Our NWEA testing is complete. All learners made progress and I am very proud of them! As soon as everyone in the school finishes, and results are finalized, I will be sending home their scores :)
NWEA TESTING
We are scheduled to take the math portion of the NWEA testing on Tuesday the 2nd. Please be sure your learner has had a good breakfast and is ready for the day. :)
DAILY 3 STRUCTURE
Today in math we started a new structure for our time together. Similar to the Daily 5 structure, math will set up in the Daily 3 structure. Each day learners will have 3 choices, math by myself, math with someone, and math writing. Math by myself will include any new practice as well as any mass distributed practice needed both on paper or iPad apps. Math with someone will include games or other activities to practice skills that can be done with a partner, and Math Writing is a word problem or math problem that will be completed in a math journal. While learners are completing these Daily 3 activities, I will be pulling groups to meet individual or group instruction. We will take some time practicing and getting into this routine this week, but I am excited about this new structure. :)
MASS DISTRIBUTED PRACTICE
At the end of the this week, we took some time to do some mass distributed practice. What this means is we practice and practice a lot at the beginning of learning something, however, as time goes on we still need to go back and practice and review these skills to ensure mastery. We went back this week and review some of the skills we had worked on earlier in the year. The learners did a great job and showed mastery over these concepts still. :) This practice will continue to be implemented during our math time so all learning goals we have worked on are kept at the forefront of our minds and mastery is maintained.
EXPLAINING OUR THINKING
A new learning tool that has been implemented into math is the Explain Everything app. It allows learners to not only show their work using the drawing feature, picture taking feature, or screenshot uploading, but they are also able to and expected to explain their thinking that goes with the work they are doing. This is a great tool that shows me exactly what they are thinking while they are working instead of just seeing a finished product of work. They will be able to start sharing these pieces of evidence with me for scoring, and also with you so you can see what they are doing throughout the day. :) This week, we focused on just a problem or two a day to get started with using the app appropriate and exploring all of its great features. :) I am excited to dive in deeper with this app, and start using it to really up the rigor and expectations in the classroom.
CENTERS
We have started working in centers now. There are approximately 4 groups of learners within our math class. We are working on anything from counting coins to telling time with place value and addition and subtraction in between. Our centers usually consist of working with me, a practice center, an activity on their iPad to reinforce the skills we have been practicing, and a manipulative or game center which typically acts as a distributive practice center. If you have any questions relating to the centers or math class in general, please feel free to contact me. :)
NEW GROUPING
We started with a new grouping today for math. With the exception of a few kiddos, most them are new to my room. We will focus this week on doing some review and informal assessments to figure out where they are on a math pathway that we are using as a school. If you are new to my group Welcome!, and if you returning I am excited to continue to work with you. :)
NWEA ASSESSMENT
Early next week, either Monday or Tuesday, we will be completing the NWEA assessment. This online assessment will give me a good idea of what the learners know and what they need to work on. Once the assessment is complete and the results are finalized, a notice will go home letting you know how your child did. If you have any questions regarding the assessment or results when they go home, please feel free to contact me. :)
CENTERS
We have started this week with math centers. Each learners is placed in a group with other peers that are working on similar goals. The centers that they rotate through change a bit day to day or week to week, but for the most part are as follows: 1- working with me 2- practice 3- iPad reinforcement 4- game or manipulative that reinforces or reviews skills. The centers have been working out very well. The learners are much more engaged and productive during this time, plus I am able to meet on a much smaller group basis with each learner everyday! :)
NUMBER BONDS
We have taken what we know about our part/part whole model and applied it to number bonds. We have been working with number bonds that have a missing whole and a missing part. We are using our different strategies and manipulatives to help us during practice. We also began playing some games that are helping us reinforce our knowledge of numbers to 10. Some of those games include Caterpillar Math, Candyland with Number Bonds, and Make 10. This week we will start learning about and transitioning to math centers.
STRATEGIES AND MANIPULATIVES
We have been continuing to focus on numbers to 10 and decomposing them using a part/part whole model. In the past few classes, we have made number bracelets and used a number line as strategies to figure out the answers to our problems. We also used dice as a way to fill in our 2 parts before finding our whole. This is something super easy to work on at home as well. Just ask your child to figure what ____ and _____ are together. The more practice the more automatic those facts to 10 become. :) We also began our math notebooks today. Each day, there will be a problem to answer as a warm up, review, or challenge to start each class period. The notebook is dated and will show progress as well as give the learners an opportunity to go back and look at a problem if need be.
WELCOME TO MY MATH GROUP!
We spent some time on Tuesday discussing our expectations for the upcoming weeks. We also began working on some calendar skills including months, year, days of the week, and using a place value chart to begin tracking how many days we have been in school and how many days we have left. Our learning target that is our focus is building number sense using numbers to 10. This means manipulating these numbers, practicing facts to 10 so they are more automatic, solving word problems involving numbers to 10, and using/learning some paper/pencil as well as hands-on strategies for solving these problems and building this number sense. Our focus the last 2 days has been learning part/part whole models. The model looks like this.....
I am excited to continue to tackle this learning target together.
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