Take Advantage of Downtime! Try this!
Well, as I was sitting in a meeting–you know the ones that aren’t productive–most school meetings– I thought, hmm I am going to work on helping students. While I listened to teachers talk about the problems they have with students not learning their math facts (3rd, 4th, and 5th grade teachers) I made some visual aids to help while kids are wasting time waiting. Honestly, I am at the point of anger with the way we are teaching math. I am glad we are learning to reason about math facts, but after a half of a page of watching a child try to compute an easy math problem there must be a more efficient way!
Now, here are few samples of what I made. I posted them wherever I thought children would be standing for long periods of time. I expected nothing from this other than the hopes that children would learn.
The kids said, “Did you put those signs up?”
I replied, “What makes you think that?” :).
Of course I told them that yes it was me. AND, do you know what??!! They said, “Thank you!”
I was floored and not expecting that!
Make These Items This Summer to Support Math Instruction {Giveaway}
Here are a few items that you may want to have to spruce up your classroom this fall. You may need a number line that adds images to support student’s understanding of numbers with base ten blocks. This number line is over 40 feet long and will serve as a vital support tool all year long–great decoration above your white board. This would be great for 1st through 2nd grades!
Maybe you teach third or fourth grade and need more fraction visual support. Why not have a fraction number line with visual supports?
You know you will have someone who doesn’t know their addition facts or multiplication facts. Why not spend some time making a set of flashcards while you are relaxing this summer. Both of these come with printable backs! What could be better?!
Now for a giveaway!
Prize: $100 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card
GIVEAWAY DETAILS:
Giveaway Organized by: Kelly Malloy
| Kelly MalloyBrowse over 140 educational resources created by Kelly Malloy in the official Teachers Pay Teachers store. |
(An Apple for the Teacher)
Co-hosts: An Apple for the Teacher, The Fun Factory, 180 Days of Reading, Kelly McCown, It’s a Teacher Thing, Mickey’s Place, LIVIN’ IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER, A Plus Kids, Sandra Naufal, TeachingLife, The Chocolate Teacher, Star Kids, Paula’s Primary Classroom, Ms. K, Roots and Wings, Mrs Wenning’s Classroom, Kamp Kindergarten, Samson’s Shoppe, The Monkey Market, Jackie Crews, TheBeezyTeacher, Priscilla Woodard – Tasked 2 Teach, Kathryn Watts, AR Tech Star – Eva Griffin, Pint Size Learners, and The Froggy Factory.
Rules: Use the Rafflecopter to enter. Giveaway ends 7/13/19 and is open worldwide.
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| Giveaways To Grow Your BlogClassroom tips,teaching ideas, and resources for the upper elementary classroom. Teacher Giveaways |
Stop by later this month because there will be MORE GIVEAWAYS!!!
How to Set Up an IKnowIt Account (free)!
Guess what?! Have you heard about this great new math website?! There are math lessons set up for kindergarten through 5th grade. Students are given a score for problems they get right so that you could potentially use this for a quick grade. Winning! Right now you can set up an account for your class absolutely free–until August 2018 that is! In the following video, I show you how to set up your free account and how to assign lessons to your students.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBRhU2-Rnn0[/embedyt]
BEWARE! You May NEVER use Flashcards the Same Way Again!
Check out my newest video, but BEWARE, you may never use Multiplication Flashcards the Same Again. 😉 When you watch this video, you will learn how to use your flashcards more effectively by teaching patterns. Enjoy! 🙂
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9JR5K6p0XE[/embedyt]
Multiplication Hand Tricks–Multiplying by 4s
Again by popular request, here is a video showing how students can use their fingers to multiply by four. This is my second video ever! I think I’m getting better at it! 🙂
This video was made in response to an earlier blog post here. Watch this for professional development, or allow your students to watch it for a brand new strategy for their math “tool box”. Enjoy!
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKC7bgV9W3Y[/embedyt]
You may also like to watch this video about multiplying by 3s.
Multiplication Hand Tricks–Multiplying by 3s and 4s
Congratulations! You get to watch my very first video ever! This video is a result of my most viewed blog post ever You can see this post here. It is the post with my multiplication hands, which show how to multiply by three on your fingers.
One of the comments suggested I make a video for this post to explain it further. At the time I wasn’t comfortable with video nor did I have the equipment to video. So, just recently I decided to take this advice. After about 10 takes, I finally decided to settle on this video. I may come back and redo it later to make it better, but I’m at the point where I feel it is better to have something up than nothing at all. I really hope you learn something while watching to help your students! 🙂
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TRjHG0GVEo[/embedyt]
And now…..how students can use their fingers to multiply by four. This is my second video ever! I think I’m getting better at it! 🙂
This video was made in response to an earlier blog post here. Watch this for professional development, or allow your students to watch it for a brand new strategy for their math “tool box”. Enjoy!
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKC7bgV9W3Y[/embedyt]
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Have You Been Using Flashcards Wrong?
I sat in on a parent conference this past year with a student and her teacher. The child was having difficulty learning multiplication facts. The teacher told the parent several things one of which was to use flashcards and put the ones she knew in one stack and the ones she didn’t in another stack. In other words she was prompting the child to memorize the facts.
