Math Block and Place Value Overload

   I don't know if you have been watching the news at all, but my poor state of Colorado is overflowing with rain and flood waters. It is so hard to believe that the major cities around me, that are only a 30 minutes drive, is like a scene from a movie. Thank goodness we have a sump pump that has held-up and no flood in my city. Many of the teachers and staff from my district live in cities with road closures so we had an early release yesterday across the district. The rain is continuing tonight with many of the larger school districts already closed for classes Monday morning.

   Well we are in full swing in our math block. My teammates and I have blocked out 90 minutes for math each morning. 60 minutes is spent with calendar, graphing in our Leadership Data Notebooks, whole group lessons, cooperative learning, and individual work. The last 30 minutes is spent with Daily 5 Math. We have been building our stamina the last several weeks with Math with Self and Work on Writing. Math with Self we use my math recording sheet below with today's number of the day. Math Writing is spent working with my math journals. You can read about them and download them here.

 

  This week my kiddos will move onto hopefully get to begin working with Math Work. We will use my Apples Math Unit to practice how to get the bins from our math cart, play each activity, and write our answers on the recording sheets. You can read about this unit and download them here.

   The past week our focus has been on expanding our base ten understanding. As mentioned in prior posts, my teammates and I are using the Georgia Math Units with our kiddos this year. But while planning we discovered that all of our kiddos were missing skills and concepts for the rigor of these units. So we have been using items from my Extending Base Ten Understanding Unit. We began last week with number line activities. We gave each of our kiddos a number card and had them try to order themselves from 1-23 (we only have 23 kiddos so far!) with NO voices. This was pretty difficult with the 17, YES I said 17, boys that I have in my class. We tried it a second time using our voices and helping order each other. I then reviewed number lines with my anchor cart and a large number line. We hot glued frogs onto clothespins so my kiddos would "hop" them forward and backward on the number line. Once we had a good understanding of how to use number lines to solve addition and subtraction problems we played Number Line Sliders. Taking gallon baggies with drawn on number lines we worked in groups to solve addition or subtraction problems. We all began with a different number, spun a spinner, and added or subtracted 0, 1, 2, or 3 from our starting number. Use our number line slider baggies we solved the equation and wrote our answer. We then carried our answer down and spun the spinner again. We played twelve rounds!

   My kiddos then reviewed their odd and even numbers. We played Stand Up, Hand Up, and Pair Up with number cards and odd/even cards. Kiddos with a number card had to pair up with a kiddo that had an odd or even card depending on their number. We then made the cutest Odd and Even Frogs. My kiddos colored and cut frogs and glued flies onto their "tongue". Once they had their flies glued on their recording sheet they wrote the total number of flies, made fact families, and wrote if their flies were odd or even.

 

   We then moved onto place value. WOW. WOW. WOW. This was a struggle at first, but I think my kiddos are finally starting to understand what place value actually is...not just a number. We began by sorting base ten pieces onto mats by bits, rods, and flats. Once we learned what the pieces were we then sorted the base ten pieces by ones, tens, and hundreds.

    Then using my Mystery Number mats I had my kiddos work in their cooperative groups to make the number I asked with their base ten pieces. So I started by say, "My mystery number has three bits, four rods, and two flats. What's my mystery number?" My kiddos built the number on the mat and wrote the number under each of the place values. We played several times with me changing my vocabulary to, "My mystery number has six tens, one hundred, and eight ones. What is my mystery number?" My kiddos LOVED this game. I had one table that had trouble Synergizing together, but they finally got the hang of it. We spent the end of the week using Abby's Marshmallow Math to introduce expanded notation. I don't have any pictures of this activity because I had to use my first sick day of the school year for my eldest kiddo. Poor guy had a fever for two days and then we had to put his doggie down. SAD day! :( But, my sub said the kiddos LOVED this activity and did pretty well. Then on Friday we made place value houses with base ten pieces. My kiddos made skyscrapers and farms that we learned about in our community unit.

   We will review expanded notation on Monday and Tuesday with a dice game and more activities from my math units. We will finish up the week with less than/greater than/equal to with manipulative and alligator crafts. PLACE VALUE OVERLOAD!!! You can get my Extending Base Ten Understanding Unit in my TPT store by clicking on one of the links below.