Why not empower kids to create their own addition problems to solve? They love it! Here’s an activity I do with kindergartners and first graders. An easy way to adapt the lesson for beginning of the school year kindergartners is to have them simply place stickers (less than 10) and write the total.
Kids who have a strong number sense can compose and decompose numbers, make reasonable estimates, and use numbers in flexible ways. Here’s a great example. (Aligns to the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics: Mathematical Practices – Look for and make use of structures.)
Why give students the definitions? Why not give them enough information so that they can create the definitions on their own? The Common Core state Standards in Mathematics along with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards emphasize allowing students to be actively involved in creating their learning. Through this, they will learn to: -reason abstractly and quantitatively -construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others -attend to precision -look for and make use of structure Besides, the…
I just read that the Texas State Board of Education is getting rid of calcuators in the elementary grades. It’s a good thing, too, because I’ve no doubt that every kindergarten through fifth grade teacher hands their students calculators so that these teachers can get out of doing what they love doing…teaching. Honestly. Although not approved yet, it’s only a matter of time. Because, as we all know, politicians know best. And, yes board members, you are politicians. I remember…
This is a super fun activity I did in first grade. I glued a magnet on to a plastic fly my kids had in their insect collection. Then I read the story The Fly on the Ceiling to a group of first graders. I used my plastic fly to plot the points on the grid as I read the story. But the best part was when I had students create points for each other to plot. They absolutely LOVED that!