Back To Basics Is KeyGetting back to basics is key this year as many children strive to catch up after a year of online learning and missed opportunities for individual support due to the pandemic. Last week I spoke about focusing on the mental health of the kids first and academics second. That doesn't mean that we stop teaching the academics and following the curriculum, but we need to find the balance that will support the students where they are at. Returning to some of the basics will be key. Literacy IdeasFor younger children, literacy is huge. Developing and nurturing literacy skills is important. This may include phonics, phonemic awareness, word attack skills, emergent reading and writing activities, and guided reading groups. Sometimes all of these will be needed as the range in primary classrooms can be developmentally wide. Choosing activities that are interactive and hands on will be more engaging than worksheets and will also allow for small group work so that everyone can be working on different skills or concepts that are appropriate. This will require some assessment, preparation, and scheduling, but it will be worth it. Check out my guided reading post to see how I managed this in a multi-level classroom. Math ideasFor math, most curriculums work with a spiral approach so that skills are reviewed and then built on as the concepts are mastered. This is a good practice and makes it easier to adjust to meet the needs of the kids. In the primary grades it is important to make sure that the activities start with the concrete before moving to the abstract. Some kids are able to do this quickly and others will require additional practice with hands on activities. Small group activities and guided math situations will help with this as well. As with the literacy activities, you will need to assess, prepare, and schedule things to make them run smoothly. Check out this blog post for tips that help kids struggling with math. Social studies in the primary grades can be global or community based depending on the specific concepts being taught. Mapping activities can be simple or complex to fit the needs of the children. Studying about the community and more global ideas can also be made simpler or more detailed for the children. Project based activities work well for this. Check out this post to see how I successfully used projects with my primary classes. You can also grab a mapping activity from my followers free resources page if you have subscribed to my newsletter. As for science choose a few different areas and focus on them. It isn't necessary to do all the different topics. This will allow deeper learning and concept development. Kids love doing science experiments and learning about how things work. You can even add in a project if it works. There is a free gravity experiment on my followers free resources page as well as some other free resources in my TPT store that may help you out. Related Posts
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Engaging Kids Up To HalloweenHappy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends. I hope you are enjoying this weekend. This week, we are changing gears and focusing on a day that kids love. It is almost Halloween and kids are already thinking about what costumes they will wear and different parties they might attend. It is a good time to share some activities and resources that are fun and also help to engage the kids in good learning strategies. I have found that kids need a routine and structure even during special days in order to stay regulated when they are excited. That is why I usually take time to focus on different activities that will keep them learning, but engage them due to the theme. Halloween activities can be started earlier in the month, or they can be kept until a day or two before Halloween depending on what you choose. For me, I usually kept more to a fall theme until near the end of the month and then added in the Halloween theme. It helped to keep the excitement level manageable. Also, it didn't stretch out the wait for the kids as much. Literacy Ideas For HalloweenKids often like to hear scary stories and write spooky stories or poems. This is a great time to try a scaffold for those who struggle with getting started. My kids enjoyed writing using this starter: I Was So Scared.... Literacy games and task cards can also be fun to use. They help with stretching the imagination and they can be tied into different elements or concepts that you wish to teach. I found that my silly sentences for working with parts of speech were a hit with the kids in my class and in other classes as well. I created them for English and French and found they worked well in both languages. Math and Science Ideas For HalloweenThere are many different opportunities to incorporate a Halloween theme into math. Data collection and graphing can be done for costumes, treats, characters, and a host of other categories. Practice of math facts and operations can be done with worksheets or task cards that have Halloween themed graphics or clipart. Doing activities with pumpkins can also be fun and can combine math