A favourite Maths website... so useful!

Do you use the NZ Maths website? If not, I would definitely recommend checking it out!

Although its designed for NZ teachers, anyone can access it and it has a ton of amazing ideas and resources for teaching maths.

At the moment, I'm working with a lot of teachers at my school on problem solving, so I've been heading to the problem solving section a lot. There you can find a range of lesson plans around problem solving, sorted by level and strand... soooo handy!

I also LOVE the collection of picture books with mathematical content.... a really comprehensive list of books across the year levels that you can use to support kids maths understanding.

If you haven't had a chance yet, pop on over to www.nzmaths.co.nz when you get a chance.... it's one of those great websites that has awesome resources that you could just pick up and run with... and it's free!

Doubles game for Friday Game Day

We've had a huge couple of weeks at work... lots of prep for our open night which was on Thursday - it was a great night!

I organised a Numeracy display and shared some of the whole school focus that we've had in Maths... Problem Solving and Mental Computation skills. For Friday Game Day I thought today I'd share a quick little game that I had set up to practice doubles...

I normally play this game in pairs, but you could do it individually or in threes. Each player needs to write the numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 on  a piece of paper (or up to 20 if you're using 1-10 die) and each group will need a die (I start with a six-sided die and then move to a 1-10 die when kids are getting the hang it). I usually have a couple of ten frames and some counters available for kids to use to help them work out their doubles.

Player 1 rolls the die and then works out double that number. They then cross that double off of their list. The next player then has a turn and the game continues until one person has all of their doubles crossed off - they're the winner!

If I roll a 2, I would cover double 2 (4) on my board

I've linked this post up with Kerry and Paula (from iSURF Maths) Maths game Linky... click on the link to discover some fabulous maths games!

http://isurfkp.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/maths-linky-6.html

Bonds to 10... Friday Game Day

This little game is great for practicing Bonds to 10 (or rainbow facts, friendly numbers - they seem to have many names!). I haven't played it in my class for a while, but I was playing with a group of kids this week and they loved it, so I thought I'd share it with you too :)



Here is a little free Bonds to 10 poster

To play this game, you'll need a 1-10 die or a 1-10 spinner and each player will need a piece of paper (or little whiteboard) with the numbers 0 - 9 on it.

This spinner is from my freebie on TPT... click here to download :)

To play, the first person rolls the die/spin. Then, on their whiteboard/paper, they need to cross off the number that goes with it to make 10.

So, if I rolled a 3, I would cross off the 7. Then, the next player then has a turn. The winner is the first person to have all of their numbers crossed off!

I normally play the game in pairs... if the groups get too big it can get a bit tricky. Also, I often start off giving kids a copy of the rainbow facts to refer to, which I take away as they become more fluent with them.

It's such a simple game that doesn't need a lot of prep, but its really effective, and kids love it!

Goodbye laminator :( and some favs

 

We're nearly half way through term 3 now... time is flying! I have had such good intentions to blog in the last couple of weeks, but somehow it just hasn't happened!

The week started off with a bit of a laminator crisis...

 

I let my daughter put in a laminating sheet without watching what she was doing (WRONG move) and a sheet got jammed. It started making all sorts of not-very-good noises and then seized up altogether!

To top it off, I sat down to write this post tonight and my laptop has given up the ghost :( I'm just not having much luck at the moment!

But back to more positive things...I was having a look for different maths resources during the week, and I thought I'd share a couple of my favourites.

This first is my absolute favourite maths book - it's my go-to book for whenever I'm planning or have any questions about maths concepts and how to teach them.

Teaching Primary Mathematics.. (Booker, Bond, Sparrow and Swan)

This book is AMAZING! It's quite pricey (I think I saw it for $115 at a book seller stall the other week) but totally worth it! Written in a really easy to read but comprehensive manner, it covers the concepts that kids need to know, the sequence for learning, common misconceptions and examples of activities too. PERFECT!

 

Another resource that I love to use in the class, are the Targeting Maths Literacy books. There are four sets, each has a big book and 12 (I think) small books to go with it.

 

Here's one set of the small books

 

They're suitable for Reception-2 and cover a range of topics from Number through Measurement and Geometry. I love using the big books with the class as a part of our whole class focus time, but I find both the big and little books are popular with kids when they have free reading time. The little books are also fantastic for small group work - I use them when I have support staff in my room - they can take a book and a couple of kids and focus on a particular strategy or concept.

I would love to hear about some new maths resources....what is your favourite?

Roll, add and colour... an easy dice game

This week's game is a little bit late for Friday game day..... but better late than never! ;)

 

 

 

This game is great for practicing addition, but it can easily be adapted for subtraction or multiplication... and it's so easy to differentiate. To play, you need two players, a couple of dice (0-6 to start with, or 1-10 for those kids who are more confident with their addition), a different coloured pencil each and a photocopy of the game board.

 

Player 1 rolls the dice and then adds the numbers together. they then colour that number of squares on the game board. Player 2 then has a turn and the game continues until all squares are coloured in. The person with the most squares in their colour is the winner!

 

For older kids, I use graph paper, and have them multiply the numbers on the dice - it's a great way to reinforce multiplicative thinking using Arrays.

 

This game is great for early finishers, as a Maths warm up or for those times when you have a spare 10 minutes before the bell goes (not that this happens very often in my class though... we always seem to run over time!)

 

If you'd like to grab a copy of the game board, just click here :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'My House' freebie

 

Hi!

 

I've been working on a resource lately - well, trying to, it's been a pretty busy time in our house with both my little ones hit with gastro :(  I thought I'd share a page from it with you.

 

It's basically a little activity to get students thinking about Number in the context of addresses and house numbers. As a part of History in the new Australian Curriculum, we look at families, so I thought this would be a nice little way to tie in some Number work with that theme.

 

Graphics c www.KPMdoodles.com

If you'd like a copy, just click here :)

 

I'll be back with a game for Friday Game Day tomorrow (hopefully!)... have a great end of the week :)

 

 

 

Beginning of term Sorting Assessment

This has been first week back for the term for me, and it's been busy! I've hit the ground running... which is probably a good thing - otherwise the term is half gone before I realise it!

I'm working across classes R-7 and I thought I'd share the simple little activity we did in one of the Reception classes this week. We have termly intakes in S.A. (for the last time, we start annual intakes next year) so we've had quite a few new kids in the Reception classes this week. Perfect time for a simple little formative assessment activity to get an idea of where the newies are at, as well as seeing how the older kids are travelling!

We gave each child a copy of this sheet (enlarged to A3 so the pics were easier to cut out)....





Click here for a copy of this page, and one other :)



....and asked them to sort the shapes in a  way that made sense to them. We didn't give many instructions, as we really wanted to see how the kids went about it. It was really interesting to see the different ideas kids had, and to get an idea of their sorting and classifying skills.

To extend those kids who could easily classify the objects, we asked questions such as...

Can you count and record how many are in each group?

Can you order the groups from smallest to largest?

Which group has the most/least?

What other ways could you have sorted....?

Are there any objects that could have fitted into more than one group?

We recorded the conversations with students and their explanations on their sheet so we have a record of their thinking..... a simple but effective way to get a snap shot of kids' understandings!