. The activity we started with was called "stand on the line". This is similar to the activity seen in the movie "Freedom Writers". I started with very basic questions like "Stand on the line if you have a sister", "stand on the line if you have a cellphone", etc. Once a few of these questions have been asked I move to more personal questions such as "stand on the line if you have heard gunshots from your house before", "stand on the line if you have seen some use excessive drugs or alcohol", "stand on the line if you have used drugs or alcohol". The girls did very well with this activity and it is designed to make them realize that they are not alone. Some interesting questions I got responses to were "stand on the line if you see yourself as a leader" - no one stepped forward. I also asked the question "stand on the line if you feel you have been treated unfairly because you're a girl" and every girl stood on the line.
The second activity we did is still one of my favourite activities I have ever done, even as an adult. I could not find the activity anywhere but I made it up from memory of doing it in university. I called the activity "Give your heart away". Each girl is given a bag of hearts with different colours and styles of hearts inside. We stand in a circle facing each other. I will read the description of the heart and each girl will give away that heart to the person they feel matches the description. If they cannot think of anyone they can keep their heart and wait for the next round. As we did with the previous activity, there is no talking or explanation allowed when you hand over the heart. I start out with the easy hearts to give away and then progress to more serious and thought-provoking hearts. For example, we started with "give your yellow heart to someone who always makes you happy", "give your pink heart to someone who makes you feel proud to be yourself".We then progressed to "give your blue heart to someone who needs extra love right now" and it was truly touching to see the girls line up to all give their hearts to a student in our class who has been having a hard time lately and it was visible when she accepted the hearts that she was shocked and touched, it even appeared that she sat up straighter like a weight had been lifted for her. At the end of the activity, all the girls are able to take home a baggie full of hearts that their classmates had given them. As soon as we had finished the game the girls all ran to their lockers to hang up their hearts or baggies of hearts as a reminder of the activity. I also finished the period by reminding the girls to remember this day as they grow older and to build each other up and be a family even when they are in Jr. High and later in life. It was a very powerful activity to be a part of. 
I have attached the document I used to guide myself as the facilitator.
I asked some girls in my class their thoughts or feelings about the activity.  One student said, "she liked the game where there was a line and you had to be honest with each other and yourself about things in your life". Another girl said," she liked giving the hearts to who it belonged to because I could see how many hearts everyone got to take home".

Bonding activities

Here is a picture of the baggie of hearts I was able to take home.

Here are some of my favourite quotes from Jody's new book, this book has really helped me find my joy of teaching again this year. In all honesty this year I have felt a little overwhelmed and like I wasn't loving my job anymore which is something I hoped to never feel. Lucky for me that I picked this book up at convention and it helped bring me some perspective and appreciation for my work. I hope it will help some of you as well. 

PAT Analysis 2018

Here is the presentation about the PAT Analysis.  If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to come see me anytime!

PAT Analysis

Online Math Manipulatives

While watching a webinar recently, the presenter suggested this website.  It really has a lot of good manipulatives and will also be easy for the kids to use.  There is an app for iPads and an extention for Chrome.

The resources range from pattern blocks, to rekenreks to fraction blocks.

Math Learning Center Resources

You can use the fraction blocks for many things.  Here are are some equivalent fractions and improper fractions being modeled.

We often think of rekenreks/number racks for addition/subtraction, but they can be great for multiplication facts as well.

Number lines can be used for many operations.

Guided Math

Last year was my first year in grade 2 and I found it a struggle to keep all students’ attention while teaching math whole group.  Around this time a group of teachers went to a guided math PD session offered in the area.  In speaking with Carol Kam she explained a few of the concepts covered and I quickly decided that small group was the answer to my problem with teaching math in grade two. 

Here is what I am working on with math centres in my room:

Usually, I do a quick math opener or mini-lesson to teach a concept whole group and then break into our math centres for more in-depth learning.

I currently have four groups.  These groups rotate through four ‘centres’ in my room and from them Misty and I pull students to work with us on more complex concepts. 

Currently, I have a group that is working with some dice shakers I purchased after attending a session with Deana at the ECEC conference this year.  These come from Box Cars and One Eyed Jacks and are mostly independent centres the kids can use once the ‘game’ has been explained. 

Another group works on the online math game Prodigy, while Misty pulls a group and I pull a group.  Misty is currently working with the students in their Math Journal on number concepts. In the event Misty is away I have some simple math workbook pages I have copied for that group to use independently. 

I try to change out the ‘games’ and activities after a couple rounds of each group having a turn but have found that some of the centres are proving difficult and the kids need more work on them.   At times Misty or I will sit with one of the ‘game’ groups if we see they are struggling to remind them of the concepts or to help ensure they are understanding the tasks. 

When I pull a group, I work on whichever concept I am trying to teach the class at that time.  The best part of teaching ‘guided math’ is being able to meet all students where they are.  I have one group that cannot identify numbers 1-10 and I have another group that is ready to be introduced to harder, grade three level, math concepts.  Previously, when I taught whole group I would have ½ my class bored because the math is too easy and the other ½ confused because they didn’t have any idea what I was saying.  Now, even within the small groups, I can differentiate as I can easily give little Johnny a different number than little Susie is working with. 

With Jackie coming to our school and working with me and Deana on our guided math groups I hope to continue to develop in my organization of the math centres and my teaching of concepts throughout the guided math time.

Sorry I couldn't include pictures... had lots of problems uploading this to the blog and they seemed not to want to work.  Jenn :)

Read Aloud / Writing

Teaching 101 - the more prepared you are for a lesson/day, the less time students have for misbehaving.  That being said...  my best practice is being organized for Read Alouds & Writing!

For a number of years, I was wanting to set up a month by month reading and writing program.  It wasn't until Jenn and I were working together that I was able to put this into motion.  We sat down and planned out each month of picture books and author studies.  Once we had the titles we were interested in, we began to build a literacy focus of each book.  This includes the reading focus, key vocabulary and a writing activity.  

So, I started collecting the books from the library and some I purchased from Scholastic, Indigo, etc.  I then purchased bins and found free labels from TpT to organize the books.  Now, I simply pull out a bin when needed and replace it when I'm done.

This is a work in progress as some months are more in depth than others but this is a great start!  Students have been enjoying the books we have chosen and I am thrilled that everything is readily available.  In the end, this has helped me be more accountable during reading and writing and students know what is expected of them during these times.