and science. Counting seeds, comparing designs, pumpkin shapes, cooking the pumpkin, and using it to make different recipes are just a few ideas. Pumpkin glyphs are also great to try at this time of year. One of the things that really fascinates kids is potions. Using terms like "eye of newt", "frog toes" or "drops of blood" is sure to engage them. I remember when we would make up potions to drink and give all the ingredients fancy potion names. It was quite entertaining to watch as they saw these drinks being prepared. Really, they were just cola, grenadine, gummy worms, licorice babies, and some other gummy candies. Sometimes we would add orange juice as well. This might be fun to try with your students. You could even create a potion sheet with the "ingredients" listed. Don't Forget Halloween Safety TipsFor younger children, a focus on safety is important too. This is a good time to talk about how to have a safe Halloween experience. They can make posters, and do some role playing or write stories that talk about what a safe Halloween should look like and sound like. Creating activities that help to discern what are safe and unsafe activities might be worth trying as well. Doing some art activities with a safety theme might be fun to do as well. Halloween can be fun for kids, but it needs to be safe. I hope some of the ideas here help to make this Halloween fun and educational as well. Check out my Halloween category in my TeachersPayTeachers store for more resources. Related PostsFall Is Almost HereFall is around the corner. I don't know about you, but we had a beautiful summer. Some days it was a little hotter than we liked, but for the most part, we couldn't have asked for better weather. It was a great time to get outdoors and enjoy nature. Now that fall is arriving, this doesn't have to end. There is still time to get outdoors and do things before the weather gets too cold or wet. This is also a great time to focus on nature and science in the classroom using the outdoors as your source for material and data. There are also many opportunities for math and literacy activities. Fall leavesFall colors are so beautiful. Driving along the streets, the different colored leaves create a wonderful backdrop. Kids love to explore the different kinds of leaves and collect them as they begin to fall off of the trees. There are many different activities that can be done with the leaves such as math activities, science activities, writing activities, and art activities. You can use the colors and shapes for creating art projects, do sorting and classifying activities in math, investigate how the colors change and why as a science activity, or maybe use the collecting of the leaves as a story prompt. These are only a few ideas. Get creative. Beach StudyBeach walks can still be done in the fall, and different activities can be included that explore the sea life there. It is always fun to watch the kids explore the seashore and search for the different sea animals and plants there. They can be found in the tide pools collecting shells, crabs, seaweed, and other things for scavenger hunts. The sea stars and sea cucumbers are always a big hit as well. I remember taking along lots of magnifying glasses so they could get a closer look at the different things they found. Note: We were careful about handling the sea life and we made sure that we were able to return them back to their environment safely. We always put everything back before we left. It is important to leave the sea creatures in their environment. Exploring Parks And ForestsGoing for walks in the parks and forested areas can also be fun to do in the fall. Taking a look at how things might have changed during the different seasons, what different animals might be around, what different plant life looks like, checking out the streams or creeks, etc. are just some of the possible things that can be investigated. Geocaching is also a fun activity to do. It is difficult to do with a large group because it is supposed to be stealthy and not attract attention, but it still can be done in certain settings. A modified scavenger hunt could also be done that mimicks geocaching but is set up for a specific group instead of the public. Farm VisitsMost people think about planting seeds in the spring and watching them grow throughout the summer, but there are also many things that can be planted for the fall. Checking out some of the fall harvests and taking a field trip to a pumpkin patch or farm could also be fun to do. Perhaps some plant investigations can be done now and even compared with plant investigations in the spring. This is only a sampling of things that can be done in the fall that get kids outdoors. The key is to find ways to keep them actively exploring and learning both inside and outside the classroom. The more connections to real life, the richer the learning will be. I hope you find some of these ideas helpful for your students. I would love to hear about some of the things you do outdoors with you class. Let me know in the comments. Related PostsGetting back into the swing of thingsSummer break is over. School is back