Hands on with Fractions & Decimals

Happy Friday! Today I am sharing an activity you could use at home or in the classroom when teaching fractions and decimals! This activity works well to provide a visual base ten model for students while learning the concept of fractions and decimals in tenths. We used a dry erase board for a little extra fun, but you could easily use pencil/paper.

Materials:

• Natural craft sticks
• Colored craft sticks
• Dry erase board, paper/pencil, etc. 

 I used a total of ten craft sticks each time to represent a base ten model. The colored craft sticks are what we were naming as a fraction and a decimal.

This activity could be used at the beginning of a unit to introduce the topic OR it could easily be used in math centers in a classroom! Students could create their own model and then identify the fraction and decimal.

Valentine's Multiplication Review

Today I'm sharing a quick and simple Valentine's themed multiplication review! My third grader has learned all of his multiplication basic facts and is currently working on multi-digit multiplication, BUT I think it's always a good idea to review basic multiplication facts for complete mastery. I also think it's important for children to know these facts like the back of their hand. 

I think most children enjoy themes, so I decided to create this multiplication review. It took less than 10 minutes to create and it was a quick, fun way to have him review some of their harder facts. You'll notice that I did several from 7s, 8s, and 9s. He knew them all right off, which was great! Next time I could add some 12s facts for more of a challenge. 

Materials:

• Paper (here I used paper from a large easel pad, but ANY paper would work)
• Foam heart stickers (I got these in a set from the Dollar Tree, but any kind you could write on would work)

Clearly drawing hearts that are perfectly equal on each side isn't my strongest suit, but it works! You could do an activity like this with almost any topic or subject. Parts of speech, addition/subtraction/division facts, vocabulary (maybe have definitions written down on the paper and the word on the heart), etc.

Christmas Multiplication

It's no secret that we use dot stickers often for multiple uses, but they aren't just for little ones! This week we did Christmas multiplication with my oldest.

I drew a Christmas tree on a piece of craft paper and wrote basic multiplication facts (6x7, 8x9, 4x6, etc) on them. The answers were scrambled on dot stickers. My son solved the problem mentally and then placed the correct answer (sticker) on the problem. This was such a quick activity to put together and a FUN way to practice multiplication facts!

Another fun activity to practice multiplication (and division) facts are these color by number fact sheets! You can find these for FREE at Coloring Squared. 

Practicing multiplication and division facts doesn't have to be boring! Make it festive and fun! 

Guest Blogger: Ms. Richards's Musings

Hello everyone! My name is Krystyn and I blog over at Ms. Richards's Musings.
I am so excited to get the chance to guest blog for Lana. I teach 2nd grade in Washington State. Like many of you, we are undergoing some huge changes next year. This has started my brain thinking of tons of possibilities for literacy and math. Have you started thinking of next year? I just posted this picture on Instagram a couple of days ago. I am so excited to be creating things for my students I can barely stand it.

Back to School Centers

In my district we currently use the Math Connects curriculum. However, as many districts are finding the math curriculum does not cover all of the Common Core standards. I can't count the amount of meetings I have gone to, to discuss what we are going to do to fill these holes next year. The result...my district is incorporating materials from Engage NY. Have you heard of this site? It has tons of samples, examples, and lessons that are supposed to help you develop a strong foundation in math while hitting the Common Core standards. Here are some examples from the 1st module for 2nd grade.

From just a brief glance, it looks like it will be a great resource to get an idea of how to teach the Common Core standards. One of the great things about it, is that it is free! Have you used EngageNY? Love it? Hate it? Never heard of it? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

A....N....D.....place value. 

In 2nd grade, we really focus on place value. As I was looking over the Engage NY materials, I was thinking about some of the things I already do. One of those things is giving my students LOTs of practice with place value. 

Throughout the year I have students practice skip counting. Each student starts with a strip of of paper with boxes on it (like a grid). There are 3 columns: ones, tens, and hundreds column. They start by counting by 1's to 1,000.

This is a picture for later in the year.

When students finish one strip they put it in a basket. This helps me know that they need a new counting strip to be added to their counting. After the strips are in the basket, I check for any numbers than have been skipped or reversed. If there are skipped numbers, I cut the strip under the last correct number before adding a new strip. If there are reversals, I have them fix the reversals before I add a new strip to their counting.

I tried to add strips to each student's counting as they were finishing and I couldn't keep up. They were finishing faster than I was able to check them. (Also, I only check the last strip because I have already checked all of the other strips.) After adding a new strip to each student's counting, I put them in this chart for students to access the next day.

