Kids love hands-on activities. They also love working together. So as often as I can, I try to combine the two when creating new lessons that weave in solid math concepts. That’s the idea behind my K-2 and 3- 5 Equation Cards. The Common Core Standards in Mathematics has a heavy emphasis in the elementary grades on the concept of equality in equations. As we know, too many kids think the equal sign means and the answer is… So I…
A couple of years ago I created a Scavenger Hunt for families to do during a Family Math Night event. As participants entered the room, they were handed one of two “game boards” …the K-2 version or the 3-5 version. Kids and parents worked together finding the items. But it occurred to me recently that it would be a fun beginning-of-the-school-year activity. So I thought I’d share it with you as we begin this new year. The K-2 version is…
The beginning of the school year is similar to the beginning of the New Year. It’s an opportunity to create goals with the intent of making positive changes. We call them our resolutions and now is a perfect time to think about resolutions for the 2014-15 school year. For example, maybe this school year you’d like to work on sending out a monthly class newsletter. Or perhaps you’d like to integrate more collaborative math projects into your curriculum. Or, if you’re a…
Here are the sign in sheets for my Nifty Numbers Family Math Night event. It only seemed right that they be numbers! And here are my awesome 8th grade helpers who made the numbers!
Who wouldn’t want to win one of these awesome items! Here is the raffle basket we had at our last Family Math Night event. It’s filled with fun math-y things. As families signed in, kids wrote their name and class on a raffle ticket and put it in the jar (see photo below). Kids who wrote an answer for our What Do You Notice? poster got to put another ticket in the jar. Several times throughout the evening names from…