Mental Math Update

4th post of the night... I sure am making up for lost time!  This was such a great week and I have to share it all before a new week begins!  This week we did in fact start the mental math routines I worked on last weekend.  I wasn't sure what the kids would think... last year's kiddos didn't like the flashes and dot plates as much as I thought they would (even if they did learn a ton from them), but this year's kids love them!  They actually were asking them and groaned when we put them away each day- I love when that happens!  They also were each clamoring to share their own strategy and didn't want to move onto the next flash.  I wanted to provide some more resources to help anyone interested in making their own materials for 10 minute math routines.

First of course, are my ten frame flashes on TpT:

I also have other ten frame flashes, but this week we started simple with the single ten frames.

Second, we used dot plates.  All I did was take dot patterns and make them with red and blue dot stickers on Chinet plates.  Super easy... took about 15 minutes tops.

 
I got these from a Pearson website with a sample chapter by John Van de Walle.  Of course, my dots are red and blue, not red and black. :)  

We also did domino flashes.  This is basically exactly like the dot plate flashes, only I hold up large printouts of dominoes instead.  It's just another way for the kids to see the numbers, and this time it's in a context they are familiar with, as they see dominoes in class and maybe at home.  Domino dot configurations also match dots on dice, so they are a bit easier.

You can download these at mathwire.com.  There are so many great websites out there and it's nice that while we share with each other on TpT, that there are some equally great freebies, too!

Each of these routines only take ten minutes or less a day and give kids a chance to practice subitizing, visualizing numbers, and forming relationships between numbers.  They also have some really great math discussions and have a lot of fun!  My posts from earlier in the week on number routines give other resources and more description.  If you have any routines or resources you use, link up!

What a crazy Friday night! Mental math is where the party is at!

So when I first started teaching, a Friday night would go something like this: come home, eat dinner, nap, go out, and sometimes stay out till the wee hours of the morning.  What am I doing on this crazy Friday night?  Catching up on soaps, blogging, and reading about mental math!  (It's okay if you call me a nerd.)

After taking a workshop on inquiry math at Purdue University Calumet, I bought some books to help me incorporate more inquiry and math talks into my classroom.  I did a lot of work with some of the books in one of my grad classes, but didn't get a chance to read them all as much as I would have liked.  Here are some of the books keeping me company tonight:

This book is an AMAZING resource that really helped last year's kiddos with number sense!  Short routines that are easy to incorporate into a busy schedule.

My new friend tonight.  As you can see, it has a DVD, so it's movie night!

This has routines for using 10 frames.  I am happy that Everyday Math has incorporated ten frames into their curriculum, but I'd still like to use them more!

Uh oh... while linking that last book up to you, I saw this...

40% off... dare I buy it?

Before I go lose myself in thought with these books, I have to share what I just read in Melissa Conklin's book about 10 frames.  She says to let the students drive the routines we focus on based on what they need, and to use certain routines over time, not every day.  I'm pretty good at the first one, but the 2nd part is where I need work.  Sometimes I want to see results so fast that I do the same thing every day... I also do it every day because if I skip a day, it's hard to get back into the routine.  Anyway, I'm going to try to incorporate some routines and mix them up so that it's not the same one every day.  Kinda weird since to me routine means repeating something over and over, but hey, if she says it's ok, less monotony for me!

Maybe I will post what I learn this weekend, though I've got a LONG list of projects I want to get done and a HUGE stack of papers to grade.  TTYL!