Tales from the classroom

Mental Math Breaks

December 6, 2016 by Beth Curran 2 Comments

To make the most of the upcoming weeks, try taking some mental math breaks.

These few weeks between Thanksgiving and winter break can arguably be the most challenging weeks to keep on pace with curriculum and keep students engaged. With the anticipation of the holidays and a much-needed winter break on students’ minds, they can quickly lose focus. Now more than ever, you will find the need to give your students mental breaks in the day. So, why not practice a little math?

The following games can be practiced just about any time and anywhere if you have a few simple materials on hand.

Make Ten

Skills Practiced: Sums to 10, 20 or 100

Materials: Number cards 0-10, 2 of each or enough for as many pairs as you will need for your class

Pass out 1 number card to each student face down. When you give the signal to go, students cycle around the room to find another student with a card whose number when added to their own makes ten. Once they have found their partner, both students sit down. You can reshuffle the cards and play multiple rounds. Set a timer for each round and challenge your students to beat the fastest time recorded.

Variations: Program the cards to make 20 or 100

Rock-Paper-Scissors-MATH!

Skills Practiced: Addition and Multiplication facts

Materials: none

The game is played like Rock-Paper-Scissors except when students say, “MATH!” each student shows 0-5 fingers on one hand. The first student to say the sum of their fingers and their partners fingers combined wins the round. Students can play best 2 out of 3 with one partner and then rotate around the room to find a new partner and continue to play until time is up.

Variations: Find the product of the two sets of fingers or use both hands to find the sum or product.

Ping! Beep! Ping-Beep!

Skills Practiced: skip counting, multiples and common multiples

Have the class stand. Choose a target number. Let’s use 4 for our example. Begin by having students count off, starting with one. Instead of saying the number, the student that would say 4 says “Ping”. As the count continues, for every multiple of 4, students say, “Ping”. Every time a mistake is made, the count starts over.

For more of a challenge, choose 2 target numbers. Let’s use 4 and 5 for our example. Begin at one. For every multiple of 4 or 5, students say “Ping” and for every common multiple of 4 and 5, like 20 students say “Ping-Beep”. The count starts over with every mistake made.

Challenge your students to beat the count from previous rounds.

Keep your students focused with these movement games and practice some mental math at the same time!

Filed Under: Math Resources, Tales from the classroom

Number Talks in the Classroom (Part 2)

November 29, 2016 by Beth Curran 3 Comments

From our previous post on Number Talks, we explained how to establish a safe and respectful classroom environment and shared examples of appropriate topics of Number Talks in Kindergarten through 5^th grade. Read Part 1.

Number Talks in Action

Environment plays a key role. Students should gather at a designated meeting area in the classroom away from writing materials or have writing materials tucked away if working at desks. I’ve allowed students to sit on top of desks just for this purpose.

The following outlines the flow of a Number Talk.

Teacher:	Students:
Teacher writes 27 + 18 on the board. “When you have found one way to solve it hold up your thumb. If you can think of a second way to solve it, add a finger.”	Holding up their thumbs if they have found a strategy to solve the problem. Adding in fingers for each additional strategy they come up with.
Teacher:	Students:
“Let’s share answers.” Teachers records all answers, right or wrong.	“48, 47, 45”
Teacher:	Students:
“Would anyone like to argue for or against one of the answers?” Teacher records strategies on the board as students share, and labels them with numbers and/or student names.	“I agree with 45 because I know I need to add 2 to 18 to make it 20, and I can get the 2 from the 27 which leaves me with 25 to add to 20, which makes 45.” “I disagree with 48 because you would need to add 30 to 18 to make 48 and you only have 27.” “I disagree with 47 because you would need to add 20 to 27 to get 47 and we only have 18.” “I also agree with 45 because I know that 20 and 10 makes 30 and 7 and 8 makes 15 and 30 and 15 is 45.” “I also agree with 45 because I know I need to add 3 to 27 to make it 30. I can get 3 from 18 which leaves me with 15 and 30 and 15 is 45.”
Teacher:	Students:
“It looks like we have 3 strategies that work to get us the answer of 45 and are able to disprove the other two answers. Can we all agree that 45 is the answers?” “If you had a similar problem to solve, show with your fingers, would you choose strategy 1, 2 or 3?” Teacher could use this time to discuss efficiency of strategies.	Students hold up 1, 2 or 3 fingers to choose their strategy of choice.
Teacher:	Students:
Teacher writes 38 + 23 on the board. “I want everyone to use strategy 3 (or other strategy of teacher’s or student’s choice) to solve this problem. “When I count down from 3, say the answer. 3-2-1…” Teacher clarifies any remaining confusion, if necessary.	Students holding up thumbs and fingers when they have solved the problem and say answer when prompted by the teacher.

Looking for a way to deepen number sense, build confidence and celebrate different ways of thinking? Then, give Number Talks a try! Please comment and share your experience.

Filed Under: Math Resources, Singapore Math Problems, Tales from the classroom, Training Tagged With: tales from the classroom

Number Talks in the Singapore Math Classroom (Part 1)

November 21, 2016 by Beth Curran 4 Comments

Mental math plays a huge role in the Singapore Math curriculum. By developing mental math strategies in your students, you are equipping them with strong number sense, a critical skill and goal for our students to reach by the end of middle school.

You can practice mental math in your classrooms with a Number Talk; a term coined by Sherry Parrish in her popular book, Number Talks: Helping Children Build Mental Math and Computation Strategies.