in session! For some, you have already been in session for a few weeks. For others, this is your last weekend of break. The question on many teachers' minds is "What will this year bring?" Some kids are excited, some are anxious, some are disinterested, and some are unhappy. There are so many emotions during the regular return to school, but with the uncertainty and constant changes last year as we navigated through the unknowns of the pandemic, some emotions escalated. Many kids experienced more anxiety, confusion, and frustration as they tried to learn in new environments and situations, many parents experienced anxiety and frustration as they navigated online and at home instruction, and teachers experienced anxiety, uncertainty, frustration, and burnout as they tried to balance in person, online, and hybrid teaching situations. There was hope that we would be closer to a more normal school year, but things are still changing and we need to be ready to change gears at any moment. This uncertainty is causing teachers stress even before school begins. Many of my teacher friends are still waiting to find out what grade level they are teaching, how many students they will have, and even where they will be teaching. Primary teachers ready to go kitIt is important to have some things ready for any situation to help get through the transitions of the first weeks. You might call it a survival kit. This kit would need activities for various grades, subjects, and configurations of students. The question is, what should be in this kit? Here are some ideas for primary grades. (Some could be modified for intermediate classes, but since most of my teaching was in primary, I have decided to focus on that level for this sample.) Literacy ideas that are ready to goHere are some literacy activities that will engage and provide reading and writing practice for your students. Selections are from various free and paid products. The full products are listed below. Refreshing Idioms Task Cards (sample from the full product) 5 Senses Stories Story Board Fun (activity from Back To School Math And Literacy Ideas) Summer Parts Of Speech (one set of cards from the package) Fall/Autumn Parts Of Speech (one set of cards from the package) Find The Evidence (sample pages) Soundo (part of Alphabet Game Boards) Vocabulary Mandalas (one mandala) Basic Vocabulary Activities ( activities from the product) Quick and fun math activitiesHere are some fun math activities to help your students work on basic math skills. Selections are from various free and paid products. The full products are listed below. Ipad Glyphs (sample from the full product) Pumpkin Glyphs (sample from the full product) Measure Up! (activity from Welcome Back To School) Summer Sports Activity Bundle (activity from the bundle) Measurement Games Team Events ( one event from the games) Number Mandalas Addition and Subtraction ( one of the mandalas) Literacy and Math Game Cards (2 game cards) Science fun and experimentsThese science activities will keep kids entertained while learning about science facts. Selections are from various free and paid products. The full products are listed below. Amazing Weather Facts Posters (freebie) Are You A Rectangle Or A Square (freebie) String Telephones The Clink-Clunk Test Team building activitiesTeam building is important at the beginning of the year, but also throughout the year. Here are some activities that can be done in groups or with partners. Back to School Ice Breaker (freebie) Escape Room What Am I? Vocabulary activity (one activity from the set) Find Someone Who (activity from Back To School First Week Activities) Stumpers (activity from Back To School First Week Activities) What Am I? (sample pages from What Am I?) Self esteem activitiesMaking sure that children understand that they are valuable and important will help to develop positive self esteem. Here are some activities that will help with this. Paying It Forward (freebie) Optimist or Pessimist Task Cards (one set of cards) Goal Setting And Reflections (freebie) Brain breaks and active gamesHere are some active classroom games that can be played as brain breaks or in the gym or outside to provide movement and stimulation between other subject activities. Each of these areas is available as a separate package, or you can get the whole bundle to keep on hand for activities to use throughout the year. It will be helpful when you need to prepare for substitute teacher on short notice or if you just need a quick activity to use. You can find the kit here. As I indicated, this is just a sample of some of the things that could be done. It will be up to you to add your own creativity, experience, and preference to your ready to go kit. For more ideas and resources, you can check out the various categories in my TeachersPayTeachers store. If you are looking for back to school resources, you can check out my recent blog post for resources and tips. I wish you all the best as you venture into a new school year. Note: This resource has been updated and more resources have been added to it. For free resources, tips, and ideas, sign up for my newsletter.
