I love doing this activity with kindergartners and first graders! Not only is it a great way for them to practice their addition facts but these little guys LOVE writing on their individual white board, so it’s a win/win! And it’s so simple. Here’s what you do: Without turning it on, put ONE domino on the overhead projector or doc camera. Tell students that you are going to flash a domino for a few seconds and their job is to…
Estimates help us predict the reasonableness of an answer. Having students make an estimate before they perform the calculation, and even writing the estimate next to the problem, can help them to focus on making the numbers (and the problem) make sense. Example: 3.2 x 9.8 = Students use benchmarks to determine that 3.2 is close to 3 and 9.8 is close to 10, therefore, a reasonable estimate would be 3 x 10 = 30. If students perform the actual…
Cookies in math class? Absolutely! This fun and engaging hands-on activity will get your students excited about doing math. Students will be designing their perfect cookie within the limits of a budget. They will be filling out order forms for cookies, candy and frosting then designing and drawing their final product. This fun activity seamlessly ties in important concepts in math, specifically, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with money, and attributes of geometric shapes. This lesson is divided into grades…
Making sense of and understanding mathematics is the foundation of the new Common Core State Standards in Mathematics. It is not enough that kids can compute with numbers – they must understand why those computations work. Enter Number Theory, the part of math that explores numbers and how they relate to each other. At the heart of Number Theory are the properties of number. One of the first ones students will encounter is the Commutative Property of Addition. It states…
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…