Common Core Math Review

A friend introduced me to a book to help my students with common core math.  If you don't know this, my district is implementing common core this year WITHOUT supplying us with materials!

I was using this book:

My students liked it, but it seemed to be kind of hodge podged.  All types of skills all over the place.


A friend introduced me to this one:

This one is broken down to a different common core skill each day.  For example:  Monday is Patterning and Algebra, Tuesday is Number Sense and Operations, Wednesday is Geometry, Thursday is Measurement, and Friday is Data Management. 

My students REALLY like this book better than the last one.  Each week they can't wait until Monday so they can get their new weekly sheets.  They know to work on today's section and then put it into their desk folder until the next day.  If there are skills that I know my students will need help on, I will teach that skill while going over the day's questions.

Next year I will start with the second book for the first part of the year and maybe finish the year by utilizing the second book.  Don't know yet...will have to see how things go with our district's math pilot!

Math Pilot

Hi Everyone!  I know...it's been awhile.  This year has been a handful.  With implementing Common Core without materials, ISAT testing without knowing what is on the test, PARCC piloting, etc...UGG!

Oh yeah, another thing to add to the craziness.  I am on the math committee in my district and we are going to be piloting a new math series.  Our current math series is over 10 years old, not exactly common core ready.

So we narrowed our 3 choices (yes we were given 3, we did not get to pick the 3 we wanted to see) from our administration to 2:  My Math and Go Math.  Catching titles huh? 

Some of the teachers have noticed quite a few mistakes with My Math,

either with the teacher's guide or with student pages.

We are leaning towards Go Math.  It just seems like it follows Common Core the best and it seems to have a nice online component.

Does anyone use either of these two math series?  If so, is one better than the other???

Banana Split Fact Families

I saw this really cute idea on Pinterest about using banana splits for fact families.  Of course now that I'm blogging about it I can't find it.  If this is your idea, please let me know....I'm sorry I can't find it.


When I finished up my fractions unit in math, I was heading to division.  So I started thinking....I really need a way to tie in multiplication and division to make my students realize how they are related.  Now of course I could just do regular old fact families, but that wouldn't be any fun.  My class is really into ice cream, so I thought...wouldn't it be cute to make a banana split using multiplication and division fact families???

Here is what I came up with:

My students LOVED it.  I had them work with a partner to come up with a complete fact family.  After showing it to me (to make sure it was correct) they then had to go find another group that was done so that they could quiz them.  They had so much fun!  After the lesson, I put them in a math center.  They were so excited to continue making banana splits!  They figured out the relationship with multiplication and division and all it took was a little ice cream!

Fractions and Laundry

Today I had to teach ordering fractions.  So yesterday after school I'm sitting at my desk thinking....how am I going to teach this lesson when it is usually difficult for third graders??? 

 

Here is what I came up with. Laundry and a clothesline!  No really...  First, I got some clothing pieces.  I found these free on TPT.  I made three "clothespins" (out of my magnet men), so I had to make my laundry fractions in three pieces.  I wrote fractions on each piece of clothing. I color coded them so that I could keep track easier.

 

 

 

When I was ready to teach the lesson, I told the kids we were going to do laundry.  They looked at me like I was goofy (what else is new, right???).  They said, "But our I Can says we are ordering fractions."  What well trained students...they even looked at the I Can statements before we started math for the day!

 

Okay, back to my lesson.  I passed out clothing to each student.  Then I called them by the color code.  So I said all the purple fractions stand up.  They told me what fraction they had and I wrote it on the board.  The entire class had to work with partners and fraction strips to make each fraction to put them in order from greatest to least.

 

Once I saw that every partner group had the fractions lined up, I called the color group to the board.  They had to clip the clothes to the clothesline in order from greatest to least.  

 

 

Sorry...I had to smash the clothesline together to fit into the picture!

 

The class had to either give them a thumbs up or they had to say, "Shuffle those clothes!"  O...M...G...we had so much fun!

As we progressed I made sure there were fractions that they didn't have fraction strips to use.  We reviewed how they could solve these problems by looking at the denominators/numerator and they were on their way.

Then we used a fun resource I found on TPT from More Time 2 Teach.  It was called "Ordering Fractions:  A Little Birdie Taught Me..."

They had to work again with their partner to put the fractions in order.  Didn't they turn out cute?  This was one of those lesson when I wish the principal was in for an evaluation! They were disappointed when I told them we were done for today!  And we were all giggling how they were going to go home today and tell their parents "Shuffle those clothes!"  Heehee  :)

Division Games and New Pennants

Hi everyone!  I just finished up a division game unit.  It has two games:  one task card/scoot game and one poke game.  I used cute Popsicle graphics to give it a little summertime feel.  You can pick it up in my TPT store.

 

I also made two banners available in my store.  One is St Patty's Day and the other is Happy Spring.  I know I'm late with St. Patty's Day...it's been in my store for awhile, just forgot to blog about it!

What do you think??? 

Halloween Math Freebie

I was feeling creative the other night.  I love how everyone out there makes such cute activities where they use cute clip art to make a color worksheet.  So...here is my first attempt.  My students were just finishing up our addition chapter.  So on each section of the Halloween picture I used review addition skills from the chapter (addition properties, adding larger numbers, etc).

If you are interested, I have made this a freebie.  Let me know what you think...but please remember, it was my first attempt!  :)

Graphics from KPM Doodles, Fonts from Rowdy.



Monday Made It

I'm linking up with Tara for her now monthly Monday Made It. 