Week 6 Focus: Summer Support For Primary KidsHave you ever worried about your child forgetting what was learned during the school year because of the long summer break? This is often referred to as the summer slide. Maybe you have had some experience with that yourself if you have taken a course and then not looked at the material for a long time. Although there will be some lag after a break, if we do things to help make connections with the skills and concepts during the break, the lag will be short lived and with a bit of review, learning can continue. Here are some different ideas for summer support for your child. Take a break from academicsJust as we need to recharge and refresh, so do children, especially this year after a much more stressful and different type of year. Taking a break from the academics and doing something different for awhile may actually help with improving learning and retention. Fresh ideas and more attention will be easier after a break as long as the break isn't too long. Connect activities with real lifeDo activities that connect the real world with the skills and concepts taught at school. If you would like more details about the various subjects, you can check out my previous blog posts in this series. Week 1 Focus: Primary Language Arts Week 2 Focus: Primary Math Week 3 Focus: Primary Science Week 4 Focus: Primary Social Studies Part 1 Week 5 Focus: Primary Social Studies Part 2 Make activities engaging and funKids want to feel like they are having a break from school. There are many ways to help them continue learning without making them feel like they are doing schoolwork. Using games and hands on activities help to engage them and the concepts get reinforced while they are having fun. Here is an example. This is a blog post I wrote about using manipulatives and games in math. Enjoy the outdoors while learningLet them get outdoors and soak up the sun while learning at the same time. There are so many ways that learning can be done in the real world. Here are some examples. Try having races and using stopwatches to see how fast they can go. Compare with others. See if they can better the times. Go geocaching as a family and search for treasures. This is a great way to learn about places around the community that you may not have known existed. It is also a good way to practice using coordinates and mapping skills. Collect rocks and sort them by different characteristics. Then find ways to use them for other activities such as graphing, crafts, and rock studies. Let your child help plan a camping trip. They could help with planning meals, doing the grocery shopping, making lists of what equipment is needed, and looking at routes and distances. History, Family Heritage and TraditionsLearn about local history by visiting museums, historic landmarks, interviewing long time residents or doing research at the library. Help your child learn about your family heritage, culture, and traditions. Create a pictorial timeline of the family. Get creative practicing academicsIt is important to sometimes do activities that specifically reinforce and review skills and concepts in order for them to be maintained. This is the time to get creative with the academic activities. Mix them up with active games and brain breaks to keep learning fun. Try to avoid too many worksheets and drills. Engage your child in reading and writing activities that have themes or special hooks to make them interesting. Perhaps the library has a summer program where different authors visit or they may have incentives for reading a certain number of books. Puppet shows are a great way to practice acting out stories. Maybe your child could write some different stories and then create puppet shows to present to the family. Try using nursery rhymes or simple songs and using them as the springboard for writing new lyrics based on a variety of themes. There are many different examples floating around on the internet this year that are parodies using popular themes. Check out my blog posts for struggling readers, writers and learners for more ideas. Motivating Reluctant Readers Tips For Helping Struggling Writers In The Classroom How To Engage Your Reluctant Learners In The Classroom Math is definitely an area where I suggest using hands on activities and making things as visual as possible. Math is abstract and therefore hard for many young children to understand if they don't get lots of practical exposure first. I have worked with many older children that struggle with understanding how to do basic operations and more complex math because they haven't figured out how it works. By doing lots of games and hands on activities with them, they have been able to move on and be successful in more difficult math situations. Check out some ways that I have worked with them to help math make sense. Tips For Helping Math Make Sense These are just a few ideas that may help to keep the learning going throughout the summer. Remember to have fun and the learning will happen.
Week 2 Focus: Primary Math ActivitiesThis week I want to focus on some tips for helping primary kids with math. I feel strongly that providing real life experiences helps to make learning meaningful, engaging, and relevant. Math is often thought of as lots of calculations, worksheets, equations and critical thinking activities, but in fact, math is used in almost every decision and action that we make on a daily basis. Here are just a few ways that we use math. I have also included some resource ideas. Sorting and ClassifyingWe sort things at home all the time. Think about your closet, dresser, cupboards, shelves. When you organize clothes, put away groceries, or clean up your room, you are sorting and classifying. This is a good time to look at the different kinds of sorting and classifying. What characteristics are you using for sorting? For example, with clothing, do you sort by type of clothing, color of items, season that they are worn, whether they are hung up or put into drawers or on shelves? These are just a few of the possibilities, but I think you get the idea. Not everyone uses the same set of "rules" for sorting and classifying, so this can provide opportunities for discussions as to how the "rules" are determined and may even lead to changing some of the ways that the sorting and classifying are done in the future. MeasurementKids are fascinated with measuring things. There are so many opportunities to practice measurement in everyday activities. One of the best places