Ladybird Maths Fun!

Hi :)

Last week I wrote about a training day that  my school went to with Ann Baker - I came away really wanting to try  and do more contextual problem solving with my kiddos. Ann calls it a 'Problematised Situation', basically it's Maths learning in a more real context, that involves thinking mathematically and problem solving (... perfect for Australian Curriculum - well any curriculum really!) Problem solving always seems to be SUCH a tricky thing for kids, so I'm SO keen to really stuck into it with my Receptions this year.

We started off the lesson with a game of noughts and crosses (click here for info on a nifty way of playing it with the whole class). I've often played this game with my kiddos, it's really great for problem solving and (as Ann told us!) adaptive reasoning. Which ever way you look at it, kids LOVE this game and learn from it so I figure it's a win/win situation!

I started with some pretty straightforward questions today - we've been learning about Ladybirds so I followed that theme for our Maths too. Our first question was.....

We completed this question as a class, and talked about what the problem was and what we needed to figure out. It was a big heads-up to see the number of students that didn't understand 'altogether', so we had to explore that in detail as well. 

I actually did this on the Smartboard, but didn't save it (bright, I know!) so here's basically how we figured it out...

I then sent the kids off with this problem....

I was really impressed with their efforts! 

We spent a good 15 mins at the end of the lesson sharing some of our work -  this was a really valuable part of the lesson. I got to hear kids explain their thinking and talk through any misconceptions and the kids also got a chance to share their thinking which is really helped clarify their learning.

We use a document camera that can be used with the interactive whiteboard... such a handy tool! It means that we can display the kids work on the board (rather than us all trying to peek into their book!) and we can draw/write things on their work as we need to.

I'm really trying hard to have a big focus on the reflection part of our lesson... it's an area that I need to put more effort into! Today's reflection worked well, so I'm definitely inspired to keep it up :)

Here's the next problem we're going to try... 

This has a focus on decomposing number.. I'm hoping some kids might start to see the links with Rainbow Facts to 10!

A template for them to use to help solve the problem

If you'd like a copy of these questions, just click here.

I was really pleased to see how many kids could use what they'd learnt from the first problem to help with the next one, and I learnt that I need to plan for some more learning on the concept of 'altogether' - so it was a productive day all round! ;)

Have a great week!