Establishing Rules and Roles for a Number Talk

For Number Talks to be successful, you have to establish some rules for respectful listening and productive criticism. All students need to feel safe to participate without feeling ridiculed.

Enlisting student help when generating rules allows students to take ownership of them and creates a classroom where the rules are more likely to be followed.

To generate rules for Number Talks you might ask:

What does it look and sound like when someone is being a good listener?

It’s equally important to teach students how to respond to each other in a respectful manner. In a recent post on Edutopia, Oracy in the Classroom, types of talk were artfully organized into 6 discussion roles.

During a Number Talk, students become the Builders, Challengers and Clarifiers, while the teacher plays the roles of the Instigator, Prober, and Summariser as he or she guides the discussion as the facilitator of the Number Talk.

What should we talk about?

In Kindergarten, Number Talks can focus on subitizing and connecting the pictorial to the abstract.

Thoughtful problems are used in grades 1 through 5, designed specifically to practice mental math strategies that have been introduced in class.

In Kindergarten, show an image like this and ask, “How many dots do you see?”

In first grade, show an image like this.

Or a problem like this to practice addition strategies.

18 + 5 =

In second grade, start with a problem like this to practice addition strategies.

57 + 14 =

Or this, to practice adding a number close to 100.

97 + 33

Or this, to practice subtraction strategies.

43 – 28 =

In third grade, start with this to practice mental math with multiplication.

14 x 3 =

Or this to practice mental division.

42 ÷ 3 =

In fourth grade, start with problems like these to build on strategies learned in the previous grades.

499 + 137 =

138 – 56 =

In fifth grade, start with problems like these to continue to build on strategies learned in the previous grades.

1388 + 2983 =

29 x 7 =

135 ÷ 5 =

Give some of these a try and check back soon for the next installment of Number Talks in the Singapore Math Classroom.

Look for Part 2 next Monday!

Filed Under: Math Resources, Singapore Math Problems, Tales from the classroom, Training

Journaling in the Singapore Math Classroom

October 13, 2016 by Beth Curran 1 Comment

Communicating mathematically is a critical skill and goal for all of our students to reach by the end of middle school. In fact, Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practices, MP3, states that students will, “Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of other.”

Singapore’s Ministry of Education would tell you that there’s nothing Singaporean about Singapore math. When developing their highly successful math curriculum, they took theory and ideas from mathematicians and educational theorists around the world and put them into action.

What should a math journal look like?

I have attended many workshops and make-and-take sessions on planning and preparing for student math journals. Many have focused on setting up the student journal with a contents page and tabs to divide the journal into “notes,” “vocabulary” and “practice problem” sections. While this will create a journal that looks really nice, what I have found to be most effective (and one that I actually use in the classroom) is taking a simple composition or spiral bound notebook and beginning on the first page. Students make their first journal entry of the school year on page one and continue with entries on subsequent pages. Less is more!

Here’s what a journal entry page might look like:

The journal entry number just grows as the year progresses. We might come up with the title as a class, or students can create their own. The problem in the problem box can be copied by students or printed out for students to paste in their journals.

What should students put into journals?

There are four basic types of journal entries; investigative, descriptive, evaluative and creative.

Investigative: Students explore a new concept, solve a problem and make connections to prior learning.

Example: Three friends share a sleeve of cookies. Each sleeve holds 32 cookies. If each friend eats ¼ of the sleeve, how many cookies do they eat altogether?

Descriptive: Students describe or explain a concept or mathematical vocabulary.

Example: Use pictures, numbers and/or words to explain a polygon.

Evaluative: Students argue for or against a strategy or solution to explain why they think an answer is right or wrong, explain their choice of strategies or justify the most efficient strategy.

Example: Which of the strategies discussed in class today would you use to solve 245 – 97? Why?

Creative: Students write their own word problem or create their own number puzzle.

Example: The answer is 465 lbs. What’s the question?

Here’s a sample student journal page (click on image to enlarge):

When should I ask students to make journal entries?

Journaling can be a very effective tool to develop communication skills in your students. Depending on the type of entry, you could incorporate journaling into many parts of your math day. Open a class with an investigative entry to engage students. Consolidate learning and reflect on thinking with a mid-lesson descriptive or evaluative entry. Enrich students with a creative entry for early finishers of independent practice.

The benefit of journaling for the teacher is it provides a concrete formative assessment. By evaluating student responses, you can determine their readiness to handle a new task and check for understanding of concepts. Student journals also provide a great launching point for discussion at parent-teacher conferences.

_____________

Check out a resource from a previous post: Singapore Math and Math Journal Writing

Filed Under: Math Resources, Tales from the classroom Tagged With: math journals, Singapore Math curriculum, tales from the classroom

Reader Survey: Help Us Help You

August 1, 2016 by Cassy Turner 1 Comment

As the popularity and influence of Singapore Math® programs grow, so does interest in focused professional development around Singapore-based concepts.

Each month, we receive dozens of inquiries from teachers and schools seeking training to ensure that they are using the curriculum as effectively as possible. We are in the process of planning future educational programs for teachers and schools, and would love to know how we can help you!

If you are interested in learning more about Singapore Math or taking your current math teaching skills to a higher level, please take a few minutes to complete this survey.

Online survey powered by Typeform

Filed Under: Math Events, Tales from the classroom, Training