to do this, is in the kitchen. When cooking or baking, many forms are measurement are used. Measuring out ingredients involves using weight, mass, and volume to determine how much of each item to use. Scales, measuring cups, measuring spoons, and container of specific measurements are used. When the items are being prepared, temperature and time also become important if baking, chilling, or freezing is required. Another place where measurement is important, is at the store when shopping for food or clothing. When buying groceries, produce is weighed, packages have measurements to check, labels are read, and portions are measured. When buying clothing, size and height are important to know. At home, doing things in the workshop or the yard often require understanding linear measurement. Measuring lengths and widths of materials and being able to accurately use a measuring tape and calculate when doing construction is important. Here are a couple of examples of other measurement opportunities that involve longer distances. If you want to go on a trip, it is important to figure out how far away your destination might be and how long it will take you to get there. Perhaps you can plan it out together. Watch a track and field event or a football game. Distance is key in these sports. Time can also be important. You can find out more specific ideas for measurement here. Check out my measurement category for more resources. EstimationIt is amazing how many people find it difficult to estimate things. There are so many time when this can be an important skill to possess. Think about trying to estimate how much food is needed to feed a family, how many items will fit into a container, how much money you will need when you get to the checkout, just to mention a few. Being able to estimate time needed to get ready for school, when to leave for an appointment, how many things can be done during a set amount of time are other good skills to have. Learning to estimate things well takes time and practice. Start small with estimating things like how many objects are in a jar, how many items you can fit in a box, how long it will take to walk around the block. As the estimations get fairly accurate, increase the complexity. It might even be fun to have a competition to see who gets closest to the actual answer. TimeDeveloping an understanding of time takes practice. It begins as a concept that is very broad for young children. It is important to start with big ideas and gradually get more specific. Younger children aren't ready to read clocks and accurately make sense of what the time means. How many times have you heard kids telling their friend they will invite them to their party as if it is happening next week, when in fact, it may be several months away. They will talk about what they want to do next time some event happens as though it will be happening again soon. That is why calendars and schedules are introduced in the classroom and become a focus of each day. As kids become familiar with days, weeks, months, and years, they can be introduced to small portions of time. Using schedules with times attached to them will help with getting a sense of how long something lasts, what routines happen when, and if a picture of a clock accompanies the schedules, what to look for on a clock. Finally, actual clocks and written time can be formally introduced. Here are some resources for routines and schedules and telling time on an analog and digital clock. Routines And Schedules Task Cards Telling Time Task Cards Clock Templates Telling Time Task Cards Bundle GeometryMany people struggle with spacial awareness. Learning about geometric shapes and solids, help with understanding how different things fit together. When creating structures it is important to understand how shapes go together. Imagine trying to balance a cube on a sphere when building a house. Try doing some puzzles or activities that work with stacking objects, creating structures, making 3D puzzles, or even doing something like building a gingerbread house. For some geometry games and activities, check out my geometry category. FractionsLearning about fractions is another thing that can be confusing for kids. Sharing a pizza, or cutting slices of a cake or pie help them to visualize what is happening. Using lego can also help with seeing how different pieces can make a whole. The more opportunities they have to see fractions in real life, the better they will be able to apply the abstract concepts. Basic operationsThere are so many examples of how basic operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are part of daily life. It might be fun to get the kids to find ways that they use them instead of giving them examples. Perhaps they could create list of how they use these operations during the day and then compare them with other family members. Final thoughtsWell, there you have some different options for adding math into daily living. As you can see, it is actually an integral part of our daily lives already. We just need to stop and focus on it sometimes. There are many other examples out there. I have given you a few, now let your imagination and daily experiences show you other ways that math is used. Feel free to share some of these in the comments. If you are looking for math resources for primary kids, I have many different ones available in my TPT store. Check them out here. Next time I will be sharing ideas for science activities. Check out last week's post if you want more ideas for how to incorporate language arts in everyday experiences. Related PostsHandling money is fascinating for children and it can be used to teach many different skills. It is also challenging for some children to grasp how it works. Teaching kids about money with games and activities will help them to make connections that can be used in real life. The more opportunities they have to work with it and handle it, the better they will understand how to use it. Learning the value of moneyI find it fascinating to watch kids choose nickels over dimes when given a choice.They don't know the value, but they think that bigger is worth more. They are always surprised to find out that the dime is worth more than the nickel. It is important to teach them what the values of the different coins are and how they can be combined in different ways to equal a certain amount of money. For example, 50 cents could be 2 quarters, 5 dimes, 10 nickels, 50 pennies, or combinations of these coins. Counting coins and