The majority of my students are able to count up to 1,000 by the end of the year. Once they finish counting by ones, I have them skip count by 2's, 5's, 10's, and count backwards by 1's from 1,000. 

While there is some prep work to adding new strips, I really like how I can quickly assess my student's understanding of number patterns. I have noticed 2nd graders have a hard time figuring out what comes after 199. This repetitive practice helps to support their number sense and notice number patterns. Also, the 3 columns on each strip reenforces place value concepts which is such a big part of 2nd grade math concepts. Click on the picture if you are interested in trying this in your class.

Counting Strips

How do you practice counting or place value concepts?

Hodgepodge

My title pretty much sums this post up...it's a little hodgepodge all wrapped up into 1 post. 

Today was Neon Day for Spirit Week. Although not near as fun as yesterday, it was much more comfortable. I wore this neon orange workout top.  

I "stole" a Math idea and wanted to share it with you because I thought it was so cute!  Note: This was NOT my idea, nor did I make it! Our district Math coach shared it with us and then my partner teacher made us each one!  It's called "Numeration Street". What a great visual!

My first year teaching I was given a paper titled DRY MIX and some type of graph on it. I remember thinking, "What in the world is dry mix?" I ended up throwing it away because no one told me what it was, how to use it, etc. So, into the trash it went. 

Then....I began teaching 5th grade and had an "Aha!" moment when I realized DRY MIX was a way to help students remember variables and their placements!  Dependent Responding Y-axis and Manipulated Independent X-axis.  Our Science coach was nice enough to make this poster for each of us and it has helped SO much! Another GREAT visual!  Don't mind those Tennessee teddy bears...I bought one and a student bought me the other! Go VOLS! :) 

2nd Week Down...

Does anyone else feel like they are just surviving?!  I really hope to get on a consistent blogging schedule since school is back in session.  School is good, but I am still feeling like I am just surviving!  :)

I wanted to share a few of our notebooking entries.  We are using interactive notebooking in all subject areas.  

Our first page in our Math notebook was "How I Feel About Math". I thought this entry was so honest and sweet at the same time.  It really helped me understand my students as mathematicians.

We've used foldables to help us make our notebooks interactive. Here's an example of one:

We've started our study of Reconstruction, which I think is so interesting.  I LOVE 5th grade Social Studies standards in our state, which is Reconstruction to present day.  We used construction paper to make these foldables for the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.

We've also used foldables in our Reading notebooks to keep track of our vocabulary!  

By Friday, my desk area was a mess and I had to straighten things up before I left!  It makes me feel better to leave with things organized and straightened!  This was about halfway finished.

Now, off of teaching for a minute...

I am SO ready for Fall!  I love, love, love Fall!  I am so thankful to have tomorrow off and can't wait to spend time at my town's Labor Day Festival.  Some of my favorite fall activities include Tennessee VOLS football (Go Big Orange!), visiting pumpkin patches, fall scenery, and county fairs!  I am LOVING fall!  I put up all of my fall decorations last night and am loving it!

I'll be back tomorrow to show you a peek at my upcoming week!

Weekly Recap: Five for Friday

Whew!  Sleeping in this morning (until 7:30 at least) never felt so good!  This first week back to school has been one for the books.  I don't know if it's because it was the first week of school or because I am in a new grade level or a combination of both, but I felt overwhelmed at times and seemed to stay late or bring work home every day.  That's not my normal. When I am home, I try not to do school stuff because I only get a few hours with my son before it's time for bed/bath.  I sure hope I can get in a better routine next week. However, we had a GREAT first week of school!!  I just need to work on time management better next week.  Here's our week in a recap for Five for Friday!

1. Math - Y'all know I am all about being real.  This summer I posted about how I was going to do Math About Me boards.  Y'all, they were a flop! Ha! I'm not posting them, mainly because they have student's personal information on them. Some were really good.  Some were wild.  For example: I have 5,000 x 10,000 shirts. Really? 50,000,000 shirts?  Crazy!  LOL!  

We did have one really fun Math activity, though!  We read "The Warlord's Beads".  In the story, Chuan and his father create a counting frame (precursor to the abacus) to help his father keep count of the things he has to count for the warlord.   

We made our own counting frames to review place value and help us solve several problems!  And we got to have a little snack while making them!  I totally choked on my fruit loop and had fruit loops flying out of my mouth as I was choking and coughing....true story. 

