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Monday, August 18, 2014

Monday Math Literature Volume 56

If you missed last week's post on using a bug theme and working on numbers to 20, you can see it here!

This week I want to share with you a story that you might already be familiar with.  I first fell in love with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom very early in my teaching career.  When I left teaching a straight grade classroom to become a math specialist, my class gave me the number version of this book.





I love using this book with preschoolers, in Kindergarten and in first grade.  It is great for working on symbolic notation.  I find it a wonderful book to work on basic numeral recognition and an excellent resource when kids are struggling with teen versus ten numbers such as 17 and 70 etc.  

There are so many activities you can do to follow up this book!  I could write about a bunch of them but instead I will send you over to Making Learning Fun where you will find many ideas and free printables to go along with this great story!

Friday, August 15, 2014

Fun with Numeral Recognition

I have been working on some fun number recognition activities using these super cute number buttons.  I like these buttons because they are bright and colorful and I have already found many ways to use them.  

Number Buttons and Water Beads

Recently, I was at the dollar store looking for a cookie sheet for my magnetic 10 frame project when I stumbled upon water beads.  I had heard a teacher talk about these as a sensory bin material at a conference several months ago so I grabbed a pack to try out with my number  buttons 
I made sure I had at least 1 of each number then grabbed another handful

Dump in the water beads and the number buttons and you are ready to go!

My kids had a great time playing in the water beads and working on recognizing numbers.  Some quick easy things you can do:

1) Have kids find a particular number.  Find me a 7, now a 3 etc.

2) Have kids fish out all the numbers and sort them according to number or color

3) Have kids pick 3 numbers out and put them in numerical order

4) Find one of each number and but them in order from 1-9

5) Build bigger numbers like 74, 109, 1000, etc.

6) Choose 2 numbers and tell which is bigger.  You can also make a greater than/less than symbol to place between the numbers.

Don't these look fun?

We had so much fun with these that I ordered some colored ones.  I can't wait to try them out!

Ice Excavation

Another thing I did with these button numbers is ice excavation.  I took 1 of each number and placed them in a muffin tin.  I then added the corresponding number of gemstones.  I topped it with some water dyed with food coloring.  


I stuck the entire thing in the freezer overnight.  When I was ready to use these, I just let them sit out for a few minutes and they popped right out of the muffin tin.  


It was a very hot day so they started melting right away.  It was good to do this on a nice sunny day because the kids ended up getting a lot of water on themselves.  


We put them in counting order and practiced using words such as greater than and less than.  I also had kids count the gemstones to see if the number of stones matched the numeral.  Then I let the kids have eye droppers and bulb syringes and a dish of warm water.  They picked up the warm water and dropped it on the ice.  They melted well and the kids had a great time counting and exploring the numbers.  If it had not been a hot day, I would have used some salt as well to speed up the melting process if necessary. 


What are your favorite ways to work on number recognition?  Have you used water beads in the classroom? 

When your students are recognizing numbers, a great next step is counting puzzles!  Check out these fun Christmas themed ones!



Wednesday, August 13, 2014

An Easy Way to Work on Basic Shapes

Last week, I purchased some foam sheets to make pool noodle boats and have a few leftovers.  I also have colored craft sticks left over from my number sticks project. I got out my little used stencil collection and made some fun shadow puppets with my extra supplies.  Of course I love including math in everything I do so I made all the basic shapes in addition to other animals and such.  

Easy steps!  Cut foam shapes, hot glue to craft sticks!

Add a flashlight and you are ready to go!

Star

oval

Bear who likes to eat the basic shapes!

This made a great rainy day activity and will be equally useful as a purposeful center in a Kindergarten or preschool classroom!  All of these shadow puppets and a small flashlight will fit in a quart size freezer bag giving you something ready to go in browse boxes or to keep kids buys while you are meeting with small groups!

For some fun songs about shapes check out my favorite You Tube videos about shapes!

Monday, August 11, 2014

Monday Math Literature Volume 55

If you missed last week's post about Ten Black Dots and the ten frame freebie, you can check it out here!


This week I want to share with you a great piece of literature that you would not traditionally think about using during math class.  The author, Jerry Pallotta has written several great math literature books but this one is a bit different.




I have been so inspired by the Math and Literature series, I have started to look at my collection of children's literature with a math lens.  I used this lesson with a group of kids who will be in Kindergarten or first grade this fall.

There are a lot of facts about bugs in this book!  It is a great way to build vocabulary and non-fiction knowledge about bugs but let's talk about using this for math.  This crew of kids has been working on numbers to 20 and we used this book and some realistic plastic bugs to further explore counting, numbers to 20 and pairs that make 20.

