Daily Math Routines
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Integrate a calendar/circle time each morning into your day. Review important foundational skills such as:
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Downloadable resources to incorporate into your daily routine - from TPT!
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Math Foundational Skills
You should be incorporating these foundational skills into your daily Math routine:
•Math Vocabulary. Add math terms to your word wall/notebook. Use these words in your instruction and encourage students to use them when explaining their thinking. •Fact Fluency. Challenge students to solve addition and subtraction facts. Students should solve 10+ facts in 1 minute. •Subitize. Students should know how many dots are on dice without counting. Ten frames, fingers, etc. •Number Talks: Which one doesn’t belong? Why? There should be more than one answer! This helps students make connections and build critical thinking skills.
Focus on Strategy, Not the Answer
The most important thing you can do for your child is shift your focus from the "right answer" to the "strategy" - the process by which your student is solving the problem to get to the answer. We care less about the result and more about the journey to get there.
Teaching multiple strategies - and which ones are best used when - is the key to helping your student internalize number sense. To solve 18-2, for example, drawing a picture would take forever. Instead, try counting back. Decomposing Numbers
To solve 17-9, counting back is going to take forever. Instead, make 10: 17-10=7, so 17-9=8. Or, because 9 is only 1 away from 10, add 1 to 9 and 1 to 17 and change the problem to 18-10, which is much easier to solve. This is also the foundation of algebra, which will help your student with long-term success in math because the concepts are not new, but simply extensions of what they have already learned.
Multiplication: Putting it all together
Second graders begin to learn multiplication mid-year. Multiplication is a skill that depends on several other foundational skills:
Show Numbers in Different Ways
Differentiate for your student easily by choosing large or small numbers to work with. Use the downloadable resources to find 6 ways to make a number in a flower. This is incorporating art into math and making it more hands-on! Number Detectives is another fun activity to show numbers in different ways. Make connections between fact families, use tally marks, base 10 blocks, ten frames, and more!
Make Real-Life Connections
Too often we hear, "I'm not good at math" or "I don't like math." This is a tragedy and our goal is to foster a love of math in our students! Most of all, we want our students to feel confident that even if they don't know the answer, they have the tools to figure it out.
Math is a critical life skill! It is integral to everything from telling time (so you're on time for work) to managing your finances. So many math concepts - time, money, measurement, graphing - have specific real-world applications. Help your student make the connection and understand WHY it's important to learn them! Have frank conversations about fraud, pyramid schemes, and credit scores. These are important life skills based on math proficiency that you can continue to revisit in age-appropriate ways as your student journeys through the grade levels. |
Math is a language; use math vocabulary!For LCs: This talk was given at a local TEDx event. With only 26% of U.S. twelfth graders proficient in mathematics, Dr. Randy Palisoc shares his solution: teach math as a language. Putting words back into math lessons enables even the youngest school-age minds to grasp complex concepts, such as fractions, that are traditionally thought of as abstract and difficult to understand. In his stunningly simple and effective approach, math no longer creates problems for kids but solves them. Watch the video here.
Use Manipulatives!
Manipulatives are physical objects used as tools to engage students in hands-on learning. Students manipulate it - touch and move it - hence the name. Manipulatives can be used to introduce, practice, or remediate a concept. A manipulative may be as simple as Legos you have lying around (used as counters) or as sophisticated as a scaled model of our solar system. We highly recommend a lap whiteboard, a deck of cards and dice. These are the most versatile manipulatives! More examples of manipulatives are included in the picture below.
Base 10 Blocks Activity
Students should have the opportunity to apply what they are learning. This enables them to be more hands-on and actually doing it is often when the "aha!" moment comes. Please find a downloadable activity in which students create a creature out of Base 10 Blocks (printed). Your student should then use skills such as counting on and place value to determine what number their creature represents.
Telling TimeMake a clock out of 2 paper plates and a brad. We recommend color coding the short hand with the hours and the long hand with the minutes beneath.
Fact Fluency:
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hands_on_fact_fluency_practice_activities.pdf | |
File Size: | 187 kb |
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roll_a_sumdifferenceproduct.pdf | |
File Size: | 75 kb |
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number_bonds.jpg | |
File Size: | 65 kb |
File Type: | jpg |
Some Frustration is OK!
Struggling is part of the learning process. Mistakes are how we learn! Give your student time to process and think critically. Ask depth of knowledge questions, such as:
- What went wrong? Why?
- What did you learn?
- How did you find the answer? (Strategy!)
- Can you show me how you solved that? Explain your thinking out loud.
- Do you think there is another way to solve that?
- Solve it 2 ways. Then compare. Which was easier/more efficient/faster? Why? Why didn't the other one work as well?