bills is fun, and it is important too. In order to correctly pay for things or make change when given money, children need to understand how to count money. This is a great time to do activities that encourage exchanging money. Perhaps they could pretend to go shopping, or do some activity where they need to order food at a restaurant and pay cash for it. Understanding written money amountsBeing able to recognize money amounts in written form is also difficult for many children. They often get confused by the $ and the decimal point. The ¢ is not as difficult for them to recognize and use. The more they use both forms, the easier it will be for them. For younger children, explaining how the decimal works might be too abstract, but they should be able to understand that dollars come before the decimal and cents come after it. I like to use lots of games and activities to practice this. I created some task cards and Boom sets for counting money and matching up the ways it is written. You can check them out here. Debit cardsMany children think that money is a plastic card that parents use when they go shopping. They don't understand that a debit card is used for transferring money as a payment, but that the money needs to be there in order to spend it. They need to have this concept explained and taught to them. I discovered this when I was teaching my grade 3 class about money. This led to creating a unit with them about money, how to earn it, how to save it, and what happens when it is spent. It was a great learning experience for all of us. You can read more about it here. Making connectionsKids love to hear stories that relate to what they are learning. This was a great chance for me to share a story about my kids and their grandfather. Their grandfather saved any coins he received when he went places or bought things and he kept them in a container at home. When we would go over to visit, he would dump the coins out in the middle of the bed and let the kids take a handful of them. They were allowed to keep whatever they didn't drop as they went from one side of the bed to the other. It didn't take long for the older ones to strategically choose which coins they wanted to grab to gain the most money. He also had a big pig that he put all the pennies in. Once a year, they got to roll the pennies and take them to the bank. These activities gave them opportunities to practice handling money and counting it. Real life situations and other ways to use moneyMoney is also a great tool to use when practicing addition and subtraction. I often taught my students to "go to the bank" when they needed to regroup. We would also practice taking pennies and trading them in for dimes, taking dimes and trading them in for dollars, and the reverse. It helped them to visualize how regrouping works. The same thing can be done with base ten blocks, but my students were much more excited to use the money to do the regrouping. Real life situations are the best ways to help kids understand the importance of money. If they have a bank account and can see the money being deposited and withdrawn they will understand that money needs to be in the account in order for it to be taken out. Maybe they can be given opportunities to pay for things and then count the change to double check that they got the correct amount back. Learning about ways to earn money, save money, and give money is also important, but I will save that for another time. Here is a free set of task cards that may help with practicing how to recognize the way money amounts are written. You can get a copy by clicking the image. I hope that you found some ideas here to help with teaching money. Let me know in the comments if you have some other ways that work for you. I would love to hear about them. Don't forget to grab your free task cards by clicking the image or here. Related Posts
Word problems are challenging for many people, not just kids. It is important that we teach some strategies for solving word problems so that our students will be able to solve problems that come up in the real world, not just the classroom. What are word problems and how do we solve them?Word problems are questions that are needing answers. They usually have some math element and require an understanding of the language being used and the questions being asked. Then the answer can be determined. The first step is to figure out what questions are being asked. Once the questions are identified, the next step is to look at the problem and see what information has been provided. This information will help when looking for the answer. Often it is suggested that we look for keywords in the problem. Although this can sometimes work, keywords are not always helpful because they could have a different meaning in this context. Many word problems have more than one step. If we look at the problem and start with what we know and what we want to find out, this will help us to figure out the steps. Introducing word problemsWhen introducing word problems, keep them simple. Start with simple, one step problems that require basic addition or subtraction. Once kids understand the process, you can make them more complex. Muti-step word problems will require lots more practice. It is important to understand how to use the information given and the questions being asked in order to figure out the different steps to take. Start with small numbers and only a couple of steps and gradually increase the size of the numbers and steps. Differentiation will be key as some children will require more practice to be able to solve the problems. By using the same model with smaller numbers and fewer steps, everyone will have the chance to be successful. Don't forget to provide opportunities for those that need more of a challenge as well. I have found that practical applications help. If kids have a reason to learn something and you can relate it to something in their world, they are more likely to "get it". I created a set of money word problems for my students when we were creating our money lessons unit. You can check it out here if you want to see more. I was tutoring a young girl in French and we created a menu and some task cards together. I translated it into English as well. If you would like a copy of the English version, click the image below. There you have some of my thoughts and suggestions for helping your students with word problems. If you have some other ideas or strategies that have worked well, let me know in the comments.