Many pages have multiple bugs pictured on them and these are the pages we focused on when using this book for math.  We figured out how many bugs were pictured and how many more we would need to make 20. 

Another picture that is great for figuring out how many bugs are there.  I know these kids very well and was able to call on kids who I know need more practice with one to one correspondence to help me count up these bugs.  


We then used the plastic bugs and these bug 20 frame cards to help us work more on numbers to 20.  We also made a small world/sensory bin for the bugs which they had great fun with while reviewing vocabulary, counting and other skills!

Using the plastic bugs to help us solve problems.  Notice how they look like a 20 frame?  This helps students connect this lesson to the next one and the 20 frame bug learning center they will be using.
Our bug sensory  bin

We also threw in a counting and estimating routine to kick off our days of using bugs in math.
As a kick off to using this book, we estimated and then counted the bugs in this bug box.


We finished our work up on bugs and numbers to 20 with these cute bug themed 20 frames!



You can read more about these 20 frames here!  Grab your own set here!




Sunday, August 10, 2014

Bug Themed 20 Frames

I love using 5, 10 and 20 frames in the classroom!  These are a great way to build numeracy and additive reasoning with your students.  If you are new to using these frames or want to learn a few new tricks, check out the ideas below or pick up a copy of It Makes Sense! Using Ten-frames to Build Number Sense



I have posted about using 10 frames in the past but today I want to share with you some specific things I do with this great set of bug themed 20 frames and their corresponding numeral cards.   I love materials where you can prep them once and use them over and over again and these cards certainly have many uses!  I also like when each "deck" is easy to identify and you don't have to search for where a missing card belongs.  That is why I like the 4 different bug cards here.  It keeps my sets straight with little work on my part.  

Here are some ways I use these

20 Frame Flash

This makes an excellent whole group, small group or partner activity.  Simply flash the 20 frame at your students for 1-3 seconds and then ask them how many bugs they saw and how they know they are right.  I like to give pairs a few minutes to talk about how they knew they were right and then share some strategies as a whole group.


20 Frame and Numeral Match Memory

As a whole group game this can be a lot of fun and a great way to work on numbers to 20!  Pass out 20 frames and numerals and ask kids to find their match.  You can then display them on a pocket chart and talk about what they see.  Kids can also do this on their own or with a partner.  Spread out all the numeral cards and make a pile of the 20 frame cards.  Have the student(s) pick a card from the 20 frame pile and find it’s match in the numeral pile.  You can also switch this around and spread out the 20 frame cards and have them pick a numeral card. 

Ordering Sequential and Non Sequential Numbers

These activities can be done as a large group by giving each kid a number (until you run out!) and having them get in order from least to greatest.  It also works great as an individual task or a partner activity.  Make sure your students get a chance to put numbers in order that are not sequential as well. 



20 Frame/Numeral Match

As a whole group game this can be a lot of fun and a great way to work on numbers to 20!  Pass out 20 frames and numerals and ask kids to find their match.  You can then display them on a pocket chart and talk about what they see.  Kids can also do this on their own or with a partner.  Spread out all the numeral cards and make a pile of the 20 frame cards.  Have the student(s) pick a card from the 20 frame pile and find it’s match in the numeral pile.  You can also switch this around and spread out the 20 frame cards and have them pick a numeral card. 


Mystery Card (A Missing Addend Game)

This is a fun game and a nice challenge when students are ready.  This game must be played in groups of 3.  Two players choose a 20 frame card and place them on their foreheads.  The third player finds the sum of the two numbers on their foreheads and tells  what it is.  Then each of the players with cards on their heads looks at the other person’s card and tries to determine what card they have.  This lets one student practice adding 2 numbers under 20 while the other two students practice solving missing addend or subtraction problems.  The 20 frame visual really supports this learning. 


Odd/Even Sort

These cards are a great way to practice odd and even numbers.  Using the 20 frame cards is easier than just the numerals but when your students are ready go ahead and use them all!


Build it!

This is a simple and effective game! All you need is some blank 20 frames, 20 sided dice and bingo chips.  Students can play alone or with a partner.  Roll the die, and build that number on the ten frame.  This goes much faster if kids do not remove the bingo chips each time but just add more or take some off as they roll. 
If you want kids to practice specific teen numbers, use a blank die and write the numbers on you wish to have them practice.    


Make 20

A fun way to practice combinations of 20!  Students pick a 20 frame and use bingo chips or other small manipulatives to figure out what goes with their number to make 20.  It is quick and easy to have students create a record sheet to go along with this!



Check out a few of the other bug designs!  Clip art is by Graphics From the Pond!



You can grab your own set of these 20 frames over at TPT