Spiraled Math Centers!

We have been spiraling our math learning big time in room 102. Since I was gone for so long on maternity leave I really wanted to be able to see what my students could do in math. So, while I still teach a focus lesson and most of our math activities are based on that specific standard (right now it's 3D shapes), I still have many of my math tubs spiral through older concepts.

That is where my themed math centers come in! These centers are scaffolded and spiraled throughout the year. Each month the 6 centers included go along with what we are teaching currently and what we have already taught throughout the year!

I realized I forgot to share that my March centers had been finished (ya know....a month or so ago...) so here are two of the centers:

 Follow the Rainbow: place value game!

Students each take turns rolling 2 dice to try and make the largest number. Whoever rolls the biggest number gets to move a space and whoever get to 10 first, wins!

 Double digit addition sort: I had my students use base 10 blocks to help them add.

and now for April... I pulled these out yesterday!

 Make it true: students have to pick the missing symbol to make the number sentence correct and record. There are also comparison number sentences that use <, >, =

Cracked eggs! My kids loved this one. They had to put together the pieces of the eggs to practice 2 digit numbers and expanded form.

As always, in ALL my monthly math centers there is a story problem booklet, seasonal graphing questions, and a read the room activity!

You can snag the above activities here:

March

April

or... get them all for the whole year at a discounted price!

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An Example of Our Day in 1st Grade!

Our day in first grade is long! We have extended hours from 730-330 so we have plenty of time to teach what we need to get our first graders on grade level. I thought I would share a little about a day in our life:

Before school:
My alarm is set for 4:38 am. I wake up and get to the gym by 5am. I workout and watch the news then shower and get dressed at the gym. I am outta there by 6:15! I stop at Starbucks and show up at school around 7am to write our morning message and get everything in order before the bell at 7:28!

7:30-7:50: Morning meeting

Every morning when we come in, we meet on the mat in a circle and follow a morning meeting routine. We first greet one another using eye contact and a handshake of some sort (sometimes a "pound it" and sometimes a secret handshake). Then we complete the interactive morning message which reviews what we have been learning in class!

7:50-8:20: Phonics

My class has been reviewing our digraphs before we go back and review consonant blends. We have been adding plenty of poems to our poetry journals to help us read with fluency! We will always start on the mat blending words with that digraph, then students go back and receive their poem to read, whisper read, and buddy read. The next day, my kids get their real or nonsense page to decode more words with that sound!

All these poems are from my Phonics Poetry unit.

8:20-9:25: Reader's Workshop

We have been inferring all sorts of things about our characters lately and using that sentence stem to help us talk about our text. We spend about 20 minutes reviewing and doing my guided lesson. Then, my students practice the skill through some turn and talk before going back to their reading spots to read independently for 20-30 minutes. Lastly, my students do some buddy reading and we close the lesson!

During independent reading, I pull my small guided reading groups. We have been focusing on close reading as we get ready for 2nd grade. We have been reading, re-reading, and answering questions using evidence from the text.

9:25-9:40: Morning recess

(self explanatory)

9:45-10:20: Writer's Workshop:

Our writer's workshop is set up the same basic way as reader's workshop. I will do a guided lesson and add my focus skill to my teacher writing. Then, my students will share how they will incorporate that skill into their writing with a partner before they go back and write independently.

We have been publishing our reviews and my goodness they are SO cute! I love reading all their reasons for why they love something.

(We followed my Writing Reviews unit to produce these!)

10:25-10:50: Science/Social Studies

We receive FOSS science kits at our school, so whenever we don't have a science kit, we teach a Social Studies unit. Currently we have received our insect unit and we are learning all sorts of insect facts before our meal worms arrive!

(They are completing a little sentence scramble from my insect freebie: HERE)

10:55-11:35: LUNCH/RECESS

(self explanatory)

11:40-12:20: Handwriting/Interactive Read Aloud

I don't have pictures of this, but we use Handwriting without Tears for the first 20 minutes and then the second 20 minutes, we do an interactive read aloud. An interactive read aloud is a planned, purposeful read aloud in which we use a mentor text to practice a certain skill and have stopping points to discuss! This is when we capitalize on our accountable talk:

12:20-1:20: Calendar/Math Workshop

We start with calendar, move to a "math warm up" which I usually have us quickly practice our math facts through Quiz-Quiz Trade with flashcards or a game of I have, Who Has? Then move to our guided lesson. We have currently been learning about 2D shapes, their sides, corners, how to sort shapes, where we see shapes, etc. After I teach  my lesson, my students do math tubs to reinforce the skills we have learned.

 One tub is our pattern block shape fill-ins from Investigations!

 Another tub includes my free composing 2D shapes cards.

We also use these geoboard task cards from First Grade, Blue Skies.

I also have some of my higher students work on our new Higher Order Thinking Tasks!

These last two tubs come from my friend Laura's, new pack: Shape Soup.

My kids thought it was SO fun to pick out the shape vegetables and sort them into the right soup can!

