Methods of Math Teaching and Learning

Number Talks with Five Good evening Please forgive me for not posting a new blog last Sunday.  I will write my continued adventures in kindergarten. Although, I have started a NT with first grade teachers and students. This post will discuss the progress of NT in kindergarten. We continued with tens frames last week. This group remembers procedures very well. As soon as they sat in their places on the carpet, the students immediately place their fist to their chest. We are continuing working with 5 on the tens frame using both bottom and top levels. The questions I ask are "how many do you see?" and "how do you see it?" Quickly students place thumbs up to inform me they know the answer. Students responses for the most part are accurate. Most  students can denote there are 5 dots. A couple of students may say 4 or 3. Therefore, they are making progress. The following link is an example NT problem: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AOhF0OtPBhByfuMt00IWELRIMoK...

Good evening, In kindergarten this week, we are continuing with the concept of four on our tens frame. This time both levels of the tens frames were use.  The tens frame below is one of the examples from class. Students are beginning to understand that four dots arrange anywhere on the tens frame is four.  Only one student continues to struggle with subitizing four: Teacher: So how many do you see. Student: I see three over here and one more over there to the right. Teacher: Well, lets count the dots. Student: One, two, three, and (with hesitation) four. Teacher: So now how many dots do you see? Student: I see four. After having this student to actually count the dots, she realizes that there are four dots and not three and one more. A couple students manipulated the dots to where they could recognize immediately there were four. This is fine. However, I want them to move from counting to actually readily knowing that there are four dots. Until then, the kin...

Good evening again. I'm sorry this post is late, but I'm in Destin Florida. The internet connection is terrible in this lovely resort. Let me not belabor the point of this blog entitled The Meaning of Four. This week in kindergarten we concentrated on the number four. Not so much of the symbol numeral 4. But what four means and how kindergarten student understand what four truly means. So, the kindergarten teacher and I did a NT involve four dots. The four dots were randomly placed on the upper tier of the tens frame. The students remember the procedures very well. Some continued to raise their hand when posed a question, but for the most part they have it. The challenge was their perception of what four means when looking at four dots. It was quite interesting to see that some students perceive four as three dots and one more. However, they could not make the connection  that there are  four dots. Some of students also quantify four dots as 2 dots and 2 more ...

This week's post is all about my experience with Number Talks (NT) with kindergartener and their teacher. I model NT for the new kindergarten teacher to give her an idea of how to incorporate NT in her daily routine. This week we used the tens frame and 3 dots. We started with the concept of 3 based upon the teacher's initial assessment of her students. First, I started with simple procedures(begin with the end in mind). Then we got into it. I showed three dot randomly arrange so that they know without a doubt the concept of three. We did this three different ways. After each showing, I asked them how many dots did they see. Most knew there were three dots. The next question was how did they see it. Now, here was the challenge. It is not uncommon for kindergarteners to come with limited vocabulary. The reason is that this is their first experience in a formal school setting. One of the goals in NT is to expand their vocabulary and to become delibe...

Getting Ready for Number Talks! This week I will be visiting classrooms to engage in Number Talks (NT). What is NT? Number Talks is an intentional ritual to sharpen mental math by engaging in math discourse. Math discourse refers to communication in the mathematic classroom. Number Talks allows children the opportunity to strengthen accuracy, flexibility, and efficiency with mental math strategies (Parrish, 2011). I have incorporated NT as a ritual part of my classroom for at least 5 years. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes to do. Allowing students to engage with mental math strategies strengthens math vernacular. Student begin to become intentional and precise with their thinking and language even at the early elementary school grades. A kindergarten teacher from another school asked me if I have tried it with kindergarten students. I told her yes. I have seen NT used in kindergarten classrooms by phenomenal teachers and have engaged with kindergarteners first...

First Week of School The first week of school went by well. Although very busy, I did not get a chance to give the multiplication assessment last week. This week will be different. I have a couple assessment goals for this week. I will help the reading coach administer her assessments. In between the time, I will give math assessments. Yes! Fourth and fifth grades will take the multiplicative assessment for OGAP and a timed multiplication assessments. Also, I will  give diagnostic interviews using CBM material for first grade. I believe this assessment will yield more elicit responses and information than a computer based test. This will give their teacher and me information on where to begin with their students. I can't wait. This will probably take a couple weeks, but the information is valuable. Pray for me! I will blog next week on my progress. See you next week!

Sunday August 9, 2015 Well, another school year is here! I'm so excited to see my Mighty Champion Scholars on Tuesday especially the incoming fifth graders. I saw a  fifth grade student tonight, and he is ready for a multiplication assessment. He asked me in the store "When are we going to have a times table assessment?" I told him sometimes this week. Be ye ready! This brings me to Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP)training involving multiplicative thinking. The multiplication assessment will have some drill type problems. But I will change it up to reflect the OGAP training I received. My goal is determine if  students understand what multiplicative reasoning means conceptually. Therefore, he will receive a different type of assessment to determine his level on the multiplicative framework. From this, I will develop a Number Talk sequence and other strategies to help develop their reasoning. I will blog about the outcome of this project. I am excited!