Part 3: Math Experiences

Reflect:

Consider the following questions:
  • What math games are your favorites for building math fluency? (Remember fluency is more than just fast & accurate. Fluency also means FLEXIBLE).
  • What strategies do you use for building number sense in kids?
  • What caused you to pause and think during this video?

Respond:
After watching the video and exploring our Math Site, please post your response to one {or more} of the prompts above.

Interact:
Read your colleagues' reflections. Feel free to respond to someone by sharing a comment, insight, or interesting possibility.





Comments (13)

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Chelsea Cameron's avatar

Chelsea Cameron · 157 weeks ago

Games are the best way to make my students engaged in fluency practice. They have so much playing with their friends and challenging each other. The two most popular games in my room are ADSUMUDI and Even Steven Odds. ADSUMUDI applies all of the operations. Even Steven Odds has the kiddos working to add and subtract dice. My students absolutely love them! In the video, Christine talks about students guiding instruction. This rings so true when they are playing math games. Each kid gets to see so many strategies ad viewpoints on specific problems in the games. Both games allow you to apply different strategies and most of the time the kids get to see a lot of variations! They teach each other so much.
1 reply · active 155 weeks ago
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Renae Hanson's avatar - Go to profile

Renae Hanson 59p · 155 weeks ago

just looked up those games on Amazon. They look fun!
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Sara Emerson's avatar

Sara Emerson · 155 weeks ago

I paused to think about estimation during the video. I always knew estimation was an important skill for students, but I didn’t realize its link to number sense. As I think about estimation I would like to begin to use some estimation jars with my students. I am also beginning to think about what types of games earlier finishers could play with estimation. She discussed how students count and organize objects. When I taught in Renton we used to do counting collections. I think it would be fascinating to try them again and see how my current students count and organize objects.
Thinking about word problems I would like to incorporate more 3 Reads/3 Act Tasks into my story problem solving routines. I have noticed on of the hardest parts is understanding the problem and what it is asking. This would allow my students to deeply understand what is happening before they know the quantities and question.
1 reply · active 155 weeks ago
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Shawn Henderson's avatar

Shawn Henderson · 155 weeks ago

I thought about estimation as a number sense activity for any environment as a great tool for teachers. I keep thinking about a recent situation where I was working with a family who only wanted memorization to be the math focus. I tried to explain to them that the concepts and helping the student process with visuals is important as well. It didn't end well but this weeks topic makes me feel better for taking the position that math isn't a one way teaching model and there needs to be a student centered and practical approach to how and what we teach.
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Shawn Henderson's avatar

Shawn Henderson · 155 weeks ago

This was a great video because a lot of past experiences came to my mind. Experiences where I got push back for trying to focus on building math concepts with students and focusing on other ways to build fluency other than worksheets and memorization. I remember trying to have an "estimation station" and other areas in the classroom where kids can go and practice their math skills. I really loved doing it and I felt there was a lot of student interest as well. I mostly teach elementary special education so focusing on team work and turning math competency into "fun" was a great idea and something I enjoyed working on. Sadly, I was forced to push that aside and work on worksheets and other memorization based activities. It never felt right to just focus on one method of learning math because my students were not excited about it and neither was I. I also feel that administrators and the special education process (and my learning how to be a special education teacher) forced me to focus on data driven activities instead of building math knowledge (which can take time and practice). I would go back and do things differently if I could.
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Carissa Loreth's avatar

Carissa Loreth · 155 weeks ago

I develop a Choice Board for each of our math units in order for students to have autonomy in how they explore and develop their fluency skills. I pull some activities/games from the Choice Board that Renee developed for each unit. I also supplement with apps/websites that my students love which include Gimkit, and Multiplication by Heart. In terms of building number sense, the use of visuals and models to represent student thinking is really powerful in building conceptual understanding. I like how Christina reminds us to link visuals to prior learning as well. When building number sense, I also like to connect concepts to how they are used in the real-world so that students are able to relate to and contextualize their learning. Being able to step into a problem also helps to better scaffold the picture that students are painting mentally of the mathematics taking place. Gamification in the classroom is an excellent way to make the strategies that we use to build number sense much more engaging for our students - as Christina mentioned students are able to complete 50 problems in a relatively short amount of time without even noticing it. I also love the idea of using estimation to build number sense within our students in age appropriate benchmarks.
1 reply · active 155 weeks ago
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Renae Hanson's avatar - Go to profile

Renae Hanson 59p · 155 weeks ago

Carissa - you probably have already seen this, but just in case...there is an Estimation Slide deck on the 4th grade Math Site. If you decide to use it, make sure you are in present mode because there are animations. Here is the link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Ee4qGnEvk...
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Pam's avatar

