Greg Tang Math

Mrs. Tracy Kerth, our school math coach, taught the kids how to play some games on the Greg Tang math website: Greg Tang Math There's currently a math Olympic challenge going on! :) 

Click here to access games: Games  (this also came home on an orange-ish slip of paper)

The games the kids learned were Kakooma, Break Apart, and Missing Number.  All games were started on the "easy" level.  

This is a GREAT game website for a good math challenge.  There are also printables.  

Have fun! 

100 Chart

In EnVision math, we are on  topic 6: numbers to 100.  We learned about the 100 Chart today: patterns we see, columns and rows, and how to use numbers around a missing number to solve the problem.  Below are some great games to play to work on 100 chart skills!  

ABCYa! 100 Chart game

Paint on a 100 chart

Using a 100 Chart to solve problems

Place Value

We are continually working on place value in Kindergarten through counting the days of school each day.  We do this with straws. 

 Tomorrow in math, we will look at using cubes to decompose numbers.  Below a link full of great games that hit on this skill of place value!

Place Value Games

Numbers 11-20

Teen Numbers!

The above video is a song we are learning in math to help us learn the "tricky teen" numbers!  In Topic 5 (EnVision Math), we will learn how to write, count, and read numbers 11-20.  See some helpful sites below to help your child work on these numbers:

Link to activities and printables

Games by standard- scroll down to the "Numbers and counting up to 20" on the left hand side

Pumpkin Math With Our 5th Grade Buddies!

We love our 5th grade buddies!

They came in to help us out with our pumpkin observation math books.  We measured our pumpkins' height, weight, and circumference. We also did an experiment to see if our pumpkins would sink or float.  

Ordinal Numbers

In EnVision math yesterday and today, we worked on ordinal numbers.  I showed the kids a couple of online games to play at home to work on this skill.  Please see links below!

Video and Game

Vegetable Order Game

Number Writing

We have started writing numbers this week in math!  Important things to remember with handwriting:

• All numbers and letter start from the top (we don't make numbers/letters bottom up).  If your child already has a habit of doing this, encourage them to start from the top but it is a hard one to fix! :) 
• Practice, practice, practice!  

Below is a fun song we learned for making numbers.  Today we just learned 0-3.  We say these chants as we practice making them in the air/on our papers. 

Click here to download a great number writing printable to practice at home!   I will send one home with each child tonight for extra practice.  Students who complete it and return it will earn a sticker for their chart! :) Thank you for your support at home!

100 Chart Number Recognition/Placement Game

                                           100 Chart Game

We had a few minutes to use before specials today and played this game as a group on the smartboard.  This is a great game to challenge the kids with number recognition and placement.  The kids really enjoyed it. Please click the link above to access the game!

Coins In My Hands!

In math today we started to learn about MONEY! :) This is a fun topic to teach, as it is super relevant and motivating to students.  Our next report card (will go home at the end of March) assesses students on identifying the penny, nickel, and dime.  We learn about the four major coins: penny, dime, nickel, and quarter.  Below is another one of our fun/silly songs to help us remember facts about the coins. 

Double Digit Numbers

Your child is bringing home a ziplock bag filled with numbers 0-9 today.  Our lesson today was all about those tricky double digit numbers.  We focused on two main activities that would be easy to do at home (especially the first one):

1.  I asked students to show me a double digit number- for example, "54"- they would arrange the 5 and the 4 by each other in the right order.  We talked about the ones place (4) and the tens place (5) and what they represent (see next activity).

2.  Activity two was a little trickier!  Beyond being able to READ double digit numbers, we are learning to make these numbers with straws.  As you can see above, the number 23 is shown with 2 groups of 10 and 3 ones.  We do straws daily with counting the days of school.  You could do this at home with straws, sticks, anything really that you can group into a bundle of 10. 

Subtraction

We have been working on subtraction!  Today we learned a silly song about pirates and subtracting:

Below are a couple of links to subtraction games to play at home on the computer:

ABCYa! Balloon Pop

Fruit Shoot Subtraction

Minus Game

Stations this Week

The second half of our reading block after whole-group instruction is stations and small leveled reading groups.  I meet with each group (4-6 students) daily for 10 minutes each to work on a book at their level.  While I am doing this, the rest of the class is at stations.  Here are a few things that students were engaged in this week during stations!:

 

Math Station:  Build a Snowman

Writing Station: using winter-themed words to write notes, letters, cards, and all sorts of things! This student was writing about hot chocolate- yum. :)

Computer station: students can choose from a variety of games they've learned in computer lab or games that I have listed on our website under "Just For Kids."

