Hello Everyone, welcome back for our last week of the blog. We will continue to dive into the next gen common core standards as we move on to third grade. As always I like to find ways to teach the lessons that do not involve a chalk board so lets take a look. This weeks common core standard is:

Through their learning in the Number Sense and Operations—Fractions domain, students:
• develop an understanding of fractions, beginning with unit fractions;
• view fractions in general as being built out of unit fractions, and use fractions along with visual fraction models to represent parts of a whole;
• understand that the size of a fractional part is relative to the size of the whole. Use fractions to represent numbers equal to, less than, and greater than one; and
• solve problems that involve comparing fractions by using visual fraction models and strategies based on noticing equal numerators or denominators

So the part of this I want to look at is the understanding unit fractions.

I chose this video because it uses the example of a pizza pie which most students should be familiar with. I think it is a nice and easy way to introduce students to unit fractions.

From there we can have them do some of the work the video showed. Its easy to create a work sheet like this:

I think this lays a good foundation for the lessons ahead so please let me know if you have any questions or even if you know a better way to teach this!

Thanks for reading!

Hello everyone, Welcome back as we explore the final segment of next gen common core standards for 2nd grade. Last week we took a look at measurement and how we use different tools to measure different objects. Now with a new week comes a new topic and we will be looking more into geometry. The next standards is as follows:

Through their learning in the Geometry domain, students:
• describe and classify shapes as polygons or non-polygons;
• investigate, describe, and reason about decomposing and combining shapes to make other shapes; and
• draw, partition, and analyze two-dimensional shapes to develop a foundation for understanding area, congruence, similarity, and fractions in later grades

For this I have found a great video that helps us compare polygons and non polygons. It also does a great job of describing exactly what makes up a polygon: Please take a look

For this I also found a work sheet that can be used to test the effectiveness of the videos instruction. That can be found here Polygon Worksheet it looks like this just so you have reference.

As always I would love to hear what you think. So please let me know if you have any other ways to teach this. Thanks for reading!

Hello All, Thanks for coming back for another week of exploration into the next gen math common core standards. This week we are still looking into the 2nd grade standards but we will shift our focus from addition and subtraction to measurement. As always I will try to find some fun ways to teach our students so lets take a look at the standard:

Through their learning in the Measurement and Data domain, students:
• recognize the need for standard units of measure (centimeter and inch) and use rulers and other measurement tools with the understanding that linear measure involves an iteration of units; and
• recognize that the smaller the unit, the more iterations needed to cover a given length

I found a video that goes into detail on all the different kinds of measuring tools. They look at yard stick, rules, measuring tape and other. I focuses on finding the right tool to measure various items. This is a good introduction and lays the ground work for what they will be doing.

Using this video as an introduction I think the next step would be to put this into action. I would have students walk around the room and measure objects. If they don't have the right tool they can ask a friend. This lesson has the potential to be very interactive so please let me know if you have any idea on how to teach this!

Hello everyone, Thanks for coming back for another week of examining the next gen common core standards. We are still in second grade math and this week and we are moving past the base ten models we learned last week and start to look at addition and subtraction with in the range of 100. Here is what the standards for this week look like.

Through their learning in the Operations and Algebraic Thinking and Numbers and Operations in Base Ten domains, students:
• use their understanding of addition to develop fluency with addition and subtraction within 100;
• solve problems within 1000 by applying their understanding of models for addition and subtraction, and they develop, discuss, and use efficient, accurate, and generalizable methods to compute sums and differences of whole numbers in base-ten notation, using their understanding of place value and the properties of operations
• select and accurately apply methods that are appropriate for the context and the numbers involved to mentally calculate sums and differences for numbers with only tens or only hundreds.

The portion of this I would like to learn how to teach are how we can help students learn addition and subtraction within 100. Specifically I would like to give them a way to learn about regrouping that with greatly help with their addition. For that I found a great video that explain the process and is engaging for the students.

A lot of students might already be familiar with this method and thats great but I think it still provides great visuals to give the students a great frame work to use.

Next up I would like to show you a lesson that can be used to teach the concept of subtraction with regrouping. This video shows us more than 1 way to do this so it can enhance the students critical thinking and expand their vocabulary so they can better express their reasoning. If I was in a second grade class I would base my discussion around the content of this video. Please take a look.

