Equal does not mean "Give me an answer"

I hate the teachers who taught me math sometimes. Ok, hate is a little strong. But it makes me mad. I grew up thinking that the equal sign meant someone expected me to give an answer. A solution. I am convinced they are the reason I started failing math as soon as I started algebra in middle school.

Absolutely convinced. How can you give an answer if there are numbers and letters and who-knows-what-else on both sides of the equal sign? How can you add, subtract, multiply or divide if there is no empty space in which to plop your sum/product/quotient/difference?

You know how long it took me to get what the equal sign really means? I was 33. Really. 33. I had to take remedial algebra to get into the college of education. Finally I got it, after having an instructor who really understood the demise of mathematics for so many. She explained that the equal sign meant "both sides are equal." Like, how simple. Really? It's just like a pan balance or a scale? Both sides have to "weigh" the same or they aren't equal. Bingo.

I'm making it my mission as a teacher to make sure my students understand this deeply before they leave me in the spring. = doesn't mean "I want an answer". = means "how can you make each side weigh the same?"

It's brilliant. It's one of the Big Ideas that topple the house of cards when it isn't understood.

I created a couple of activities that nail this concept. It's just a few smallish practice activities, but they are Valentine themed just in time for February 14th. Check 'em out.

My primary and intermediate hearts were arguing whether to make these for little ones or big ones. I appeased them both and created addition and multiplication sets. Each are $2, a wee price for an activity that can easily fit into a 30 minute block of time. 

Zero in on the problem and reteach, support and practice

It is toe and mind-numbingly cold here today. I had planned on staying in bed in my PJs all day working on school stuff, but my dad called and wanted to meet me and the chicklits for lunch. How can a girl say "no" to her dad? I certainly can't.

We bundled up and headed to Famous Dave's. We weren't even in the car for 3 minutes and I realized my toes were numb. Did you know that you can tell how cold it is by how fast the freeze seeps into your clothes? When it's -6F, that's about 3 minutes sitting in a car. Outside it's about 15 seconds.

After stuffing ourselves on cornbread and bbq sauce we had to head out for karate and movie

******BREAKING NEWS!!!! THE DISTRICT CALLED AND WE HAVE A INCLEMENT WEATHER DAY TOMORROW! ****************

Was I complaining about the cold? I'm apologize to you, freezy arctic air. I do love you so.

Anyhooooo, the short version of that whole story is that I spent most of MLK day (and the day before, and apparently tomorrow as well) in bed working working working. No finer place to work as far as I'm concerned.

I've thinking about the CCSS lately and how we can help our kiddos target in on specific areas, especially for math. I thought I'd start looking at the problem in a very small scope; I started with first grade, operations and algebraic thinking, the first standard. If you know that you have a student that isn't secure on this standard, or maybe your entire class needs a little extra practice and support with it, then this is the practice kit for you.

Wondering how you might know if the kidlets are struggling with this standard? You can use this assessment to find out. It was specifically designed for this purpose.

I'm hoping to add the other first grade standards to this category of products in the very near future. Keep your eyes peeled for updates. (What does that mean anyway - eyes peeled? Does it remind you of peeled grapes? Or is just me?)

There are 3 sets of different 5-page practice pages. Each uses a different strategy for adding and subtracting. 

Included is the game Counting Up Hearts, perfect for laser-beaming the counting up strategy. You can also download just the game here for free!

Happy laser-beaming!

CCSS Math Assessment for Kindergarten

Last week I received the following feedback on the First Grade Common Core State Standard Assessment Kit I created for assessing those sometimes pesky math CCSS:

"I am a huge Teachers Pay Teachers user (and seller) and I can stay without a doubt that this is the BEST product I have ever downloaded. It is so complete and accurate! I love how you allow the students to demonstrate their understanding of each strand in several different ways. I am using this assessment at three different points in the year to track student growth.

My principal and I agree you should quit teaching and publish more of these resources full time!

Any thoughts about making the same product for kindergarten and second?

October 16, 2012"

My heart bloomed when I read this. I think I may have actually teared up a little, and I didn't even make any excuses about getting something in my eye. It made me feel so happy that this assessment pack was truly helpful to a fellow teacher (and, um, principal...hel-LO!)

I created a Kindergarten Common Core State Standards Math Assessment Kit to match the first grade one. 

I hope, with the biggest of hopes, that it makes assessing math a teensy bit quicker/easier/less traumatic/less mysterious to some of those K teachers out there.

K is a whole different world than any other grade, so I wanted to be sensitive to the Kindies' abilities. Most of the assessments are administered by the teacher. This takes a little more time than simply handing out an assessment and having kids complete it, but this gives the teacher another opportunity to really get to know their students in a mathematical capacity. 

Each domain is broken into its standards, and each is broken into smaller sections if the standard had more than one element to assess.

A class list for each domain can be a handy document to keep on hand when looking at a class as a whole, or for a quick overview of specific students. 

Individual tracking forms keep more detailed notes on each student. Notes on each assessment can be kept for reference, analyzing and planning. Plans for interventions have their own space here, so keeping track of RtI (Response to Intervention) can be easy to do.

You can download Numbers and Operations in Base Ten free by using the the "Download Preview" button. Try it out, see if it helps to keep track of those rascally CCSS. 

Sammies, anyone?

Who can resist a PB&J? Not me. I bet not you. Unless you are allergic to peanuts. Then you are respectfully excused.

