Hands On Math for Elementary

Hey Friends! I'm so excited to be linking up with the amazing Mrs. Wills Kindergarten for some ideas regarding hands on math! 

One of my favorite ways to teach place value is with this old and trusted flip chart. My students EVERY YEAR love this thing. Every year, I say "I could really update that and give it a new digital spin"....and yet I never do. Because it works and I love it. Plus, it's been with me through all the moves and schools, since my very first year of teaching....;I might be a *bit* of a hoarder>>> haha! This is just an easy way to give students a visual of how to build a number. We've found that the ability to break apart and build numbers is the real foundation to number sense, not simply being able to recognize the numbers. 

Addition is another skill that we use a lot of manipulatives and hands on instruction. We are always counting objects. I have a few pictures on my SD card (that is with my husband for the moment) on how we use classroom objects for counting and applying numbers. I'll update later in the week with those pictures!

This next activity is a great way to get kiddos moving and using their hands to manipulate through the skills. Students should practice applying the skills they've learned in a variety of ways in order to retain the information they've learned. Sliders are a great way to practice addition skills while practicing math fluency at the same time. 

We finished learning about estimation a few months ago. We did a carnival theme and incorporated our math and english strands into our celebration. The kids had to practice estimating tickets, bouncy balls, animal crackers, and rubber ducks. Our parents sent some items in and the rest was purchased from the dollar store and Amazon! ! I. LOVE. THE. DOLLAR. STORE! 

 You can get all of these games for free

 We are planning another one soon and I can't wait to share it with you! 

This activity was so easy to prep and use! Just a simple fact toss ( remember what I said about the push for math fluency.... ) It's amazing how much fun the kids have when you move a table and put paper on top!

Remember how I told you I was a hoarder? A few years ago, I saved a bunch of bottle caps. I had no idea what I was going to use them for. We've had a big push in our district for math fact fluency lately, so I used this little mats. The students have different prompts to create number sentences.  You can read more about that here. 

Another thing I like to do is periodically go through my game closet or stop at garage sales to find new ones. You can take just about ANY board game and make it into math game! I keep a pretty good stock of neon dot stickers. They peel off pretty easy and you can use them for so many different mathematical problems!

My kiddos favorite right now is addition Jenga.

It's amazing what happens when you "throw" something at children! This beach ball was another dollar store find! We always see the beach ball reading games on them, so I thought why not make this apply for math? On this particular ball, I have numbers written in a ton of different ways. Expanded form, standard form, word from, groups of tens and ones and more! When the student catches the ball, they have to identify the numbers BOTH thumbs are on. I teach them to identify it in another way than the way they are seeing it on the ball! Talk about hands on math! This is a class favorite! 

Stay tuned, more to come once I get my  card back! Thanks for stopping by!

Math Intervention Activities

Hey friends! I don't know about y'all but the end is near! We have about 5 weeks left of school..FIVE! Seems like the year has just flown by.

Math Intervention Tips

I wanted to share with you some math interventions that really helped our lessons in math become easy for us!  I've used this year. As y'all know, I follow a guided math model in my classroom. My student are working in math stations or centers while I'm working with student who struggle in the target  skill. With some of my students, I practiced number sense all.year.long. It has helped them grow into strong little math stars! 

We've used this Math Intervention Binder this year and it's been a huge help. Best part is, there's very little prep! I just printed it and stuck it in page protectors. It's so great for small group or one on one instruction. My favorite thing about this binder, is that when it comes to data, I always had a list of the interventions I've tried. The neat thing about teachers, is that we ALL do interventions and we all have our own little tricks that help. So I feel like you can never have enough because you never know what will work for each little friend.

Math Intervention Binder

This Math Intervention Binder is divided up into the following sections: 

Number Sense, Shapes, Patterns, Place Value, Addition Strategies, Subtraction Strategies,  Graphing, Greater than/Less than, Time and Money! I started at beginning of the binder and worked my way through each page with my RTI students. This way I have direct documentation to specific interventions I've used. It makes data collection SO much easier!

This activity is so helpful because the students can visually see the number and the different ways we can break it down. The great thing is, you can use ANY number you want! I have used a variety of manipulative for this, but by far, my kids love using the big buttons. I have no idea why, but hey, it works so I use it!!  In this activity, we practiced building the number 7 in a variety of ways. I wanted my friend to see all of the different ways we can make the number seven. Using two different color manipulatives helps too. 

