August 9, 2019 - Shelley Gray

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Three Base Ten Activities to Introduce Place Value

Wondering how to use that set of Base Ten blocks in your classroom to introduce place value? Here are three different introductory place value activities

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Fluency often gets mistaken for automaticity but it is important to know the difference. When referring to math facts, automaticity means providing a response within 3 seconds or “just knowing.” Fluency, on the other hand, is about much more than speed. Fluency involves accuracy, efficiency, and flexibility. When assessing students for fluency, be sure to choose an appropriate assessment tool. Can a timed test or worksheet assess fluency? No. A timed test or worksheet assesses accuracy only. This is only one aspect of fluency. We have no idea if that student is using beginning counting strategies or more efficient strategies - the only thing we know is if she got a correct answer. There are many alternative assessment tools that can provide valuable insight into how your students are doing in terms of fluency. This includes brief 30 second interviews, observations, math journal writing, and small group work.

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Mastering these sets of multiplication facts first will help students build a strong foundation for basic multiplication. Once a strong conceptual understanding of multiplication has been established and these facts are mastered, related facts are more easily derived. For example, we can use a fact like 5x5 to solve a nearby fact such as 6x5 by simply adding another group of 5.

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Connections are powerful! How can we help our students make connections? I showed my 7 year old a ten frame with 3 on the top and 3 on the bottom. She explained that she knew it was 6 because she knows dice patterns and she knows that 3+3=6. I then added another dot, and she reasoned that there were now 7 dots because 7 is 1 more than 6. We connected the number sentence 3+4 and talked about how the ten frame shows that 3+4 is just one more than 3+3. Then we moved to 3+5. Making connections is essential to fact fluency because it helps students derive facts from what they already know! This type of activity can be used with any operation at any level.

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Question: Your students have to have learned a strategy such as partial products before being faced with a question like this, right? WRONG! When we foster a safe, supportive environment where risk-taking, mistakes, and strategic thinking are encouraged, a question like this can lead to an amazing discussion! This week I challenge you to take 5-10 minutes at the beginning of your math class to have a whole class number talk. The best part is that your students will likely invent some strategies that you have never thought of! You do not need to be an expert - you are the facilitator. Keep swiping to see some ways that your students *might* solve this. I bet they will come up with even more!

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New - Lost in the Amazon Escape Room! This escape activity is ideal for Grades 3-4 and is focussed on number sense concepts. <link in bio>

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In “Number Talks,” Sherry Parrish outlines some important reasons to implement real-life contexts into your math teaching.

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I can’t wait to learn more about how growth mindset can be used to transform children’s ideas and experiences with math. Have you joined our book study group yet?
📚On October 7 we will be looking at @jo.boaler ‘s Mathematical Mindsets as a group of 200+ like-minded teachers from around the world. If you are worried about not having enough time to participate, please join us anyways. The book study will be informal and there are no expectations! ✏️ Let’s start a conversation about mindset in mathematics. One great idea might just be a game changer in your classroom! See the link in my bio for all the details.

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