I had gotten a request to create more Sandwich Math kits. I am working on intervention kits for common core state standard math, for first grade and kindergarten. I know it seems awfully funny for a fourth grade teacher to be creating stuff for primary, but that is really my area of expertise. I'm hoping that my intermediate knowledge bank will continue to grow as I dig further into fourth grade.

These sammie kits are perfect for nailing those skills that involve numbers and operations and place value.
You can get them as individual sets or as a whole kit.

Now get yourself a tall glass of milk and go check them out.

Fun with fluency facts - Math Attack

The debate about math facts runs rampant in many districts. We know (or should know) that fluency with addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts is necessary to open cognitive space in the brain for bigger math thinking. It's the same reason we want kids to be fluent in reading; when they can read the words smoothly, quickly and with expression, the brain spends less thinking power decoding and uses that space for comprehension.

Math? Same thing. When kids can easily and automatically throw out math facts, it shows that their brain is spending less energy with computations for those smaller numbers 1-10. Have you seen the videos for Singapore math? Those kids fly with their facts.

The most amazing thing I have seen lately was a video of 4th graders doing mental math. They couldn't write it, and were asked to explain their answer. The problem was 16 x 35. Within seconds hands were flying up with the answer. The teachers I was watching the video with were still trying to figure it out, most of us doing invisible math in the air with our finger, carrying over and adding. The kids gave answers like this:

"I know that 10 x 30 is 300, and 10 x 5 is 50, that's 350. 6 x 30 is 180; 300 plus 100 is 400, 50 and 80 is 130, so now I have 530. 6 x 5 is 30, so the answer is 560."

"10 x 35 is 350. 6 x 3 is 180, and 6 x 5 is 30, so that's 210. 350 + 210 is 560."

and my favorite:

"If I halve and double, I have 8 x 70. 8 x 7 is 56, so 8 x 70 is 560."

Every one of these answers relied on knowing the basic facts. The ability to quickly add or multiply the basic facts gave these kids an edge. They quickly broke down the numbers, and then built them back up.

Ok, so, we know that our kids need fact fluency. I am no fan of the timed test. My oldest daughter failed, failed and failed again at timed tests. She is completely capable of math facts, but her weekly timed tests didn't show it. She never got to progress onto other fact families because she was stuck redoing the same set  of facts over and  over. Her own anxiety held her back. Once the teacher let go of having her be timed, she flew through the sets.

I am, however, a big fan of games. A little daily practice and repetition with facts can anchor them firmly in a child's brain. A few years ago I stumbled on Math Pickle. I went back to revisit it last night, looking for answers to the math fact dilemma. There is was, the answer to my dreams. Each grade level has activities aimed at mathematical thinking. Actually, a lot of them are games. Activities, games, it's all good.

I am going to introduce a grade 2 game today. It's an addition game, involving alien lego fighter ships. You have to get the right combination of addition facts to destroy the enemy ship. Everything you need to teach is there: a video explaining the game and the thinking that goes on in the background, a ppt, worksheets, the whole she-bang. Check it out here.

This is my thinking: if my kids come in every morning and play this game for 10 - 15 minutes a week, trying to get the fastest time with each ship, then I am providing between 50 and 75 minutes of addition fact practice weekly.

Seriously. How cool is that?

Math Centers and Intervention

The Common Core has got us all thinking through smaller lenses in math; we aren't used to thinking in strands and breaking them down into manageable elements. I am so excited as states start to roll out expectations for the Common Core in math. Here it is, the expectations spelled out for us in detail.

We use Everyday Math; the newest version is aligned to the common core, so we are lucky in our district. As a math committee, we have been breaking down the units and lessons - "unpacking" they call it. It's been like seeing this overwhelming picture broken into puzzle pieces. We can see and appreciate each small piece as it fits into the whole.

Give me a "heck YEAH!" Let's saddle up those ponies and race out into the frontier. We have a map now to help us see where we are going.

There was so much good information and inspiration at the RtI conference I attended last week in Lake Geneva. One of the biggest "a-ha"s I had was the need for students to have a deep and foundational understanding of the numbers 1-10 (let's just let zero rest for a minute). In order to do higher level operations, kids need to have  good fact fluency. One of the ways to strengthen the relational understanding of numbers (and in turn fire up that fluency) is to play with them, and play with them hard. Take those numbers out and explore them with activities, games and videos. Before asking kids to memorize what 8+8 is, make sure they know what numbers add up to 10 (I call this "making 10"). If they know that 8 + 2 = 10, they can jump to the idea that 2 needs 6 more to make 8, so if they add 6 to 10 they have 16.

It's an amazing thing to watch kids do this. Check out this video of kids doing mental math from Singapore math. Think it's impossible? I've seen kids do it here, too. How do we get them to this level? A deep understanding of making tens and place value.


I just love this. It makes me all tingly inside.

A little extra time each day devoted to making 10 can make an enormous difference.  This is a great opportunity to hit it hard with math centers; the learning is purposeful and goes deep.

I created this math kit with that spirit in mind.

There are activities with ten-frames...

Math stories....

Counting-on games...

and Flip cards...

To reinforce each of these activities is a short and fun video. There are a total of 4; to sneak a peek visit my facebook page. I have a little giveaway going with comments for the video.

Here's the snag in this item: because the files were just over the maximum file size I had to split the kit into 2 parts. I halfed the cost for each part of the it, so you are paying the correct whole amount when you purchase both halfs.  Go here for part 1, and here for part 2

What are you doing this year to strengthen math fact fluency? I want to hear about it! 

Alligreater

I love the analogy between the greater/less than symbol and an alligator. I drew this gator so that I could create a poster in my classroom. Feel free to use and share!