I want my students to develop a very strong sense of numbers. They should be able to explain what each number means and the different ways you can create it.I like to let them use their imagination on how many different ways we can get the same number. Let them talk, and let them explain what each number means!!  Once they get this, they are able to blossom in the other strands of math. 

The activity above is great because we combine reading with math. Before this binder, my students always struggle with reading and writing number words. We start these activities in the beginning and they are consistently using these skills throughout the year!! 

The point and say activities are great because of the variety of numbers included. Reading numbers is so important to developing a strong understanding of number sense.

The counting pages are also so helpful! It's nice to have everything in one spot and to be able to decide the pages you want to use.

Addition strategies are my favorite! My kiddos LOVED these! 

More number sense practice

                                            

*Number sense- breaking down numbers and understanding what numbers mean, counting, recognizing and identifying numbers, writing numerals to 10, writing numbers to 20, 30, 50, and 100, describing numbers, skip counting by 2's, 5's, 10's , color and count, dice number recognition, number words, find and color, and many more!

*Shapes- Students will work on identifying 2d shapes. Shapes included: circle, square, triangle, rectangle, hexagon, octagon, pentagon, heptagon, star, heart, diamond, oval. (10 Pages)

*Patterns~Pattern Anchor Charts, Create a Pattern, Pattern For Square (10 Pages)

*Place Value- Hundreds, Tens and Ones number practice, anchor charts, break it down practice pages

*Addition Strategies~ Addition assessments, Zero's the name, Addition Allie, Draw it!, Doubles, Doubles plus one 

*Subtraction Strategies~ Subtraction Sam, Number Line is All Mine, and Draw it, subtraction assessments

*Counting Coins~ Coin posters, coin match ups, individual counting mats, individual coin counting, combination coin counting, and more!  

 The money section includes 25 pages.  The visual aides and desk references are great for students who need a lot of visual cues and support. 

I used this in the binder AND as a desk reference for some of my kiddos.

We practiced counting coins nearly ALL year long. Next year, this will be a skill I start right away instead of waiting until after Christmas. I thought  that by starting after Christmas I would still be ahead of the pacing guide, so my kids would have more time to practice..but I think they would benefit from starting at the beginning of the year to give them more time with this difficult concept. 

*Telling Time~ Students have a variety of ways to practice telling time and a fun little story to go along with your intervention groups!

Click HERE or any picture to go check out the binder. 

Here's another look inside our binder

https://youtu.be/xjxo236aJS0

Our  second grade math binder has many of the same concepts. Our second grade teachers have really seen a lot of growth using this binder.

Teaching Money

Hey friends! The past few weeks we've been working on counting money. I wanted to share a few strategies that really helped my kiddos!

I gave a pre-assessment from my sweet friend Reagan's Coin Crew Unit.

I started out by introducing the coin value by using this printable read aloud!

                                     

We used Cara's unit for the next activity. The kids had  hard time understanding how different combinations of coins could equal the same thing. Cara's packet provides a really fun game to practice this! 

For another center, I just added coin stickers to a pink pig. The kids LOVED this! I also added dots for touch money. This REALLY helps with kids who struggle with changing how they count money (from 10's to 5s)

Free Pig Templates: Blank Pig Cards

Stickers:

Another strategy I used was the one shown below. I hot glued different amounts of coins to a craft stick. I used these at our teacher table for students to count. Next week, we will use these as a center and they will record the amounts in their math journals. I have about 6 different sets. I color coded and numbered the sticks for center purposes so I would know which stick the student is recording. I would carry these sticks and if we had down time in the hall or waiting for a resource, I'd pull one out and point to a kiddo to tell me the amount. I also ask them to give me another way to make the SAME amount of money. 

We also used these dice to play "toss the amount". The students would take turns tossing the dice. Once they land on an amount, they would make the amount with their coins. Then, they would draw or record the amounts in the recording sheet. I just have them draw a circle with the number inside of what each coin is worth showing they know the value of each coin. You can get the recording sheets here for free. 

We also used a few centers from my April Math Packet. This packet has 12 centers for Spring!

Here are a few other center ideas for counting coins  from my Ultimate Math Center Packet : 

As Spring draws near, we have added these little picture mats and word problem mats to our spiral review center. The kiddos are LOVING them.