Who says books are only made for Reading?

Incorporating children’s literature into math lessons is one way to instantly create a more meaningful and engaging lesson for your students. Literacy can be added into math lessons in multiple different ways:

• You Can’t Buy a Dinosaur with a Dime by Harriet Ziefert – Read a fun book that boosts imagination, while also teaching students about currency and saving/spending.

 

• Ten Apples Up On Top! by Dr. Suess – Dr. Suess makes math fun by balancing and counting apples on animals’ heads.

Other sources to view about literacy in math

Math Through Children’s Literature: Making the NCTM Standards Come Alive by Kathryn L. Braddon, Nancy J. Hall, Dale Taylor

Use math warm-ups to engage your students and also encourage mathematical thinking early on in the day.

Math warm-ups help start up brains and also give teachers good filler activities to add in when necessary. Teachers can use this to fill time between class switches or even at the end of the day before the students leave. These do not need to be confined to only being used in the moring.

Examples of math warm-ups:

Which does not belong?

 

Math warm-ups can be daily and adapted to different days of the school week. For example: Tricky Tuesday. Make the problems have catchy titles and add them into your daily routine. Students should be expecting one of these problems at the start of each day.

 

Incorporate daily warm-ups to get students ready to learn and in the math mindset as they start their day. 

Have students solve problems and then discuss their thinking with the group. This will allow other students to get new strategies for problem-solving and/or faster strategies that make completing the math a bit easier.

Websites with Virtual Manipulatives

Toy Theater – Virtual Manipulatives

Math Playground

Virtual manipulatives allow students to experience the benefit with no physical resources. The site offers a variety of virtual manipulatives to use during/after math lessons. Students can use this at home for practice.

 

This is a virtual manipulative from the Toy Theater website. Students can use pattern blocks on their computers for geometry. The students can learn about shapes, create pictures, create shapes using other shapes like triangles to make a hexagon, etc. the possibilities are endless; the site also allows students to use the mirror option for symmetry. When I was in school, we used difficult “mirror windows” that would project the image of the shapes onto the other side of a table. This is no longer necessary with online tools that make learning easier and more fun.

In my future classroom, I will incorporate these virtual manipulatives to offer my students the resources they need to use manipulatives for free and at any locations. Families and teachers do not have to spend money or time creating manipulatives for their student(s) to learn.

Teachers no longer need to worry about preparing materials and/or having enough for each student. No money needs to be spent and the students receive the same amazing benefits and can now carry it with them wherever they go.

Number of the Days are awesome ways to show students multiple ways to make a number. This is something that can be adapted throughout the year and can have difficulty level increased as the students get through more basic numbers (1-10).

Number of the day activities can also be changed to accommodate multiple different grade levels. For example, 10 can include fractions and multiplications. This is an effective activity that can be easily modified and able to work within different math lessons.

Students can be creative and come up with as many possible ways to show the number of the day.

Students can also look for the number of the day as they go through the school day; pointing out when they are on the 5th page of a book, when there are 5 pencils in their pencil box, etc. The students will be doing math to try to find examples of the number of the day as they are doing daily routine tasks. This is also a great way to show students that numbers/math are visible in everyday life, even when there is not physical equations written out to be sovled.

(Row, Row, Row, Your Boat Tune)

Inch, inch, inch, by inch

The inchworm makes his rounds;

Over a beak and down a tail,

inches can be found.

 

Inch, Inch, Inch, by inch

Though voices can be loud;

no matter how hard the inch worm tries,

that length remains unfound.

 

The story Inch by Inch by Leo Lionni tells the story about an inchworm that wants to measure things. The story explains to students that certain objects/things can be measured using inches, while others can not. A bird’s beak can be measured in inches, but a scream can not.

This song I wrote helps to teach students things that can be measured with inches and what things cannot be physically measured this way.

Math needs to be engaging and changed up to keep the students’ engagement during lessons that may be difficult and boring if taught wrong.

Talking in class is not always bad.

Teachers should encourage math discussions during lessons.

Of course, this is only when it is asked and should be lesson-focused conversations.