2. Writing - We lead up to Writer's Workshop by students helping me create a Writer's Workshop looks like/sounds like chart, along with expectations that we all agreed to.  

We also made heart maps, which was our first writing activity.

3.  Science - We began by learning about the Scientific Method and then participated in an activity called "What Is Your Lung Capacity?" Students really enjoyed this experiment.  I hated covering faces in this photo because of the smiles I had to cover up!

4.  Social Studies - We set up our SS notebooks with our first page being a short writing prompt: Why is Social Studies important?  We shared and discussed what we thought after students finished writing.

Our first unit is Reconstruction, but I always like to start the year off with a little geography review.  We reviewed cardinal and intermediate directions, as well as oceans and continents.  

5.  I was super excited to get a package in the mail this week from Scholastic!  These books will be for a novel study we are doing later this year!  Each book was only $1.00, but I used my points so I only paid $3.50 total and that was for shipping!

Almost Friday...TGIF!

Y'all this first week back at school has been exhausting.  Good, but exhausting!  I will do a full re-cap later this weekend, but here are a few things we've done.  

We've created anchor charts for our goals and expectations. The first two lead to great class discussions.

We've created charts that detail what Independent Reading looks like/sounds like.  All students signed it and we discussed how it's like a contract.

We also came up with small group rules for Math.

We determined what Writer's Workshop looks like/sounds like and outlined our expectations.

Until later! 

Visual Models for the Division of Fractions

This summer I attended a workshop called Visual Models for the Division of Fractions.  Moving up to 5th grade next year, there's a lot I need to re-teach myself, like dividing fractions!  Eeekkk!  I wanted to share a couple of examples of how to use a visual model to divide fractions.  For each question, we had to draw a linear model or an area model.  I chose a linear model (number line).  Our district Math coach is all about number lines so I figured it would be best for me to try to "see" it that way.

Question #1:

Grandmother has three acres of land.  When she divided it equally among all of her grandchildren, each got 1/2 acre.  How many grandchildren does Grandmother have?  

First, I drew a number line and recorded the wholes 0, 1, 2, and 3.  I went up to 3 because there is 3 acres of land. Clearly, I free-handed this (which our presenter was adamant that we don't do...oops!).  After my whole number were recorded, I divided them in half because the grandchildren received 1/2 acres.  Then, I was able to see that there were 6 halves in 3.  So, three wholes divided into halves equal six.

One thing our presenter said was to make students write the answer in word form as well as number form.  Writing in word form helps you see that the child does understand the problem.

Question #2: Four students sitting at a table were given 1/3 of a pan of brownies to share.  How much will each student get if they share the pan equally?

First, I drew a number line to the whole number 1 and split it into thirds since I knew I was dealing with thirds.  Knowing from my problem that 1/3 was being divided into 4 parts, I used a red marker to show this.  Then, I had to find out how much each small part equaled, which is 1/12.  I colored in green to show what part of the number line represents my problem.  Notice though that I still divided the other part of the number line into twelfths.  So, if 4 students share 1/3 a pan of brownies, each student receives 1/12 piece. 

Question #3:
We have 1/2 of a gallon of milk to pour equally among 3 pitchers. After pouring, how much will be in each pitcher?  

First, I drew my number line to the whole number one and split into half since I have a half gallon of milk.  Knowing the half gallon is split into 3 pitchers, I showed that on my number line as well. Again, note that I split it all the way to the whole.  I didn't just stop at the half mark.  When I did that, I determined that each spot equals 1/6.  So, if we pour 1/2 gallon in 3 pitchers, each pitcher will hold 1/6 gallon.  

 

When drawing visuals models, it really works best if you let students use colored pencils/crayons/pens.  It really helped me to see it by using different colors.  

Before going into this workshop, I couldn't even remember how to divide fractions.  Then, I was shown the traditional version where you take one the second fraction and do the inverse and then multiply. So, here I changed the whole number 3 to 1/3 and then multiplied.  Did you notice that this is the same problem as Question #3 above?   

But, if I was trying to explain WHY 1/2 divided by 3 equals 1/6 and I did it the traditional way, I wouldn't be able to explain it. Therefore, I wouldn't truly understand it.  Drawing visual models helps students (and teachers!) understand division so much more than using the traditional algorithm.  

Now, give me some feedback!  Do you teach division of fractions? If so, what are some ways you teach it?  Would you like to see more sample problems other than the ones shown above?