Listening Station: books on CD, often themed to what we're learning or the season we're in.

Word Work: using letter cubes to build winter words

Science Station: working with the 5 senses and sorting

These are just a few of the many stations students do- some change weekly while others remain the same always.

Not a station, but a math activity that the kids loved this week- we talked about pattern blocks (shapes) and their attributes.  Students created a picture and then used a pattern block stencil to recreate their picture.  This was such a hit that I will put it as a math station for next week!

December Math

A couple pictures from math this week:

Roll a Gingerbread Man

Race to the North Pole- working on one-to-one correspondence (counting the correct number of places) and reading double digit numbers accurately. 

Great games to play at home!

Using a Scale to Measure Weight

In math today we learned more about the balance scale and how to use it to measure weight.  After exploring the scale and how it works, the kids got to "play" this game on the smartboard: Virtual Scale  to practice making each side equal.  Another game I found that looks fun is on PBS kids- Weight Game on PBS kids  The PBS game is great because it also works on counting by 5's, which we have been doing recently, as well! Happy Weighing!

Counting by 5's

Today we worked on counting by 5's, using our turkey hands to help us!  We also explored what counting by 5's looks like on a 100's chart.  Click this link for your child to show you at home:  100's Chart  The video above is a fun skip counting rap we practiced.

Each student had a number on their turkey- we got in order counting by 5's and then put them up in order in the hallway. 

Symmetry Paintings

Today in math we learned about symmetry!

To illustrate this, the kids painted on one side of a sheet of paper and folded it over to see what would happen. 

Painting one side

Folding it over

and ta-da!! Unfortunately, this refuses to upload going the right direction so I apologize. :(  The kids did a fantastic job.

Tricky Teen Numbers

We worked with those tricky teens today in math!  Teen numbers are any number that has a 1 in the ten's place.  This is a fun song we learned with actions to help us remember teen numbers.  Warning: you may start dancing when you watch this video! :)

This Week in Math and Reading...

It's beginning to look a lot like Halloween....!

In the midst of our growing excitement of the upcoming holiday, we have been BUSY at work! Please enjoy some pictures of various lessons the kids have engaged in this past week.

The kids went on a pattern hunt, looking for patterns in real-world settings through magazines.

The kids did the same thing last week with shapes! Those triangles were awfully hard to find... even Mrs. Coffey had trouble!

Practicing writing numbers in the correct formation in shaving cream...

Today's activity in math was money sorting- practicing sorting coins and identifying the name of each.  This sheet was sent home, as well.

In reading, we have been focusing on the five senses through our science integration.  The kids have conducted their first official "inquiry project" where they came up with questions that they could research.  The final vote was to learn more about "How do you taste things?"   

Kids worked in small groups to come up with "conjectures" (beginning ideas and thoughts) to answer the inquiry question.  They had some great beginning ideas!

We then worked today on revising those conjectures to see if we were correct or incorrect.  Through reading various books and checking out some Discovery Channel science video clips, we learned the following about how we taste.  The kids did a GREAT job, as the inquiry projects are tricky to grasp at first.  Next week, we will begin a new one!

Spin a Number

Today we played Spin a Number! This purple sheet was sent home with your child, along with a white directions sheet. 

The objectives of this game are to practice reading numbers 1-10, and to count and move between 1 and 10 spaces on a game board.  This also practices one-to-one correspondence (which is graded on our Kindergarten report card).

To access this game online, please go to: https://emgames.everydaymathonline.com/demosite/demo_chooser_ec.html

Ten Frames/Games

We had two lessons this week on ten frames in math.  Ten frames are a way for us to compose numbers in an organized fashion to represent various numbers.  It also teaches number sense- looking at the ten frame and knowing if the top row is filled, to count 5 and on.  We worked with ten frames 0-10.  Please see the two games below for your child to play at home if you wish!

http://www.fuelthebrain.com/Interactives/app.php?ID=29

http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=75