Fractions and Literature

The Math and Literature series by Marilyn Burns is one of my favorite math teaching tools.  The book suggests books and lessons that tie math and story together.  Kids come up with al kinds of ideas to explain because they have such an unstructured way to respond to the math prompt.  The story form gets kids who often get stuck a different way to think about math concepts.   

This lesson was all about how to equally share cookies based on an event from Little House in the Big Woods.

Happy Wednesday,

Expert Groups...from Science/Social Studies to Math

Originally this post started out a State Testing Bashing Rant...however, I "Pollyanna'd" it and am, instead going to share the good that came out of preparing for the test.

To trying and at least get some practice with the stuff we haven't learned yet, we have been using expert groups.  They are not my own creation, it is a modified version of something from GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Design).  I have never used expert groups with math before.  Usually a small group studies something then shares out.  For example, during science we are studying birds.  Groups worked together to learn about different bird habitats, then shared with rest of class.

I thought why couldn't something like this happen with math.

Here is what we have been doing-
Friday-Students are chosen to be expert group leaders.  (Before Monday I figure out what I want them to do.)
Monday-we have a "working lunch meeting."  I go over the three or four concepts I want the class to work on.  They choose the one they feel most comfortable teaching. 
Monday-Share their lesson with two groups of studnets
Tuesday-Share their lesson with two groups of students.

Then we repeat the process with new groups on Wednesday and Thursday. 
So far we have gone through the process twice. 
Round 1-Three Expert Groups
Shapes with lines/no lines of symmetry

Names of different polygons

 Balanced equations-apparently the class photographer missed this group:-)

Round 2-Four Expert Groups
Exploring 3-D shapes

3 dimensional shape organizer

Different kinds of lines

Different kinds of angles

I am amazed at how well it has been going.  I don't think it is something I could keep up with all year long, but it has been far more smooth than I thought it would be and everyone is learning something better than if I tried to do giant whole class lessons about all these different topics.

Happy Monday,

Plugged In

This week I participate in screen free week.  No computer, TV, etc for a week.  Well the school day part of the week.  Look what happened-

 First we invited our school to go screen free with us-

 and made sure we stayed screen free in our classroom-
Math on Whiteboards-

The weather was so nice we did our weekly problem solving outside...no idea why my camera thought to do a black and white photo-  Each group did one portion of the problem solving steps, then shared about it.

And vocabulary...no powerpoint slideshow.  We acted them out.  Here are fetch, construction, assembled, and downtown-

Only 25 more days....yes I am counting!
Happy Saturday,

Polygons beat Fractions!

Welcome to the world of geometry...I like this world FAR better than fractions!  Yesterday we went on a polygon hunt.  Kiddos did  a great job of looking for shapes throughout the school and then drew them into the "polygon/not a polygon" column.  Today we talked about how parts of the shape name tell us the number of sides the shape has, so we can name it. 

Then I gave each group a polygon.  Then they had to draw one, cut it out, and add it to their page.

Will they remember tomorrow.....

Happy Wednesday,





And for my Dodger friends...in honor of that amazing home opener...

More Fraction Fun

Yesterday, in small group time, we pulled out the dominoes  and had to put them in order from least to greatest with like denominators.  The best arguments occurred about whether 8/8 was the biggest and should be at the end or 12/8. 

After deciding on the best order for least to greatest...I had a great idea to practice greater than/less than.  So I ripped up some scratch paper and put the three signs on them.  Each person in the group had to make an expression using the paper and two dominoes.....they could ALL do it!  I say again, how much I love teaching with toys!

Note:  The pictures are taken from my point of view....so it looks like the numerator is 8, but for the students 8 was the denominator.

On Monday, I rewarded my math class with popcorn.  They were so excited....and then I turned it into fractions....
First they had to count all their pieces for their denominator.  Then we divided the pieces into halve, and fourths, and sixths.

After we finished we threw our paper towels into the garbage can.  Only we threw one at a time and kept track of the score....the part whole score that is.  Every time someone made it, we write the fraction of baskets and every time someone missed we wrote a fraction for that as well.  Who know basketball could be so fun:-(

Happy Thursday,

Fraction Fun...with Games

Still working with the world of fractions.  Today I realized there are a LOT of things to be said for using toys as a teaching tool.  I do it often:-) Here were today's fraction stations:
"Smores"  We play "Go Fish" with fractions.  Only instead of saying, "go fish", we say "get s'more."  It is a great game from Fireside Fractions, a unit I won from Tonya's Treats for Teachers.  The s'mores game has a gameboard but we were changing it up a bit.  Some students played it like Memory. Amazing unit for teaching fractions!
Get S'more Game-

 S'more Memory-

We played a game with pattern blocks also.  You know the dot game, where you connect two dots at a time and whoever finishes the box, gets to put their initial inside it.  Well we did that with Hexagon cookies.  Partners took turns rolling a dice with fractions on it.  The die had thirds, halves, and sixths.  Then students had to find the pattern block that matched.  So 1/6 is one triangle because it takes six triangles to fill the hexagon.  Whoever put in the final piece filling the hexagon got to put their name in the hexagon.

Then we played with Dominoes.  I gave everyone a domino.  They had to tell what fraction the domino showed and then put themselves in order from least to greatest.  The catch....they had to move themselves into order without talking:-)

Checking each others' dominoes.

Well...it was mostly a success...those darn different denominators throw us off a bit:-)

Happy Wednesday,