What a treat it was for me to work with two second graders yesterday in Mrs. Durbin’s class. Mrs. Durbin created a fun project for these two high math students to provide them with extra challenge. I’m there to help facilitate them while she teaches the rest of the class. When I arrived for my first session with them last week, they had already collected their data. Their chosen topic was sports equipment in the primary grades. They wanted to…
How do we get our young children comfortable with numbers? We count things with them. Lots and lots of things. We count the number of forks on the table, the number of grapes on the plate, the number of pennies in our pocket. Counting just becomes something we do. Here’s a fun, hands-on project that turns counting into a game. You’ll need: -1-2 empty “cube” tissue boxes (the boxes are not exactly cubes, but close enough) -colored construction paper -glue…
Got lots of left-over greeting cards? Here’s one fun way I found to use them with kindergarten and first graders. I sort the cards into two categories and the students try and figure out my rule. In the example above, I sorted the cards into pumpkins and hearts. It was pretty easy for students to figure that one out. But, after that, they can get pretty tricky and student really need to look carefully for similarities within groups: cats vs…
Above are the two estimation jars we used at a recent family math night event. Below are the estimation slips students filled out. Click on the image to print a copy.
Our most recent Family Math Night event was done at an International Baccalaureate (IB) elementary school. The two teachers I was working with to organize the event wanted to find a way to include an inquiry-based question for students to answer. Their students have had a lot of practice with inquiry-based curriculm, which is a heavy component in the IB program, so it would have been a missed opportunity had we not tied IB in with math night. We decided…