Five Minute Enrichment Sessions = My Goal for the New Year!

It's New Year's resolution time! My thoughts are that as a math interventionist I don't get a lot of time to work with students who are more advanced in mathematics. Teachers I work with tell me they also feel this way as they are constantly pouring their every minute into supporting students at the bottom. Therefore, my New Year's resolution is to spend 5 minutes a day with a student who needs enrichment and to give ideas to teachers on how to also dedicate this 'feel-good' time. 

Here is my dastardly plan to fit in a bit of math every day with an advanced learner (or two or three):

1. Meet a student or two at his or her locker at the beginning or end of the day.
        Believe it or not, the more advanced students are always in learning mode and can absolutely focus at their locker after a long day and when the halls are busy. 
2. Whisper to a kid during my push-in time when the classroom teacher is doing direct instruction and my at-risk kids are listening. 
        Obviously the classroom teacher can't take advantage of this move- well maybe depending on their teaching style!
3. Sit an advanced kid on the other side of me and the struggler(s) I am working with in the regular classroom. Tag-team the two levels. While my struggler(s) is/are working, I can whisper to an advanced kid, or better yet silently write to the advanced student(s).  
4. Each one, teach one. Have you heard of this? In short, have the advanced student tell another advanced student the challenge problem and see if that student can solve it. Without classroom disruptions, of course! Even suggest he/she share the challenge in the lunch room. Believe me, only the math geeks will be interested in spending their lunch time on a math problem! And the leading student will be excited to take pencils and scrap paper to the lunchroom!

What can I do to enrich in just a few minutes?

Start Unknown, Change Unknown, Result Unknown

As you know, you can't teach everything at once. So, all this business of start unknown, change unknown and result unknown on top of add to, take from, put together/take apart and compare...is quite daunting. Do the words ever end? No they don't because that is just part of the problem solving vocabulary in that lovely table in the Common Core document- you know the one.
This year I have been hearing more and more that my little second graders (from the classroom in which I team teach) need to be able to identify these situations and match stories to equations of all types. UGH!!! So, where do I begin to conquer the beast? Read the story, understand it, identify the position of the unknown and write an equation. Addition and subtraction are inverses so if one student solves it with addition (counting up) and another with subtraction...how do we now match to the correct equation among the foils!
Since I don't have the option to not teach this, I have decided to begin with straight computation lessons on solving equations with unknowns in all positions. The best part about this is that my students have found it fun to solve these complex equations. And, bonus! I believe they have become stronger mathematicians. Thus, to keep my kiddos fresh on the skills they have learned, I created some practice pages for addition and subtraction with unknowns in all places as well as vertically aligned practice and equations that start with the result. If you try them, be sure you have taught how to solve all of these situations and most importantly that subtraction starts with the whole group or sometimes I say subtraction starts with all you have, and be sure students understand what they call 'backwards' equations such as 9 = 15 - 6. That's lots of teaching but once you do it, you will have practice for them for some time to come. Click on the picture below to head over to my store and check these out.

Number Words Chart

My students and I are working hard to make gains in the quality of writing in their math journals (or notebooks). I am looking for better/deeper explanation of mathematical thinking as they write about their problem solving strategies. Not just "I found it by adding 3 + 5", but rather, "Because it says she "found more," I know her pile of marbles got bigger so I added. This focus on improved explaining with words, has resulted in some students wanting to write "three plus five" thinking that is better than 3 + 5. Well, at least they are working on changing something! As a result my students ask me how to spell every number word. When I tell them to "sound it out" I find that number words are not the easiest to sound out! Hence I created a Free Number Word Reference Chart to put in my math tubs to give students a tool to spell with, and to free me up for more conferencing on verbalizing their math ideas and then writing them down to explain. I hope you can use it!

