Friday Game Day... I love Maths!

Happy Friday! I can't believe we're nearly half way through the year... only two more weeks until end of term!

 

For today's game, I wanted to share a game that a colleague told me about just the other day, and I thought it sounded really great!

 

It's called 'I love maths' and is a really simple game for practicing fluency in a fun and active way.

 

The game is played in pairs, and it's similar to Rock, Paper Scissors. Each player makes a fist with a hand and shakes their hand three times, as they say 'I....love....Maths!' On the third shake, each player holds out some fingers. The players then have to find the total number of fingers and say the answer out loud as quickly as they can.

 

Here's an example of me playing with my daughter :)

 



Both players shake their fist and say 'I....

....(shake fist again) love.....

.....Maths!' (and hold out some fingers)

For the example above, we called out '3!'.

The game can easily be adjusted to practice other number facts.... you could subtract the smaller number from the larger number, multiply the numbers together, make the smallest fraction possible with the two numbers, make the biggest two digit number... and I'm sure there's many more alternatives!

 

 

Awesome teacher resource... Scootle!

 

Well, I know its winter for sure now.... everyone in our family has been sick for the past week... no fun at all! Finally, everyone is on the mend and I have time to a) catch up on all my favourite blogs (Which I've really missed!) and b) do a bit of blogging myself!

 

It's a crazy, busy time at school too... I'm not in the class so I don't have all the sick kids (except mine at home) or the reports to write so I'm considering myself pretty lucky! Last week I spent a bit of time trying to get some Interactive Whiteboard resources together for Maths and spent quite a bit of time on Scootle.... such an awesome resource!

 

Scootle is jam packed full of digital resources... bets of all, they're all designed to use with the Australian curriculum! At the moment, nearly all Australian teachers can use the site, I think NSW teachers can't yet, but they'll be able to later in the year. If you haven't had a chance to have a good look through, I really recommend it!

 

I use it mainly for the Learning Objects, which are great to use on your Interactive Whiteboard, but it has a ton of other resources - videos, audio clips, teacher lesson plans and assessments as well.

 

 

I've taken a few screen shots of Learning Objects that I use.....

Number Trains- for ordering, recognising amount and numerals, skip counting, place value

Pirate Treasure Hunt.... great for Problem Solving

Garden Symmetry.... finding objects with one line of symmetry (there's also a Learning object for 2+ lines of symmetry)

Do you use Scootle? I'd love to hear about any Learning Objects that you find useful :)

Play dough Maths Monsters

 

Wow.... Winter has finally hit with a vengeance... We had such beautiful weather on the weekend, but now I'm snuggled up next to the heater - it only reached 15 today!

My four and a half year old is obsessed with play dough at the moment, so we have been doing a lot of playdough making/playing. A LOT. Maybe too much (well, for my liking anyway!). The other day we were making some play dough monsters which gave me an idea for a little maths activity for practicing measurement and number concepts.

Basically, they're little task cards that you can give your students - they need to make a maths monster by following the directions on the card. I'm thinking they'll be really handy for those tactile learners who enjoy using play dough.

 

Here's some examples of the ones I've made.....

 

 

 

....and a pic of my little girl making the 5 eye/3 feet monster :)

 

 

Feel free to download a copy if you'd like :)
 

(Just click here to download)

 

Have a great week :)

 

 

 

 

Clipart Challenge!

Several fabulous clipartists and bloggers have come together for an amazing Clipart Challenge hosted by Primary Possibilities!  Each blogger is featuring a clipartist and a product they made using that artist's images!  This is a great way to discover new clipart creators for your summer creations.   So keep reading and following the linky at the bottom to head on to the next post!  You may even pick up some freebies along the way!

Today I'm linking up with Primary Possibilities for the Clipart Challenge! When I heard about this Linky I was so keen to join.... it seemed like such a fun way to find new clip artists!

I teamed up with Heather and Traci from The Meek Moose... I was so excited when I headed to their store - their graphics are amazing... detailed and colourful (which I love!)

You can find the Meek Moose blog here

I had a hard time choosing which set I wanted to use... I LOVE the seasonal sets... there's one for all four seasons and they include grapics and papers.
The Continents and Oceans pack is amazing too!