Of course you know I interjected how the child might learn better with the flashcards by layering the ones she knew with the ones she didn’t know. For example, if she had learned all of her 2s, she could then place all of the corresponding 4s facts behind the 2s facts. Then she could learn how to double her 2s facts to get her 4s facts.
When studying multiplication, it lends itself so well to student led discussion about patterns they notice among the facts. For students to see these patterns it is essential for us to line the facts up in such a way that they can see the patterns. Normally, we hand students a HUGE multiplication chart and children see this and feel overwhelmed.
SEE OVERWHELMING CHART BELOW
Why not break this chart down so that students can see the patterns more readily.
If students only see part of the chart, then the patterns are more readily recognized and students are less overwhelmed. Students may also benefit from seeing patterns on a table like the following in which the patterns are more explicitly explained at the top. Could this be the reason students struggle with learning their facts? They don’t see the patterns. Doing something this simple could allow students to make sense of multiplication and find patterns in the numbers…especially those students who need extra support.
I have put together a packet that can help teachers (and possibly parents) use flashcards more efficiently with their students. In this packet, patterns in multiplication are unveiled and explicitly explained so that teachers can teach their students with patterns–not just by memorization.
Ways to use patterns for all multiplication facts are explained in this packet. There are teacher notes, flashcards, charts, and tables all organized by helping strategy. One could even use the teacher notes as a guide to plan lessons when beginning to teach multiplication. This pack would also be great for intervention with those students who just aren’t picking up the strategies to learn multiplication facts.
Take a moment to check out this product and consider teaching multiplication with patterns! 🙂
Multiplication Stairs for the Kinesthetic Learner
I found these stairs in a school in which I had a professional development meeting. You have probably seen a similar idea on Pinterest of a staircase with brightly colored multiplication cards that exactly fit the stairs. I have checked into the prices to have custom cards made like those on Pinterest and the prices were well over $500. Ouch! The great thing about these stairs (pictured below) is that they look like they were made on a much cheaper budget.
You would need someone who has access to a Silhouette die cutter and a selection of the sticky vinyl to print the numbers on. In addition, you would need a ruler to mark off the placement of each number and lots of time! When I saw this, I thought the idea was fabulous, but I didn’t think that the colors were dark enough to stand out on the concrete.
If your school has used the spaces on their stairs for math facts, leave a link and/or share your experience.
Have You Heard About this Great New Math Practice Site?
Tell everyone you know about this great new free animated website iknowit.com that helps elementary kids practice math skills by playing games. This site will remain FREE for at least the next year while improvements and more lessons are added. Iknowit was built by the makers of Super Teacher Worksheets and Modern Chalkboard, a SMART board lesson site.
The lessons give children immediate feedback so that they know if they have answered each question correctly or incorrectly. There are drill lessons for basic math facts–addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. These lessons are timed. Then there are lessons based on progress in which students answer a certain amount of questions. Right now the lesson topics include addition, multiplication, division, time, money, fractions, and there are many more to come!
In the future as a teacher, you can log in and set up a class roster. You will be able to assign lessons, monitor student scores, and track their progress. You will also be able to adjust the number of hints children are allowed to have on each problem. Teachers will be able to set the amount of time students practice drills and set the number of questions a student must answer for a lesson.
Because this small business was set up by teachers, they value teacher’s and student’s constructive feedback as they venture forward with improvements to this site. You can follow them on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to give your input. Just imagine a website built with your feedback in mind
Use This Strategy to Easily Multiply Large Numbers and Fractions
You know the guys who easily multiply in their head who leave you picking your jaw up off of the floor? Well, these folks have special strategies. I am going to teach you one of these so that you can teach your students!
First
, let’s look at this example with fractions. If you double ½ you get one. Instead of going through all of the steps it takes to multiply fractions, why not simply double the fraction and multiply? In the case of one half or any other fraction with an even denominator, this process is simple. ½ becomes 1. Then multiplying by 1 is super simple.
In the case of a denominator such as ¼, in the second example, you can double the number twice and halve the other number until you find a factor that is easy to multiply. ¼ doubled becomes ½ and ½ doubled becomes 1. As long as the other factor is easy to halve, this works great!
This may be done with mixed numbers as well. As long as one of the numbers is even, you can double the other.
Now let’s look at examples with whole numbers. Again, double one factor and halve the other. Hmmmm 6 x 24. I don’t know that in my head, but I do know that I can easily double 6 to 12 and halve 24 to 12. Wow! I do know 12 x 12! 144!
I will skip the next two examples (12 x15 and 25 x 16) because these are self-explanatory.
Let’s look at 6 x 32. If we double 6 and halve 32, we get 12 x 16. Still not an easy fact. Ok, I will try to double and halve again, and I get 24 x 8. Hmm, again I don’t know that one. Let’s try another time. We get 48 x 4. Whew! Still difficult. One more time. Ok, 96 x 2. To solve this problem, I will use a combination of strategies. First I know that 96 is 4 away from 100. If I have two groups of 4 away from 100, then I know that I will be 8 away from 200 because 96 is almost 100. If I take 8 away from 200, this gives me 192. Teach children through number talks etc. to think flexibly about numbers and ways to solve problems. By teaching children these strategies, you will become stronger at solving math problems in your head as well!