With these two topic covered we can successfully guide students down the path the next gen common core standards is directing us. If you have another ways we can teach this please let me know in the comments. As always, thanks for reading!

Hello everyone! This week we move on from the 1st grade next gen standards and up to second grade. Building off of what the students were taught in grade 1 we see a logical progression to some more complex topics. As always my goal is to understand these concepts and to find ways to teach that involve visuals, manipulatives or anything else that is beyond just writing on a white board. The first concept we will look at deals a lot with the understanding of Number and Operations in base 10. This deals with the concept of place value and decimals. So lets take a look at how we can teach this to our students.

Please watch this video and let me know what you think. I think this video does two thing extremely well. First, it uses a song paired with visuals to make a bland topic more interesting. Secondly, it shows how math can be used in the real world. Letting our students know that this information applies in their everyday life with help build up their mathematical knowledge.

I also think problems like this, while bland will help to further the understanding for the students. Specifically I like how the make the student answer There is _______ ten and ______ ones. It gives students all the tools to learn on their own and with that information hopefully they can explain their mathematical reasoning.

If you have anyways that you know that would better help teach this topic please leave a comment below!

1st grade next gen common core standards

As we conclude our look into 1st grade next gen standards we arrive at the topic of Measurement and Data. We can see that they expect students to begin to learn how to process how to measure things. Some of it just relates to building things that are equal to each other. So this process is not overly complicated so I suspect they will have the students do more with this when they reach second grade. Here is the official text from the next gen standards.

Through their learning in the Measurement and Data domain, students:
 • develop an understanding of the meaning and processes of measurement, including underlying concepts such as iterating (the mental activity of building up the length of an object with equal-sized units) and the transitivity principle for indirect measurement.*

Here is one activity for doing this that only requires class room items. The object of this is to order 3 objects by length. This helps to build an understanding of length and how objects relate to each other. More information on the activity can be found here: Math Activity

I have also found a great video that works with the same principle. The reason I chose this video is because it shows how math can be found in our everyday life. I feel this makes it more relate able for the students.

Overall these activities help support a healthy understanding of how we look at objects in relation to each other. Supporting a better understanding of how to compare items by length. I feel like these two items give a hands on experience as well as a visual one to better diversify the lesson. Please let me know if you can think of any other ways to teach this!

Looking to build on the skills we have taught the students this week we will look at the next standard in first grade. It mostly revolves around adding and subtracting numbers in the 100's as well as looking at numbers and identifying the by 10's and 1'. Below is what the next gen standard looks like:

Through their learning in the Number and Operations in Base Ten domain, students: 

• develop, discuss, and use efficient, accurate, and generalize methods to add within 100 and subtract multiples of 10; 

• compare whole numbers (at least to 100) to develop understanding of and solve problems involving their relative sizes; 

• think of whole numbers between 10 and 100 in terms of tens and ones (especially recognizing the numbers 11 to 19 as composed of a ten and some ones); and 

• understand the order of the counting numbers and their relative magnitudes through activities that build number sense.

Here is a great game to teach the concept. It is relatively easy to make and simple to play. The point is the game is to create the numbers on the board using 10's and 1's. Using cupcake wrappers or cups you can create groups to represent 10 and then use loose manipulatives to represent 's 1's. For more information please see this site. https://childhood101.com/math-game-for-kids-teaching-tens-ones/

There are lots of other creative ways to go about this but this one was the easiest to make and seemed to be very effective. Please let me know if you have any questions and I would be happy to help.

On a side note I actually used strategies from my first math blog to help another teacher today. Its great having this information at our disposal!

1st Grade Next Gen Standards

For this week I would like to move from the Kindergarten next gen math standards over to the 1st grade next gen math standards. Here we build on what the students have learned in kindergarten and more into harder mathematical practices. For this week I would like to take a look at this Standard:

1. Through their learning in the Operations and Algebraic Thinking domain, students:
• develop strategies for adding and subtracting whole numbers based on their prior work with small numbers;
• use a variety of models, including discrete objects and length-based models (e.g., cubes connected to form lengths), to model add-to, take-from, put-together, takeapart, and compare situations to develop meaning for the operations of addition and subtraction, and to develop strategies to solve arithmetic problems with these operations;
• understand connections between counting and addition and subtraction (e.g., adding two is the same as counting on two);
• use properties of addition to add whole numbers and to create and use increasingly sophisticated strategies based on these properties (e.g., “making tens”) to solve addition and subtraction problems within 20; and
• build their understanding of the relationship between addition and subtraction by comparing a variety of solution strategies

For this I have an exercise that may help to get the kids using models to better visualize the content. Below I have created this with the tools in my class. These are just basic models but the usage of these cubes and the dry erase board allow the students to interact with the work. Also this can be used to incorporate length into the lesson plan.  If you have any questions please leave a comment!