I know you have all seen the cute Boggle/Scrabble boards and the neat Add It Up ideas out there on Pinterest and on so many blogs, right?  Well I wanted to make them different.  I used the Boggle idea last year and just copied the papers for my early finishers to work on.

But this year I wanted to do something different.  The problem I was having was how or where I was going to put them.  I ran out of wall room in my classroom, so I couldn't put them on a bulletin board or in a pocket chart.  I really wanted to do them both, especially since I've noticed that I have a few early finishers in my class this year.

I walked into the teacher's lounge the other day and what was sitting in the "FREE Take me Home Section" (or as we call it the stuff left over that we can't fit into our classrooms anymore section)...but two small cookie sheets.  I thought...hmmm...that could work.

I snatched them up and I finally worked on them this weekend.  I decided to start out by just putting the papers taped to the cookie sheets. I was going to put magnets with the items on them, but I thought my students would get a kick out of taking them to their seats when they were working on them.

     

I wanted to do a Scrabble theme instead of Boggle for a couple reasons:  1) I bought the cute graphics from Scrappindoodles so it will be easy for me to change the letter tiles each week, 2) I have a Scrabble game in my classroom so I thought it would tie together nicely, and 3) I like the idea of having the children add up the amounts for each letter used (so maybe they will make longer words).

I also wanted to do a Math It Up idea instead of Add it Up since I eventually will be changing it to subtraction and then multiplication since I teach third grade.

What do you think???

Math Workshop

I don't know about you, but I have such a hard time figuring out how to fit in Daily 5 and Guided Math into my third grade classroom.  Reading all my bloggy friends blogs about these topics gets me excited, but then the reality of my own teaching day sink in and I realize that it won't work.  I have so much I have to fit into third grade before the state tests in March and I have my district curriculum guide....so needless to say....I get frustrated!

I'm excited to say that I think I finally figured it out!  I read a great book this summer called Guided Math that I got from Amazon.  I know there were a lot of book studies about this book, but I never was ready to read it.

 

After I read the book, I realized that I already was incorporating a lot of the ideas in my classroom but I didn't label it guided math time.  I called it math.  So this year I want to include more aspects of the guided math ideas but I am calling it Math Workshop. 

I am going to start each day out by doing a math warm up and then I will teach a whole class math lesson.  Then based on how my students did in the math lesson, I will assign them an activity to do.  Here is a picture of my Math Workshop signs.

I have Practice Facts, Math Game, Meet with the Teacher, Use Manipulatively, Problem Solving, Task Cards, and Test Prep.  This way I can meet the needs of my students using class data and NWEA data.  I can also differentiate my activities...so excited! 

I printed the signs out as a 6 slide on one page.  Then I cut them out and laminated them.  I also made name cards to put next to each activity.  I used my wonderful $1.00 pocket chart from Target.  Here is a picture of my finished product.

I'm really excited that I FINALLY figured out how to teach Math this year.  I'll let you all know once the school year is going to see if it is working out.  What do you think????

Happy Wednesday!

 

Monday Made It...on Wednesday

Happy Wednesday!  I hope everyone is entering my 100 Follower giveaway.  It ends on Monday (my 1 month blog anniversary)! 

I missed this week's Monday Made It.  Sorry...these days are becoming fuller!  I don't know if I'm going to be able to fit in working all day with all my errands and projects I'm making (heehee). 

Okay so here is one project I made.  I saw it on 4th Grade Frolics.  It is her Letters for Learning Task Cards that she sells on TPT.  I want to add more word work and vocabulary projects into my reading block, so this is perfect.

I bought these foam alphabet shapes from JoAnn's (yes, with a coupon)!  My son helped me sort these into letter piles.  We put 7-12 of each letter (we did more vowels) and we still have 3/4 of the shapes left!  I'm thinking I might make 1 or 2 more sets!  He's going into 2nd grade this year and he LOVED these.  He is working his way through all of the task cards.  He is even playing with this instead of his video games right now! 

The next idea I didn't make, I just tweaked.  I had these Test Prep Word Problem Cards that I bought from Lakeshore before.  Anyone who teaches 3rd grade knows that we do A LOT of math prep for the test.  I used these cards before as a review game.  (sorry the are sideways, technology-ugggg)

    

One set is Grades 1-3 and one set is 4-6.  They include skills from the following:  time, money, measurement, charts & graphs, and algebraic thinking.  The 4-6 set includes:  time, money, fractions, charts & graphs, geometry, logic, adding & subtracting, large numbers, and mean/median/mode/range. 

This year will all the activities I see out there I'm changing these cards up.  I'm going to make them into concept sets and use them in a center for guided math.  I'm also going to make them into a Scoot game.  And the best part...when I bought them from Lakeshore they were 2.99 each set (I checked and they are still only 2.99 each set)!  I love cheap and easy, don't you.

Well that's all for today.  Have a great day and don't forget to enter my giveaway!

Talk About It

Okay everyone...I'm going to call this "Talk About it Tuesday".  I don't know if anyone else does anything like this on Tuesdays, but today I thought I would ask a question for everyone.

Here goes:  do you use CAFE/Daily 5 in your classroom?  I know that it is very effective in 1st and 2nd, but I don't know if it is workable in 3rd.  I took a class on it last summer and was ready to go...didn't work out so well.  Then I reread the book again this year, but once again I find it hard to implement with state testing at the third grade level. 

I'm also curious about Guided Math.  I'm reading that one now.  Sorry to ask a question and not share today, but I was just curious what you guys all do.

Thanks-
Tracey :)