In the end, I chose their adorable Aquarium clip art, you can download a sample of this pack here.
 

I decided to use these gorgeous graphics to make a Maths Centre pack... it's free if you'd like to download it here
 

It has three maths centres for K/1...

.....a Write the Room Activity for practicing doubles....

 ...a Roll and Trace....

and a Patterning activity (my favourite because of the beautiful bright graphics!)

You can check out a ton of other fabulous products and clipartists by clicking on the links below :)

Loading InLinkz ...

Friday Game Day... practicing fluency

 

This week, I had a couple of training days, one of the sessions I went to was about Peter Sullivan's six principles for teaching mathematics... it was an awesome session!

 

One of the principles that the presenter (Matt... I'm not sure of his last name, sorry!) talked about was fluency.... and a great way to develop fluency with number is through short daily tasks that require mental computation or manipulating number.

 

He shared one of Peter's games with us... it was so easy, needed no prep and can be easily differentiated, just the sort of game I love :)

 

So, I thought I'd share it with you too...

 

Students work in pairs, they'll need a piece of paper to share and a pencil each  (we have individual whiteboards for the kids, which I'm planning to use instead).

 

The first person writes down either a 0 or a 1 - the second person can either add on 1 or 2, then the first person has another turn. This continues until one player can write 10 - they are the winner! Super simple, super easy, and you can play 5 or more games in a few minutes. This is really handy for developing fluency because kids need to do the +1/+2 quickly in their head, but also, they'll soon realise that they need to plan ahead and predict moves, which involves even more mental computation and strategy. 

 

 

 

(Spoiler alert..... there's a number quite early on in the sequence that you should try to get because it can guarantee that you'll win..... it's interesting to see which kids pick up on this!)

 

To make the game more difficult, students can play first to 20 or 50, or they could add 3 and 4 or 5 and 10 - any numbers really... there are so many possibilities! It can also be played to practice fractions (first to 5 1/2... adding 1/4 or 1/2) or decimals or even units of measurement (first to 1 metre... adding 5 or 10 cm). I'm really looking forward to trying this with some of the classes I work with... I think the kids will love it!

 

I'd love to hear about how you develop fluency in your classroom too :)

Favourite maths teaching resources

 

Have you got a favourite go-to book for teaching maths? I've got a couple that I love, and I thought I'd share them with you..

 

The first is a book written by Prof Peter Sullivan and Pat Lilburn - Open-ended Maths Activities.

 

 

 

This is an awesome book for getting ideas for 'good' questions to use as a part of your maths lessons. It has a huge range of open-ended questions for junior, middle and upper primary and covers Number, Measurement, Geometry and Chance and Data.

 

I use the questions as a base for lots of my Maths lessons - the questions are so easy to use to differentiate for the different ability levels in my class. I would definitely call this book a  must-have!

 

 

 

I've mentioned before that my school is involved in PD with Ann Baker... I also really LOVE the Natural Maths series by Johnny and Ann Baker! The new Australian Curriculum has a big focus on thinking mathematically and Numeracy, these resources are prefect to support that.

 

I love using the Natural Maths strategies books... you can just pick them up and use them straight away. 

 

The books includes units of work focussing on different Maths concepts, and are so easy to use. They are big on problem solving (Problematised Situations) which makes them perfect for developing Numeracy. If you get a chance, you should definitely check these resources out!

 

What are your favourites? I'm always looking for new resources to explore :)

A little freebie.... 'A note from the teacher'

 

Wow, this has been a busy week! I've been up to my eyeballs in data (not exactly my favourite way to spend the day!) getting all our baseline data ready as a part of my Numeracy Coach role. To top it off I have been working on the World's Slowest Computer Ever (it's official) which hasn't helped. But, on the bright side, I have ordered a laptop which I'm excitedly checking the post for each day!

 

Because I've been pouring through tests this week, I don't really have that much to blog about (well, that you'd want to read anyway!) so I thought I'd share some 'Notes to the Teacher' that I made for a couple of my work friends a little while ago.

 

There's nine notes in total... here's a piccie of a few...

 



Thanks to Graphics from the Pond, Scrappin Doodles and Ashley Hughes for the cute graphics :)

 

Click here for a copy, I hope you enjoy them :)