Pam · 155 weeks ago

Hands on activities are definitely needed to help children build number sense. My colleagues and I are finding that kids this year have a weaker number sense than in prior years, due to hybrid/remote learning. The Math program that we use is almost all worksheet (Math Journal) activities, so we are frequently talking about ways to better support our kids with activities that are more beneficial for kids. From the video, I noted Christina's suggestion for using estimation to build number sense. I will definitely provide my students with this experience on a regular basis
I also want to be intentional about making games an important part of our Math experience. The kids really enjoy working with each other, and now that COVID distancing rules have relaxed it opens up more possibilities for us.
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Nani's avatar

Nani · 155 weeks ago

Games have been a big part of math for my class throughout the years. It is a wonderful time for kids to practice math skills in a non threatening way. I have appreciated the different games that have been available for us through the math site. I have used math games for parent helper activities. I introduce a new game and then have the kids practice it with a parent helper. Then I put the game out for the class to use.
My pause was with using an estimation jar. I usually start the year with this activity but with COVID I haven't done it. I have little jars with different items in them for kids to estimate, take out and count. I just need to find them. I appreciated the reminder from the video.
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Callie (LWES)'s avatar

Callie (LWES) · 155 weeks ago

What math games are your favorite for building math fluency?

Well, my grandparents would roll if I didn't mention a game called "99." They had me playing this at the farmhouse table from about second grade on. The whole family would gather to play and I had to learn how to keep up, fast, or else my Grandpa would beat me every time. I now play this game with my neighbor kids, they ask to play ALL THE TIME, and it has all the same benefits for them as it did for me. One has to learn how to flexibly count up, count back, and think quickly about how to get your opponents to 99 without putting yourself in danger of having to say 99. If you want to learn how to play, Bicycle cards website (not able to link) has a great tutorial. You can, of course, adjust the rules to fit the needs of your players.

In that same ballpark, I now love to play Zero Wins with my students. Zero Wins is a subtraction game wherein players take turns subtracting, following rules, and try to be the first to get to zero. I absolutely STUNK at this game at first, but the more you play it, the more you're able to think....FLEXIBLY...and be a bit more crafty than your opponent.

My last favorite game came out of the old Everyday Math curriculum...Fraction War. Who doesn't love to play War? This game just puts a twist on it with fractions. It puts kids and adults on a completely level playing field which, of course, they love.

Pie in the sky wish: Each grade level/school would have a premade assortment of games, all bagged up and ready to go, that they could send home to families that need extra practice (or really for any reason). These would have materials in them that didn't need to be returned, but it would be great if they were. Think RAP book bags, but math. How can we make this happen? I've been dreaming of it for years. The key is...teachers don't have time to prep these right now. We need a work party (paid) to make them and keep them stocked.
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Stacey Shireman's avatar

Stacey Shireman · 154 weeks ago

What math games are your favorites for building math fluency?
I haven't found a lot of 2nd grade games for building fluency, but the video and discussion of fluency reminds me of one of my favorite kids' games called Sleeping Queens there are various plays that can be made and flexible ways to win. You can view the rules here: https://www.ultraboardgames.com/sleeping-queens/g....

I think a class discussion is the most powerful strategy to build flexible math thinking in a classroom. Hearing that there are various methods to solve the same problem as a class routine is so great for building this skill.
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Jessica Hanna's avatar

Jessica Hanna · 152 weeks ago

Yahtzee is my favorite of all games! Now of course i cheat and created my own version and use just the top half of the board and use 7 dice but it is my favorite game for 3rd-5th grade for fun Fridays... multiplying , adding regrouping of course. My current addiction is cootie catchers.. i have found several that are multiplication ones and oh what fun these kids are having challenging each other.. themselves and of course their siblings.. I had to add some addition ones lately as the younger classes wanted in on them too!
I am currently a big fan of division dice games and have bought quite a few from teachers pay teachers (https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Games-4-Learning). I have found the more we get them in engage the more flexible they become.
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Cacie P (RCES)'s avatar

Cacie P (RCES) · 151 weeks ago

We have math game time every day at the end of our math block for about 10 minutes. The kiddos love this time because they get to play with their friends but also gets them engaged in math practice in a really approachable and low stress way. We love a good game of bump or slides and ladders with different types of facts or strategies! I also really love what she said about making the story problems as real life as possible. Even just putting the kids' names in the story problems and making them about topics they are interested in totally ups the engagement piece. The part of the video that made me stop and think was when she mentioned she always has her kids make an estimation first before counting. That is such a powerful way of developing their number sense but making an appropriate guess or estimation and a huge life skill that they will use throughout all areas!

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