MathStuff

Hi All, Kids like stories. Kids like touching and moving things around. Here's a way to use both those "likes" to enjoy some math exploration: Storymats! Storymats are simple templates where students can use manipulatives to "act out" a story and actively solve word problems. For example, the storymat attached here has two ladybugs side by side. Neither has spots. I know you already see where this is going, you teacher-types!    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j5v_iu0n0FXFVgwvk3HWtB0laIzdJ06b/view?usp=sharing I usually begin by making a copy of the storymat for each student and letting them color in their mats and put their names on them. Just caution them not to add dots. This step is a good free-time or home activity.  Now you have some choices. You can laminate the mats and give kids dry erase markers to use or provide each student with either a set of black dots that have been cut out or small circular manipulatives like bingo chips or bottle caps. Once the...

  Hi All, As students learn about each other in the beginning of the year, a good opportunity to collect data and learn some problem solving skills present itself. It's very common, and interesting, for teachers to collect data about students and display it on a bulletin board. For example, you might have a display that shows a bar graph of students' birthdays. Or maybe a survey was done about favorite colors or favorite ice cream flavors and you create a pictograph of this information. Once a bulletin board is up, we don't want to take it down right away, right? But it's not usually going to change much either. So, here's a way to keep this math bulletin board interactive. Let's say you do this survey on a Thursday and create the bulletin board display featuring this data on a Friday, the fun can begin on Monday. When students return to school on Monday, they will find a question on the bulletin board about the data. Each morning when they show up they will fin...

Hi All, It's good to start the year off with some problem solving, since that's what math is all about. We learn addition, subtraction, measurement, fractions, and the whole ball of wax, to help us solve problems in our everyday lives. Read It, Draw It, Solve It is a series of books written by Elizabeth D. Miller which provides nicely formatted problems with very controlled vocabulary, arranged by grade level. The first step is Read It. There are a few simple sentences which state the facts. For example,  "The robin has 4 babies in the nest. She brings 8 worms back to the nest." Then comes a question, "If each baby gets an equal number of worms, how many worms does each baby get? _______"  Next is Draw It. At the top of the page is a large area where learners can draw the problem data and use it to solve the problem. Here a student might draw the 4 baby birds and the 8 worms and match them up to give an equal share to each. By doing this students will Solve...

Hi All,   Keeping track of the number of days of school has to begin right away (especially if you want to celebrate that special 100th Day of School later on with some accuracy.) I know I'm a little late with this for some of you, but you can always "catch the class up" and begin any day.  Here's one fun and physical way to do it. Using a long piece of rope or clothesline (30 feet should be enough), tie a knot for each day of school as it occurs. You can give students turns tying the knots each day. Have children paint or use marker to color every fifth knot yellow, and every tenth knot red. The other knots can be left the color of the rope or colored black. Through this pattern, they can practice counting by ones, fives, and tens. The rope really helps children "take hold" of math skills and concepts, letting them see and touch patterns and relationships in simple counting. You could have a class rope and students can have individual pieces of string to do...

Hi All, Here's another good activity for the beginning of the school year. Very easily differentiated, you can learn a lot about your students as you watch them work and it gives them a chance to get out of their seats, to get active and move around the room with a purpose. Win-win-win. The activity is called "Is it Longer Than...?" A good way to begin work on length measurement is with simple comparisons. Remember when a clue in guessing games was, "Is it bigger than a bread box?" Well, that's not going to work too well today, but there are alternatives to the bread box comparison. *Begin by holding up a common classroom object like an eraser. Ask, "Is your pencil longer than this eraser?" Have students make some predictions about the pencil they have selected, deciding if it is longer, shorter, or the same length as the eraser. Then try a few from volunteers to find out. The results can be surprising. We've all seen some amazingly tiny ...