Don't forget to grab your free copy of the money word problems here. Multiplication is a difficult concept for many children to grasp. Drills are one way to learn, but multiplication strategies will work better. Relating multiplication to what is already known will really help. A simple place to start is by thinking of it as repeated addition. Strategies To Visualize MultiplicationThere are many ways to visualize multiplication. We can use circles and add an equal amount of objects into each one to see that it is grouping things together. We can use arrays so that we can see the equal rows and columns. Again, we are looking at equal groups, just in a different set up. We can also actually share objects between people, one for you, one for you, one for you, and so on. This way it is easy to see that they are equal. The number of objects times the number of people equals the total number of objects. This could also be a good way to visualize division as the objects are actually being divided equally among the people. Memorizing multiplication facts used to be the way kids were taught to use multiplication, but many kids didn't understand how this worked and they found memorizing difficult. It is helpful to know multiplication facts, but by also adding some strategies, if they get stuck or don't remember one of the facts, they can still solve the problem. Sometimes we need to simplify situations so that they make sense. We can't just share an algorithm and expect everyone to be able to do it correctly. I worked with some grade 5 students that were really struggling with math. They were so confused that they were unable to do the work given in class. We went right back to basic addition facts and how to do addition with larger numbers using some strategies that made sense to them. Once they felt confident with this, we moved on to simple multiplication questions. If multiplication is like repeated addition, it makes sense that they would need to have a solid understanding of addition before moving on to multiplication. After working on some strategies for single digit multiplication questions, we attempted to do 2 digit times 1 digit questions. By applying the strategies from addition and expanded notation, this process was successful. They were able to see it visually and it finally made sense. What multiplication strategy should I use?It is important to remember that not everyone uses the sames strategies to figure out the answer. Just as we all take different routes when we travel to school or downtown, so people take different routes when they solve math questions. As long as the route works and gets you to your destination, that is great. If you have difficulty because you took a wrong turn, it is important to correct that and redirect you. This means that you need to be able to explain your thinking process. I always encourage my students to tell me the route they took. When I was working with a group of 5 students, it was interesting to hear all the different ways they took to get to their answers. What was especially good, was that the others listened and realized that they didn't have to take the same route, but also, that sometimes the route someone else took might be a better route to try next time. When the route didn't work out, sometimes one of the others was able to explain how to get back on track. This was very exciting. It meant that they were getting it and that they were able to share what they had learned with others. After practicing strategies for awhile using visuals, it is important to be able to move to a more abstract model. We don't always have materials available to make a visual model. In real life situations, we need to be able to figure things out either mentally or with paper and pencil. This is where the strategies really are useful. I created a resource that shows some of the strategies and how to use them. If you are interested in checking it out, click the image. I tutored a couple of girls with these strategies, and it was amazing to see the growth and confidence they had after working with them for awhile. The following year, they went to middle school and the teacher started to give them more difficult material to work with. At first they were confused, but as we broke the material down and looked at it, they were able to see that it was the same process only with larger numbers. The teacher gave them the traditional algorithm to use and this actually confused them because it wasn't explained. They tried to follow the example but didn't understand what was really happening. When we broke it down and used the strategies they had learned, they figured it out and then they were able to actually use the algorithm. One thing I did tell them was, if you don't get it, use the strategies you know. It may take more space, but it will get you to the right answer. They took this advice and they were able to get through the material. Not every strategy works with every person. It is important to try them and figure out which ones are the best fit. This will provide a set of tools for real life situations. I hope this has given you some ideas for ways that you can help your students to feel more confident and successful with multiplication. Here is a simple resource that will help to remind you of some of the strategies to choose from. I hope these tips help with teaching your students multiplication. Don't forget to grab your copy of the strategies reference sheets by clicking the image or here. Related Posts
