Easy Math

Tuesday the students did a similar activity with the building blocks but they were breaking them down instead of building up. They rolled a pair of dice and that number was their starting point. They set out their appropriate amounts of tens and ones using the blocks. Then they had to break down a ten into 10 tens and record the amounts of tens and ones again. They continued this process until the tens were 0 and the ones matched the full number. The students caught on very quickly this time. The main problems were keeping them on task and showing them how to count and match the place value charts with their papers. Once they grasped that, they were suddenly flying through the assignment.

It is also interesting to note that there seems to be a few students who stand out as excellent in math activities, a few who struggle with basic facts, and the rest are in between. They each learn at their own rate but at the same time they all need to be at the same level.

Hands-on Math

Today we did another similar activity with math using pennies and dimes. The students were given the same directions as yesterday but instead of building towers, they exchanged pennies for dimes for the tens place on their place value charts. Today was much more complicated for the students to grasp. One student in particular could not understand that the dime represented 10 pennies. So I had to sit and walk her through almost the entire activity. I left to go help another group and while I was gone she slipped again. So my efforts did not work well enough for her. Hopefully one day that lightbulb will click and she will figure this concept out.

The students also had another Math facts competition with the other 2nd graders. Mrs. Jones class almost won but after a tie they lost by 1. Emphasis was placed on how well the students performed and the fact that they all had a great time. They were encouraged to congratulate each other on a job well done.

Note to self - It is amazing how varied each student is with grasping their math concepts. Some children are so far advanced compared to others. I wonder if Math should be broken up into separate groups like they do reading.

Hands-on Math

Yesterday I helped Mrs. Jones with another hands-on math activity. This time the students were taking blocks and building in groups of ten to help with counting and addition. They would roll a die and place that number of blocks on the ones place value chart. Then they would roll again and add the numbers together. Once they had 10 blocks, they built a tower and placed it in the tens. They kept up with the addition facts in their Math journals. This was very complicated for the students to start up. But once we got them going individually, they finally caught on and had a great time.

Note to self: Children at this age for the most part cannot sit still and listen to multiple steps and then remember it. They require a lot of individual attention.

Go Fish Math

The students were placed in groups of three and played a game of Go Fish to learn the three styles of Place Value they are learning. They were given a deck of index cards with a number written on them in one of three ways:

78

8 ones and 70 tens/70 tens and 8 ones

70+8/8+70

In the last two lines it is written either way since it is also shown that way on assessments. They are already learning to read numbers in 5 different formats. It is a lot for a young person to remember.

They took turns and whenever someone had all three types they had a full matching set and would write the complete set in their Math journals.

Note to Self - This activity created quite a bit of confusion, especially as some kids learned quickly that once someone took a card, it meant they had it and they would ask for it back thus creating some large hands. Also, the kids tended to not organize their hands. I would go around organizing it but it seemed they had a different system.

Hands on Math

The kids learned math by doing certain activities with tens and ones, then adding them together to create new, larger numbers. They would jump rope the ones and hula hoop the tens then write the expanded form and standard form in their Math journals. They are learning place value and how that can help them learn the basic foundations for all math. They needed extra eyes today since they can get off track easily. We split the class up and watched our groups.

Note to self - the attention span of 2nd graders is very limited.

Chicks

Today we finished up our series on the life cycle of chickens. The students reviewed the life cycle by placing events in order along with a description of the event in their own words using laptops from the mobile lab. Then they got to take turns holding a baby chick. During this process they learned about fertilization of eggs, the growing chick, turning the egg, incubation, candeling, hatching, and care of baby chicks. They also learned about the egg tooth and the fact that not every egg hatches and not every chick survives, a touch realization for these young kids.

Note to self - Always keep a lot of hand sanitizer available.