Counting Intervention for Students in 2nd and 3rd Grades

After a full month of school, I have been challenged by a handful of students in grades second and third who do not have the counting sequence secure. Most students can count up to 10 and back, but going through the teens is troublesome. A few have up to 20 and back but I have noticed the most commonly skipped teen in their sequence is 13. "Pooooooor 13!" we cry as they count and I write what they say.  And some falter when counting up to 30 and back, often skipping 20. "23, 22, 21, 19,,,"
For struggling students, this is a lengthy pattern to remember, this I know. And when counting our pattern doesn't normally start with zero. So it does make a bit of sense that students successfully count from 1 to 19 and forget what I call, "twenty-zero," and go straight to 21. Though not as big of a mistake counting up, skipping the decade happens more frequently counting back. "34, 33, 32, 31, 29, 28, 27..." Other than practice, practice, practice, I have taught some students to say "thirty-zero" and then we giggle and laugh and I ask them, "What number is thirty-zero really?" And when we continue to count back we are sure to count back all the way to zero. Zero has to be included in our pattern!
If you need counting up and back practice, I have created some short pages with many uses. I hope you find them useful!
For The Great Count ON, click below:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Counting-on-Practice-from-Any-Number-2135978

For The Great Count BACK, click below:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Counting-Back-Practice-Pages-2135752

Have a GREAT week!

Start, Change, Result vs. Part, Part, Whole

I literally spent the entire weekend contemplating the role of the part, part, whole diagram so prevalent in enVision math. This versus the role of the vocabulary 'start, change, result'. It is hard enough to get second graders to solve story problems using a part, part, whole, I wondered how to add to that with start, change, result. I was convinced struggling students would never handle both. And then there is, "Is this a joining problem or is this separating?" The words seem to never end. And then I consulted the 'Bible' (the CCSS) and realized that part, part, whole is not specifically stated anywhere in the standards (please correct me if I am wrong). I came to the conclusion that it is not start, change, result that is the problem. I actually love how start, change, result so clearly assists in equation writing with a symbol for the unknown. Truly, for strugglers I believe it is part, part, whole that is confusing! But part, part, whole does have an excellent use as an organizer for decomposing numbers. My question is do you prefer to use the vocabulary 'start, change, result' with struggling students while teaching problem solving, or do you think they better understand the part, part, whole when writing an equation to match a story?

Sneak in Some Math During Birthday Treat Time!

Scenario: It is Monday in your classroom and a productive one at that. You are gung-ho about your lesson plans- hopeful that you will get through everything this week, for once. No assemblies, no field trips, no interruptions to your flow. Suddenly there is a parent standing in the doorway with a large tray of cupcakes. You do not know how they made it past the office and, of course, all of the students are in an uproar. Chocolate or vanilla? When, when, when! Your lesson comes to an abrupt halt as you thank the parent and bring the cupcakes into your room, setting them on the counter. Now, every other kid has to sharpen their pencil. You might as well stop everything and immediately do the birthday because no one's mind is on characterization anyway.

Multiply this loss of instruction time (20 minutes- 25 if you have the kids wash their hands) by 30 kids and you could potentially lose 10 hours of instruction time in a school year, passing out napkins, eating cupcakes and singing the birthday song.

If you are like me, this is unsettling. Every minute of every day I aimed to squeeze in curriculum. For reward times we played math games. During Valentine's Day parties we played Scrabble Junior. Lining up for specials we spelled words or cited multiples. I was challenged to find a way to turn birthday treat time into something educational- hence, the birthday estimation jar!

First, get students fired up about the activity by presenting it to the whole class as a healthy option to a sugar treat. (Bonus: my district adopted a 'wellness policy' that frowned upon classroom treats that were not healthy.) Read through the flyer together, show the students the guessing jar (plastic) and the birthday gift bag that they take everything home in to bring back the next day. Give students some ideas for some real challenge estimation questions and your high kids will go to town. Example: How many groups of ten do you think are in here? Then, work to get the first student with a birthday to do the activity (many more kids will follow after seeing it once). Or even do it yourself as an example in the first weeks of school.

