Still on place value, adding money to the mix...

We are using the "Pick Up Sticks" place value game (jumbo tongue depressors with 1 dot on one side and 10 dots on the other) to practice counting tens and ones. I also added some with a star instead of a dot. The stars represent hundreds, so the children can practice place value through hundreds. 

 Another thing we've done is copy 100s (from the base ten pages in our workbook) on different colors for our children to cut apart and use to create pictures.

We have wipe-off white 100s charts that came with a previous Math series. Leah calls out a number like 5 tens and 3 ones and has her students cover the number with transparent counters. I got some transparent counters today so my students can practice the same.

I gave directions to "find 5 tens and 8 ones. Now find that number less one ten. Find 9 tens and 5 ones. Now find the number 40 less." Most of my students did well with this one...it's ready to be an independent station! Yipee!!

Goldfish Scoot!

We're playing the "Trading Game" and practicing more while adding in money (with those children who aren't totally overwhelmed). I introduced two more games today, so the children have plenty of games to play for practice and I can pull small groups. We will be adding a Math vocabulary word each day to our Math journal as well. I'm thrilled with how well they are progressing. It seems they are "getting" it overnight. I tell them not to stress, just to rest! Their brains need time to work on the new information, so sleep on it and we'll go at it again tomorrow. That seems to have really helped my children. They know I have high expectations, we have SOOOO much to learn, and I'm not going to slack off, buuuuttttt...they also realize that I know they can only take so much. I understand when they're at the point of exasperation and tell them to take a rest. It's amazing how much new information children can grasp when we encourage them, exasperate them, encourage them, push... welll, you get the picture! Here are some more pix....

We had so much fun with the goldfish that I thought we could play Scoot with them. I made little goldfish, tossed some on each desk, and we played SCOOT! with our place value. It was very interesting... :) I saw very quickly who still struggles with place value! This was more of a teaching activity than a review this time...so, back to the old drawing, er, practice board. :)

Teaching Place Value with Goldfish Colors crackers

I introduced place value using Goldfish Colors. They were on sale at Publix supermarket ten for $10.00 which really means $1.00 per bag. You pay $1.00 per bag whether you buy 1 or 100. I bought 15 bags (various flavors) because my husband eats them, too. I only needed 2 1/2 bags of Colors for my lesson. I gave each student 18 goldfish. For the first time, the yellow represented ones, orange represented tens, green represented hundreds, and red represented thousands. Each child had a dry erase marker to use on his/her desk. We drew place value charts to match the one I drew on the white board. My huge fish are magnetic, so I stuck them up on the board with the words above. I held up a baggie with a few goldfish in it and we practiced figuring out the number together before the children started with their own fish.

A teamie told me that she had to explain to some of hers that the orange goldfish had ten yellow fish in his belly, the green one had 10 orange fish in his belly, and the red one had 10 green fish in his belly.  Above the orange and yellow fish you see 2664 and 4662. One student had written his places backwards. That was a teachable moment for my students. I explained that his number should be four thousand, six hundred, sixty-two but, with the way it was written I would think he only had two thousand six hundred, sixty-four because he wrote it backward. I said I'd much rather have four thousand dollars instead of two thousand. Everyone agreed, so we agreed that the thousands go first, then hundreds, then tens, then ones. :)

  After the children had made their first number, I told them they could eat six fish, keep 12, and make a new number. They did this and were instructed they could eat some more fish, keep at least six, and make another new number. Heaven realized that I was subtracting six every time.

   Some of the children also told me they were making a picture graph out of their fish to make the number. I found it interesting that they associated the arranging of the fish with graphing (which we just finished). What does that say about their number sense? How about their grasp of place value and/or graphing? Does place value tie in with graphing and use of a key? Comments, please...

This was an awesome lesson and I carried around my checklist, watching for students having trouble. I also made smaller fish (a little smaller in diameter than a tennis ball) for my students to use to practice place value in pairs. I think one of the requirements will be to gather all the yellow fish and trade each group of ten for orange fish, etc cetera with green and red fish. I also added purple to the fish so that students who exceed can practice place value to the 10,000s.

Place Value, Rounding and Estimating

We are working on place value for the next six weeks. One of our EQs (essential questions) is about rounding. Teaching rounding to second graders is not the easiest concept. Here are some of the ways I have taught rounding:

 A friend taught the children that the number to be rounded is like Cinderella. The number to the right is the fairy godmother. She decides whether Cinderella gets a new "gown" (number) or not. Then, she vanishes and leaves a zero. 

I made up a little poem several years ago...
Stay the same
For zero to four,
Go on up
For five or more!

A first grade teacher draws a "hill" and puts the five at the top, toward the right as if it's getting ready to go down the hill to the right. 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 are going up the left side...never making it up the hill. 6, 7, 8, and 9 are going down the right side of the hill. She puts the numbers on each side of the "hill" at the bottom.

Leah, my teamie, draws her "hill" to look like a rollercoaster. She draws the cars with numbers on them and puts people in the rollercoaster cars. So today, my students drew their own rollercoasters to show rounding. It's amazing how quickly you can see who has rounding and who doesn't! So, now we're on to reteaching!

A way we teach place value is to run colored copies (or let the students color their own) of hundreds from our Math series templates. The students use these and cut them into tens and ones to create pictures. Then, they count the hundreds, the tens, and the ones to add them together for the total from their pictures. We've done this as another way to practice as well as assess student understanding. You can use the Activboard to make pictures to show some ideas for students and teach them how to count the hundreds, tens, and ones. 

A student teacher also used Goldfish Colors (four colors: yellow, orange, green, & red) to practice place value. She gave out colored goldfish to each student and a place value chart to thousands. Each color represented a different value: ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands. She had a place value chart with construction paper goldfish hanging on yarn so she could turn it over and show the goldfish two ways. I did not put the fish on a place value chart. I just laminated the goldfish and put magnets on the back. I drew a place value chart on my white board and stuck the paper goldfish on it. That way I can use the fish four ways and have the students practice with each color being a different value. This may need to be modified to ones, tens, and/or hundreds for students struggling with place value.

We'll be doing this tomorrow so I'll add pictures soon! :)