1:25-2:30: Specials/Prep time

Students go to one of the following specials:

Library, Gym, Art, Music, Dance, or Safe & Caring

2:35-2:45: Snack

School provided snack.

2:45-3:25: Intervention/Acceleration Block

During this time, all the students in 1st grade are split into ability based groups among the teachers and all our interventionists. This times is dedicated to teaching homogenous, smaller groups the skills they need to work on to either catch up to grade level or continue accelerating their learning.

My small group has been loving DeeDee and Deanna's Guiding Readers units. We have been using the phonics portions every day to help practice and review long vowels!

3:30- Dismissal!

And there you have it... that is what our day looks like!

Happy weekend :)

Link up with Reagan over at Tunstall's Teaching Times so I can see what yours looks like!

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Higher Order Thinking Math in 1st Grade

So my students can add and subtract within 20. They can identify the tens and ones of a 2 digit number. They can count to 120.

Good, great, GRAND....

But why are they not excelling on our standardized tests?!?

This was a question I would ask myself over and over the last few years. My students could perform the skills they needed, but when it came to APPLYING those learned skills, my students were lacking. Now, there's all sorts of reasons my students might not do well on those computerized, standardized tests... but I noticed very quickly that the questions being asked of my students were not simply "7 + 7 = ?" They were being asked real life story problems. They were being asked multi-step, higher level thinking questions that required endurance. They were HARD, but I was sure my kids could do it. I knew I had to teach them how to endure when a task at first seems too difficult. I had to ask my students to actually apply what they had learned to get a solution and provide reasoning for their thinking.

I also had to incorporate “math talks” in my classroom as often as I could. These talks got my students discussing their solutions to problems, defending their answers, and providing different ways to solve any given problem. They got my students THINKING!

Over the years I created and collected tasks that are both challenging and fun for my first graders. Each task also has a challenge question that can be used when a student solves the problem and is looking to challenge themselves a little further.

Here are some in use in my classroom:

Counter sums: Students try to use the counters to make a sum of 12 in many different ways. For this particular student, I had them draw dots on counters to manipulate and make more equations!

What's the equation: The sum is 20, what is the equation?
These two students worked together to come up with many different ways to make 20, including 3 and 4 addend equations.

 Test time! To see if these two had progressed with subtraction within 20, their task was to create a math test (with an answer key) to give to a friend! They loved getting to be the teacher and I could tell right away that they knew how to subtract within 20 easily!

 Dress Teddy! This was a fun and tricky number sense problem for my students. They had to look at the clothes and try to figure out how many different outfits they could make for the teddy bear. At first, this group was all sorts of confused. Until one of my kids said, "let's start with the pants... there's only one pair of pants." From there they could mix and match and record the different outfits. It is SO hard to bite my tongue and not guide them, but if you can hold back long enough it is amazing to see them persevere to get the answers. They feed off one another and it is pretty cool to watch!

I created 8 different tasks (which each have an additional *challenge* task) for each of the following domains:
Number sense
Addition
Subtraction
Place Value
Geometry & Measurement
Time & Money

Each task comes in 3 different forms as well. There is a printable version that you can see above with the question on it. There is a guided printable version which is the same, but has guiding questions to help your students complete the problem, and a task card version to print, laminate and pass out to groups.

I use all three versions of the tasks in my room. We use the task cards in groups with large posters for students to show their work. When we split up into groups like this, I choose tasks that are appropriate for each group based on their needs. I also make sure to put aside time for the groups to explain their work and their answers.

In small groups, I will often use the printable versions (guided or not based on their ability levels) so I can observe their thinking and guide them as necessary through the problem solving process.

However I choose to use the tasks, I make sure that talking is a HUGE part of the task. I often ask questions that start with these stems:

-Why did you ______________________?

-What if you __________________________________?

-Is there another way you could’ve ___________________________?

-How do you know _______________________________?

I love to see the discussions that occur when my students walk me through their process. They show their peers new ways of thinking that help them in later tasks. They also impress me over and over again!

If you think these would be great for you students, head on over and check them out:

You can download the preview for more examples of the tasks :)

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St. Patrick's Day Activities!

St. Paddy's Day is around the corner and we are getting started with the fun here in 102!

We have a few stories we will be reading and re-reading this week! After we read, That's What Leprechauns Do, we retold the story using a sheet from Katie King's Busy Teacher unit. 

We also made these adorable leprechauns using First Grade and Blue Skies directed drawing. If you don't already own this freebie, you need to RUN over to her blog and get it. They are to die for!

 We also got to work on our first story problem booklet since I've been back! This one is from my Leprechaun Math unit.

And I let them work together and look at them go! I LOVED listening to them work together and reason with eachother as they got their answers. It was pretty awesome.

 Each month in my seasonal math units I have a different book of story problems with all types of problems to solve. Addition, subtraction, place value, elapsed time, etc. I am really working on persistence with my first graders and getting them to use all they have learned so far to solve the problems. I find when they work together, they are able to bounce ideas off one another (aka argue a little bit) until they get to the answer!

Tuesday we will eat and graph some Lucky Charms and have more St. Paddy's fun!

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