Last
week I met with my first grade team. There is a district wide
assessment approaching and we've all been a little apprehensive about
how the students will do. So we spent some time discussing number sense
routines, specifically routines that allowed students to play with
numbers. I shared with them the following experience.
I
spent some time going through chapter 5 and chose "Ways to Make a
Number" since one of the items in our standards (and coming up on the
assessment) required students to think flexibly about a number. I had a
wonderful teacher volunteer to let me come in and try this routine with
her class. We did "Ways to Make 17". I chose 17 because I wanted to
see what the students did with a teen number, to see if they'd draw out
the ten. I was pleasantly surprised by most. One little girl in
particular wrote the following:
I asked her about the last equation. It was clear from her number bond that she knew the fact family. I asked her if her last number sentence was equal to 17. I gave her a chance to revisit her thoughts while I visited other groups. Later, when I returned, she has modified her answer to read 10 + 7 =17.
After 1st grade returned to their classrooms, I received a message from one of the teachers (the same teacher I had visited in the above story). She had decided to use the last 20 minutes of her day using "Ways to Make a Number". She presented the with "Ways to Make 55". Here are some of their responses.
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| Students use manipulatives to explore 55. |
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| Students made a list of their discoveries. |
1 - This didn't take as long as I thought it would. The second time this class did this routine, they did it in the last 15 minutes of the day...WITH manipulatives! Because this teacher has manipulatives available to her kids all the time, it shaved minutes off of this routine because the kids simply pulled from the buckets in the middle of their table and clean up went just as quickly.
2 - Kids love to use these manipulatives! It is ENGAGING!
3 - The students came up with far more responses than I imagined that they would. They were CAPABLE of doing this, they just need the chance to show it! Paper and pencil should wait.
Discussion Questions:
Q1 -What have been your biggest take aways this week as you work through routines with your classes?
Q2 - What are some obstacles that you are currently facing and how you overcome them?
A1 - One of my biggest take aways from this week (and I've heard it from lots of sources lately!) is to put down the paper and pencil, marker and marker board and just get out the manipulatives. I don't do that enough. I feel pressed for time but some of the more successful classrooms are using them so I need to incorporate them more often and first.
ReplyDeleteA2 - The biggest obstacle for me is classroom management, I think, since the idea of using manipulatives more often is daunting for me. Visiting another classroom or asking my math specialist to come in and help me problem-solve will probably be the avenues I use meet this challenge.
Sasha
I understand about you feeling time constraints. Manipulatives, especially with younger ones, do take time. Hopefully with lots of exposure it will get quicker and easier to use them.
DeleteSasha...I'm with you on the time. But I DO see the benefits of teaching the kids how to use the manipulatives. The more you use them, the less they will see them as toys and they will stop "playing" with them.
DeleteI was reading an article and found this quote:
ReplyDelete"oaler’s argument has several parts. She explains that the key to success in math is having something called “number sense,” and number sense is developed through “rich” mathematical problems. Too much emphasis on rote memorization, she says, inhibits students’ abilities to think about numbers creatively, to build them up and break them down."
Felt like it was a great addition to the discussion. For the full article, go to http://hechingerreport.org/should-we-stop-making-kids-memorize-times-tables/
Forgot my name - Sasha
DeleteQ1 -What have been your biggest take aways this week as you work through routines with your classes? Since we are working on place value heavily right now I really thought this chapter was super important. Kids need to have a strong sense of place value for so much of math! Even our sprints we were doing during these weeks happened to be related to place value (or maybe that was planned-who knows?). Either way I was super excited to see the extra practice for them. I've implemented the Ways to Make a Number since earlier on this year and it still amazes me the ways students will come up. I usually have them come up and share their ways and then the other students get another idea that inspires them. Since the 100th day was within this time, I used the 100th Day activity of coming up with ways to make 100. They were all engaged and helping each other. So fun to watch! I also liked the Questions and Statements for Today's Number (it was one of those side boxes in the text)
DeleteQ2 - What are some obstacles that you are currently facing and how you overcome them? One of the major obstacles I feel I face is time. There is so much I want to do with the kids and so much I want to fit in a math block, but not always the time. Especially with the younger ones everything you plan takes more time than you usually plan for. How I have tried to overcome it is I try to create an agenda for my math block of things I want to get through (or must get through). :/
The agenda sounds like a good idea! How is it working for you so far? Have you thought about a timer to help you keep pace? I used one religiously to keep the math block moving.
Delete#1. I have been working with a 2nd grade class all week working on ways to make a number and the biggest take away was how much the kids LOVE using manipulatives to show their thinking. They were tired of the worksheets and paper all the time.
ReplyDelete#2. The obstacle that causes everyone the same issues...Time and classroom management...It takes a awhile to go over rules, etc when you are doing something for the first time and need to set procedures.