Shapes in the Kindergarten Classroom

Last week my blog explored number sense and how it could be taught in a kindergarten classroom. Looking at the next generation common core standards next up we are going to be looking into how to teach kindergartners Geometry. 

I taught this to kindergartners last year for the first time and I expected that since it was shapes that it would be easy for them. I learned that this topic can be just as difficult as addition and subtraction for a lot of students. I am glad the next gen common core standards are going to address this in a way that I think will helps students grasp concepts of 2d and 3d shapes. Here are the learning goals for the next gen common core standards.

·  Describe their physical world using geometric ideas (e.g., shape, orientation, spatial relations) and appropriate vocabulary; 

·   Identify, name, and describe basic two-dimensional shapes, such as squares, triangles, circles, rectangles, and hexagons, presented in a variety of ways (e.g., with different sizes and orientations), as well as three-dimensional shapes such as cubes, cones, cylinders, and spheres; 

·   Use basic shapes and spatial reasoning to model objects in their everyday environment to create and compose more complex shapes; and  explore* coins and begin identifying of pennies and dimes.

With these in mind my next question is how can we teach this in class? More specifically, how can we teach this so that the students are engaged and get the most from the lesson? Like any good teacher I took to the internet to find the answer.

https://pocketofpreschool.com/2d-shape-activities/

This site has a lot of good activities for kids. All of which are centered around the use of manipulatives. It could be creating a triangle out of Legos or making a square out of number cubes. The key piece to this learning will be the hands-on experience. Once doing this we can work on the objective of finding shapes in the physical world as the students will already be familiar with the appropriate shapes.

Lastly, I would like to share a video that we use in my classroom. This man Jack Hartmann (no relation) has so many great videos dealing with shapes, numbers, letters and words. These have been extremely effective in our classroom so maybe someone else could benefit from them.

Kindergarten Number Sense

Hello all and welcome to my Blog! For my first week I wanted to start off with something I could directly apply to my classroom today. I work with kindergartners and as of right now they have not started their math work for the year.

After the Professor showed us the Next Generation Mathematics and Learning Standards for New York I became very interested in figuring out how these new standards could apply to my class. So for this week I wanted to take a look into that.

There seem to be 2 main areas of learning in these standards. The first being counting and learning numbers. The second learning shapes and how they relate to their environment. This week I would like to look at the first and see how I can better help my students learn and use numbers. If you are interested in looking into these for your class you can find the information here: NY Standards

Here are the goals I will be looking at today:
1. Through their learning in the Counting and Cardinality and Operations and Algebraic Thinking domains, students:
 • develop a more formal sense of numbers;
• use numbers, including written numerals, to represent quantities and to solve quantitative problems, such as counting objects in a set; counting out a given number of objects; comparing sets or numerals; and modeling simple joining and separating situations with sets of objects, or eventually with equations such as 5 + 2 = 7 and 7 – 2 = 5. Note: Kindergarten students should see addition and subtraction equations, and student writing of equations in kindergarten is encouraged, but it is not required; and
• choose, combine, and apply effective strategies for answering quantitative questions, including quickly recognizing the cardinalities of small sets of objects, counting and producing sets of given sizes, counting the number of objects in combined sets, or counting the number of objects that remain in a set after some are taken away

Here are some ways I found to help students with these objectives in mind:

Developing Number sense can be fun for students at this age. At the end of the day getting these kids to learn number sense comes down to practice and repetition. Fortunately these can be fun. Please see below for some ideas on how to make it fun and see this website as it is where I got the info from Number sense printables

Aside from that there are a lot of other ways to get students involved. I found a great video that will walk you through an exercise that I think will be very effective.

My take away from this weeks post is that at the early ages the more imaginative and interactive you can make the work the better it will be for the students learning. While using blocks is a great way to give them a hands on look at numbers. I feel that I should be a little more creative so that the kids can get a little more excited.