Students can benefit from collaboration and discussion because the students can bounce ideas back and forth and come up with strategies to solve difficult math problems. Students can also help each other when they are stuck. Who knows a students’ mind better than another student?

Teach students to work together, learn to listen, and think/ask good questions to create a deeper learning experience in the classroom.

Have students discuss math equations by sharing their work and strategies they used to get their answer. The students can be asked to work together to find different ways to get the answers too, like the Number of the Day activity from the previous blog posts.

Youtube video link: Collaborative Learning Builds Deeper Understanding – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWEwv_qobpU

Extra Resources / Research

Center for Teaching Innovation

Why is Collaborative Learning Important?

Deeper Learning: A Collaborative Classroom Is Key

 

In the current day and age of schooling, it is necessary for teachers to have plans and resources for virtual schooling.

• Practice the Whiteboard option on ZOOM. This allows students to receive the benefits of watching the teacher show work and model different math topics, without being in the physical classroom. Although it may be tricky to learn to draw/write using a mouse or key pad, it is a useful tool to have when students are tuning in from their homes.
• Use sites like google docs, where each student can see live and up to date changes that are being made to the document. Students can upload pictures, answer questions, etc. that would mimick the use of a chalkboard splash in the classroom.
• Have virtual manipulatives and math game websites at the ready. Sites like Prodigy make great math education come in the form of a magical video game.

• Utilize the Breakout Rooms option if possible. Students can collaborate and share ideas with peers, like they would in a normal classroom. This may be tricky since the teacher can only be in one space at a time, but with older age groups, this option would be/is fantastic!

Math Talks

How did you solve this?

What did you start with?

How many different ways can you figure this out? Can you solve this a different way?

Can there be more than one right answer? Why?

Math talks focus on expanding students’ knowledge by asking higher-order thinking questions to build up cognition and gauge an understanding of how students’ minds are working with the information/content given.

The teacher will lead the math talk.

1. Teacher will present the problem.
2. Students will solve the problem.
3. Students will explain their reasoning/evidence/thought process(es) while completing the problem.

The teacher will guide the activity with higher-order thinking questions to deepen the conversations and help students think harder on problems that might be “easy” for them. These questions also make sure that students are not just guessing or “wrongly” getting the right answer. Teachers can catch mistakes quicker when students show their work or explain themselves verbally.

Families should be encouraged to be a part of the learning. Send resources home for parents to help practice with their student(s). Families may become discouraged if they are not able to help their child with homework or other activities they are working on / need help with. Send activities home with children like flash cards so the students can have directed help at their houses.

The students can also be given virtual resources or websites to play games on. The students can use these with parents/guardians who are curious about what they are doing at school.

Seesaw has been a great tool to increase parent involvement in school and in the students’ work. The students and parents are linked and the parents will be able to view all of the students’ work that is uploaded. The teacher can grade the work and reupload everything for the student and parent to view at all times. The parents can even comment on the assignments.

 

 

 

Some parents leave extremely awesome and encouraging message on the students’ tests when they are submitted. Even if the student does not get a great score, they are happy to see that their effort was acknowledged by their families.

The students are also able to post videos and photos to the class journal (only the teacher, the posting student, and their family can see these). It builds a connection and makes the parents feel more involved and knowledgeable on what is happening throughout the school day.

Math can be confusing for parents who may not understand the strategies, since they tend to change often. Seesaw is great in this case because parents and students can look back at class activities and prior homework if they forget how to solve a problem.

Aside from using a Number of the Day activity to help teach number sense, students can learn this in some other ways.

A puzzle can be created to have students sort/match numbers with images or other math equations.

One side of the puzzle piece can be the number “6” and the matching puzzle piece can be an image of 6 fish. The students must match the written number to an image or depiction to increase their number sense.

Create activities that the students can do throughout the day, or even at home for extra practice. A puzzle activity like the one above would help younger students to also work on fine motor skills. This type of math can easily be incorporated into other subject areas or used multiple time in “game-form.”

Make fun games for students to do by themselves to pass extra time, or with partners to create a more challenging and engaging experience.