When we think of teaching measurement, we often think of it as 2 different parts: non-standard measurement and standard measurement. Today I would like to take a look at both of these parts. Non-standard MeasurementNon-standard measurement is measuring using everyday objects as the unit of measure. It is often used for measuring lengths of things. Familiar objects are often used. Most classrooms have a variety of objects available to use. Here are some of the ones I used: blocks, links, erasers, pencils, paper clips, popsicle sticks, and straws. Although these objects can give us a number of units of length, since they are of different sizes and shapes, the answers can vary. They also are limited to measuring short distances because of the number of units required. Standard MeasurementStandard measurement uses units that are standard around the world. They may be measured using customary measuring units, imperial measuring units, or metric measuring units. Standard measurement of length is usually done with a ruler for shorter objects and a measuring tape for longer objects or distances. When measuring short distances, we use a ruler that has 12 inches or 30 cm. When measuring longer distances, we use a yardstick or a metre stick. Other instruments would be needed if measuring longer distances such as miles or kilometres. Measuring MassFor measuring mass, objects can be used for non-standard measurement. For example, marbles could be placed on one side of the scale and the object being weighed on the other side. Marbles would be added until the scale was even on both sides. Then the number of marbles used would be counted and that would be the mass of the object. Since not all marbles or other objects have a defined weight, this would be fine for a classroom activity, but the results might not be the same for each person. For measuring mass using standard measurement, weights of determined size would be used or a calibrated scale would be used. For smaller items, a kitchen scale would work. It would weigh things in ounces or pounds for customary measurement, and grams or kilograms for metric measurement. For larger items or people, a bathroom scale or a scale such as the one used at airports would be needed. This would weigh in pounds or kilograms. Measuring VolumeWhen measuring volume, non-standard measurement is not as common, but it can be used. The idea is to see how many objects would fit into something to fill it. Cotton balls, marbles, blocks, or similar items could be used. Usually we measure volume when using liquids, or ingredients for baking or doing science experiments. It is best to use standard measurement for these situations. In customary measurement, it is usually measured in cups, portions of cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, half teaspoons, quarter teaspoons. Liquid measure could also be in ounces, quarts, and gallons. In metric measurement, it is usually measured in millilitres. Liquid measure could also be in litres. Measuring TemperatureTemperature is measured in standard measurement. It is measured using the Fahrenheit (°F) scale or the Celsius (°C) scale. Depending on what is being measured, one of these scales is used. For customary measurement, the Fahrenheit (°F) scale is used. For metric measurement, the Celsius (°C) scale is used. In some cases both scales might be used. For example, I use metric for outside temperature, but customary for baking. Starting out with non-standard measurement with young children works because they don't need to learn all the terms right away, but it is important that they start to use standard measurement and become familiar with the units used once they have explored and had hands on experience to understand the concepts of length, mass, and volume. One of the ways I introduced the ruler and the term feet to my students was by having different children count footsteps along a given line to see how many feet it was. I made sure to choose children with varying foot sizes so they would get different answers. Then we discussed building a fence and going to buy the lumber. We talked about how the fence would be a different length depending on who's foot was used. Then, I introduced standard measurement. I talked about how the ruler we use is one foot long (or in metric situations, about 30cm). If everyone used the same ruler length, the fence would be one standard length. When teaching about mass and volume, baking examples or science experiment examples could be used. It is important to make connections to real situations so that they understand why they are learning about things. It is also important to give them opportunities to use the standard measurements and get practice using the terms as well. Check out this blog post for real life activities that use measurement. Here is a little measurement booklet that I made for you that might help your students with understanding the difference between non-standard and standard measurement. I have also created a measurement activity using non-standard objects. You can get your free copy here. If you would like to have some fun with using non-standard measurement in some team activities, check out this resource. If you are looking for other measurement resources, check out the measurement category in my TeachersPayTeachers store. So there you have it. These are some of the ways that I have taught measurement in my classroom and some of the activities that I have used. I would love to hear how you teach measurement in your classroom. Let me know in the comments.
Don't forget to get your free measurement booklet and activity. |
About Me Charlene Sequeira
I am a wife, mother of 4, grandmother of 9, and a retired primary and music teacher. I love working with kids and continue to volunteer at school and teach ukulele. Categories
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