The birthday student gets to lead the activity. He/she shows the jar of prizes and reads the question. Students can answer on scrap paper (no names needed) and put the responses in a basket or envelope. I suggest doing this when doing lunch count or morning work. Your birthday student needs time to sort the data for the graph. Depending on grade level, the teacher can draw a quick graph on chart paper so the birthday child can graph the results at some point in the day. Then when time allows the birthday child can explain the graph to the class, and give the correct answer to the question. Depending on time and the teacher's comfort level, deep thinking questions can follow such as, "Why do you think so many kids estimated that there were over 50 items in the jar?" Or, "We figured that if the items were 2 cents each and there were 30 in the jar, it would cost 60 cents for everything. How could we quickly find the amount if the items were 4 cents each?" Last, an excellent extension question is, "Notice the side of the graph is numbered by fives? Why do you think I did that?" Talking about scale (the numbers chosen for the y-axis) does not happen often enough!

To make this activity quicker, pre-draw a simple graph on chart paper and have students estimate on small sticky-notes. They can stick their estimation right on the graph as they complete it, with just a bit of supervision from you that they don't put their notes in the wrong column. This saves collecting responses and sorting them.

This birthday estimation jar can be as simple and quick as you like or as deep and extending as time allows. It absolutely beats a worksheet on estimation and/or graphing. It is an authentic, engaging experience in estimation. And for some reason, graphing seems to be somewhat of a weakness in my building. I don't feel students have enough experience with creating graphs and really thinking about what the parts are.

This was a lengthy post. Thank you if you made it this far! I look forward to your questions and comments and would love to be of more help to you if you need me! Happy birthday!

Correcting Illegible Numeral Formation from the Get-go!

When I was a fifth grade teacher, and even fourth, it would always amaze me at the beginning of the year when a student would turn in a math paper with penmanship that could not be deciphered! Many kids wrote ones that looked like sevens as they made a fancy serif on their ones. Fours versus nines- their writing was so sloppy- how could I tell? This always made me wonder how they got so far along in the grades without correcting this issue. As an upper elementary teacher I felt it was my responsibility to nip this in the bud before middle school where their math teacher would have upwards of 120 papers to look over.

Now, try to find practice pages that were specific to the problem and not full of practice that students didn't need. Thus, I created my own practice pages that targeted the numerals in question. You can take a peek at my practice pages here in my TpT store.

This student has challenges with zeros versus sixes

The way I assessed and assigned practice was by first giving a timed test for any operation- usually addition in September. I did not let students know I was assessing their penmanship as well as their facts. You don't want students being extra careful, just their everyday writing. If your district does not require timed tests, you can assess numeral formation through any math paper you have.

I would make a copy of the paper for any students who needed to improve their numeral formation. Hopefully only about 3 to 5 kids out of your whole class are writing this way. The copy was dated and kept in a folder or binder and used to show growth.

I highlighted any numbers on my copy I could not read (the original was scored only for the math and handed back) and I held an individual conference with each student over their issue. Nothing lengthy- less than 4 minutes. As we talked, I let them know I was not going to bother them with practicing the numbers they wrote well, but every time I had an issue with telling the difference between their ones and sevens, for example, I would attach a practice sheet for just those numbers and they had to complete it as well as fix the numbers on the paper in question, and turn both in.
This practice is something that can be done for morning work, while the class is transitioning, cleaning up (excuse just this small group), or even homework. If you share with parents that you care about their student not carrying this issue all through school, usually they are on board. If the home is unsupportive, find a few minutes and have the student(s) complete the work in school but I never punish with this work by holding a student from something they love like recess.

We kept all practice (dated) in their folder as well and compared their work over time. I would have the student decide if they were improving during our periodic conferences. Once the problem was straightened out, we celebrated (a sticker, high-five...even a class announcement depending on the grade level) and if I never saw the problem again, hip, hip, hooray! Believe it or not, students love this individual attention and knowing that you care about them, individually- but the younger this can be taken care of, the better.

My pages include two areas where students can self-assess their writing. The target on each page can also be used by the teacher if students do not self-assess fairly. (We all have those students that think everything they do is perfect every time!)

So, if you try to fix up some messy writing, good luck and let me know how it goes!

Welcome to my Blog

Hello! Welcome to the journey of my third year as a math interventionist (after eight years in the regular classroom). This year I have dedicated myself to sharing my struggles and achievements with others in hopes of helping more students than just my own, and more teachers that are not fortunate enough to have a math interventionist. I am very excited for this endeavor which also includes upping my poor technology skills and propelling myself into the age of mass media. It's time!