Sunday, September 30, 2012

Math Stretch Numbers 1-121

I was very fortunate to attend Laney Sammon's Guided Math session for our district's institute day.  One of the big ideas we discussed were "math stretches."  A math stretch is a way to get the children thinking about math when they walk into the classroom in the morning.  A group of first grade teachers and I developed a math stretch based on  the first grade Common Core objective of being able to start at any number and count on.  Attached is a grid we created.  The idea is to make it larger so that each student can write a missing number on the chart.  Then when we get together,  I can ask the children: What patterns did you noticed?  What information helped you choose the number you wrote in the box?

Friday, September 21, 2012

Apps to Build Number Sense

Did you know that Augustana College has a number sense project?  They sent their university students into the schools to work with kindergartners.  This morphed into a series of educational apps to build number sense.  The apps are not super fancy, but they do focus on building number sense with ten frames, subitizing, and number lines.

Here is the list I am hoping to purchase for our iPads at school.

Line 'em Up  Free
10 Frame Fill  Free
What's Hiding? $0.99
Word Problems  Free
Thinking of a Number  $0.99
Pattern Sets   $0.99

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Great Teacher Resource

Have you checked out the Teaching Channel yet?  There are a lot of great videos there to give you ideas for strengthen your students' number sense.

I really like the one called Mingle to use as a brain break when children need to get up and move.