A while back, I was walking through Wal-Mart and saw 50 packs of those Halloween spider rings for $1! $1! And I was struck with an idea, for this price, they’d be a great manipulative when we introduce arrays and multiplication! Our kiddos were introduced to arrays last year in second grade and they aren’t brand new to them, but I knew they’d help solidify things as we’re expecting students to master many areas of
I have a great post coming up for you today from Tanja at Journey of a Substitute Teacher. She’s sharing some great ideas for math centers that she’s seen in her subbing journey. I use Powerpoint to display my centers rotations for my students. This has made centers go SO much more smoothly. To see more about that, click the image below to head to that post. I also have a TON of resources (lots
Number sense is the single best indicator of students’ success in math. As adults who are successful with mathematics, we have memorized steps and methods that work best for us. We have facts memorized. We use our number sense to do mental math quite frequently. We struggle to see the point with the crazy and convoluted steps students are asked to do because we no longer have to think through problems the way students do.
Functions are such an important skill in algebra. It’s important to establish an understanding of function rules and how they work in the primary grades so students are accustomed to them and can apply functions in new ways. In first and second grades, functions typically take the form of cute robots named Function Machines. Rules are applied in input and output tables based on the Function Machine. Through continued practice students learn that a number
Counting coins is in the second grade Common Core math standards, but it’s so important to begin to work with coin values and counting coin combinations early. The ability to switch values while skip counting can be tricky, especially if students aren’t being very attentive. Giving students continued practice, and working with coins in many different ways really helps build students’ coin counting skills. Here are some of my favorite resources to use to practice
