Games in Math?

Perhaps you have heard your child say "We get to play games in math" and wondered exactly what your students are supposed to learn by playing games. Our district utilizes Investigations as our main curriculum resource for math instruction.  We distributed a flyer about this during our Parent Orientation and sent it home for those who could not attend.  (Please let me know if you need another copy.)  You can also find out more about Investigations by reading this Information for Families document.  Additionally you can learn more about how you can support your students math thinking at home by viewing the Math Thinking document.  

In our classroom, rather than simply calling these games, I stress that they are learning activities.  After modeling the activity either whole group or in small groups.  I group the students based on where they are in their understanding of math concepts.  I want them to work with someone who will challenge their thinking but not cause frustration because their partner is at a different level than they are.  

As students are collaborating to complete the learning activity, I walk around and listen in and often snap pictures.  As I observe, I take notes in a Google form I have created for the current activity they are working on.   I use the data I collect from my observations to plan further instruction and to determine who may need additional support or who might be a good resource as a peer tutor.  This data also helps me in planning future student partnering.  

Today (September 26, 2013) I am sending home cards and instructions for some of the learning games we are utilizing at school so you can enjoy them at home.

Please feel free to make any comments or ask any questions either in the comment section below or by emailing me.

Happy learning!

Mrs. Haney

Playing Guess My Number via Google Docs

This week, we collaborated with our second grade learning friends at Old Settlers Elementary in Mrs. Ferguson's class.  Mrs. Ferguson and I have been friends for several years and we get together every three weeks to share ideas and bounce ideas around.  She is an important part of my PLN (personal learning network.)  Even though we do not teach at the same school, we text, email, or talk at least a couple times a week to collaborate along with another of our friend's Mrs. Curry at Southridge Elementary.

Both of our classes enjoy playing the math learning activity Guess My Number and we were looking for a quick low tech way for us to collaborate and bring our classrooms together.  This activity is part of our classroom routine through our Investigations curriculum.  We decided to utilize Google docs to play the game. We also thought this would also be a great way to review different types of sentences and proper punctuation.  

First Mrs. Ferguson's class picked a number between 1-100.  We could ask them questions (we had to remember to put a question mark after them.) to try to guess their number.  We have been learning strategies when we play this game to help us eliminate a lot of numbers in each turn.  It was great to see the kids applying these strategies.  Students would huddle in groups.  Each group would have a turn to share out a response and help me compose the the response (including proper punctuation.)  While we played, we had student helpers keeping track of our what we discovered on our class number line located at the front of our room.  We love this game, but being able to play it with another class made it even more exciting!

You can check out our game on Google docs.  Below are pictures of our classes while we were playing.  

Mrs. Ferguson's class

Mrs. Haney's class

We are looking forward to our next collaborative activity with our learning friends!

Coin Identification and Value

We have been reviewing our first grade skills of coin identification and value. Our focus is on the four following coins--penny, nickel, dime, quarter.  We have done this within the context of a game--Collect 25 Cents.  The kids have been having a blast and learning in the process (let's keep the learning part our secret--grin!)

Below are some links to online practice sites and resources.

http://www.ezschool.com/Games/SlothSlots.html

http://www.abcya.com/learning_coins.htm

Students brought home a practice page to review coin concepts today (September 17, 2013.)  We will begin assessing this concept later this week.  

Happy counting!

What is Daily Intentional Problem Solving?

Every day students will solve a math problem.  We craft our problems based on the CGI model using the identified problem types.  So far this year, our focus has been on "Joining Result Unknown" problems. 

As students solve the daily problem, I circulate the room to observe the different ways students are solving their problems.  After they are done solving the problem, students move to the carpet to share their thinking with a peer. I then select 2-3 students to share their thinking with the whole class. Students are selected based on different criteria including introduction of new strategies, common misconceptions, interesting mathematical thinking, or creative or unusual approaches to the problem.  As I circulate the room I record observations using a Google form I have created, recording my observations on my iPad.  This data is analyzed to design future instruction and reflection.  

Monday through Thursday students solve these problem in their problem solving spirals.  On Friday, students solve these on paper and turn them in to me for targeted feedback.  Once or twice a grading period a grade for problem solving is recorded in the grade book.  To assess student progress, I use our district rubric.  At the start of the year, our class looked at student work and developed a criteria chart.  I guided this activity so our criteria chart matches the district rubric but was is in "kid language."  

Below is an annotated student work sample and our district math rubric.