Money, money, money!

We are gearing up to study money with my Year 2 class so I am looking for interesting ways to get the kids plenty of practise with making different amounts.
According to the new Mathematics curriculum, they need to be able to count and order small collections of Australian notes and coins. I want them to have lots of hands-on practice with coins and notes.
While waiting for my dear husband to pick me up from work this afternoon, I had a brainwave so I came home and made these tags for my game idea.

I have called it The Shopkeepers Game. It is free from my TPT store.
Basically, the class is divided into two groups - shopkeepers and customers. It is a concentric circle game with the shopkeepers sitting on chairs in the centre and the customers moving to music around the outside, carrying their little purses of money.
When the music stops, the customers buy whatever is being sold by the nearest shopkeeper. (Is this just encouraging impulse buying???)
The shopkeeper needs to check that the amount is correct.
There are different coloured tags so that the game can be made easier or harder or to limit the game to coins only, or include notes and mixed denominations. The game could be made even more challenging by giving change.
I have made the game so that it could be used by anyone in a country that uses dollars and cents and there is nothing specifically Australian about the tags. They could just as easily be used in America or New Zealand.
I also think I might be able to use them for other games or assessments like matching to the amounts, and ordering the amounts. Since we are doing two digit addition as well, I might be able to use them for this too.
I am trying to make resources that I can use for multiple purposes to save time, money and resources. If you think of another use for these tags, I would be happy to hear about it.
I hope my kids enjoy this game. I'm sure they will - they love any chance to get out of their seats and make a bit of noise...
If you play it with your students, let me know how it goes! I'd love to hear about it.

Assessing Calendar Work

In order to see who meets the standards for the Year 2 Australian Curriculum for Mathematics, I have put together a Calendar Quiz for students to complete.

To celebrate the end of this work on calendars, students will work with a partner to create a page for our class calendar. We will use this calendar in our room this year and by writing some of our favourite memories on it, it will become a memento of our journey together.
You can download a free template for a blank calendar page at my TPT store.

The following table shows how this can link to the Australian Curriculum in Year 2 for Mathematics and English.

Calendars, Months, Seasons and Colours!

We have been learning the days of the week, months of the year and now the seasons as part of our beginning of the year work on Calendars.
Great minds must think alike because Kylie over at Down Under Teacher has been doing the same topic. Check out her blog for even more ideas!
The Australian Curriculum for Mathematics requires that students can name and order the months and seasons and use a calendar to identify the date and determine the number of days in each month.
I have made a simple worksheet that requires students to write in the months of the year and identify the seasons. You can download it for free.

I am working on a quiz sheet that will require students to use a calendar to answer a series of questions. When I get it done, I will put it up too.
My kids are going to work with a partner this week to make their own page of a class calendar that we will put up in our room to celebrate the end of this part of our learning.

We have linked our study of seasons of the year to our cross-curricular priority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures by learning about the seasons in Arnhem Land through reading the great picture book: Ernie Dances to the Didgeridoo by Alison Lester.

The students really enjoyed the story and it lead to some great discussion about the seasons we experience in Queensland compared to places that are much colder or hotter.

Because we are a Catholic school, our discussion of seasons has been a great segue into learning about the Liturgical Seasons too.

We have constructed a display in our room which focuses on the different colours of the seasons.

Yesterday our fantastic Assistant Principal, Michelle, came in to talk to the students about the special colours of the liturgical seasons. The children enjoyed having a special guest speaker.

She used an experiment with milk and food colouring to show the different colours. The children thought it was fun to watch the colours swirling in the bowl and we had a great discussion about the "pictures" they could see within the patterns. They surprised me with their deep thinking about the colours and the seasons.

I love it when all of the different things we are learning about tie together so beautifully!

Have you been learning and teaching about seasons? What have your students enjoyed?

Practising Addition Facts

Having taught Year 4 for the past few years, I know that parents and students are aware that students need to "learn their tables". The problem is, the focus on needing to know multiplication facts outweighs the focus on addition and subtraction facts which are just as important.

It is vitally important that children can recall basic addition and subtraction facts quickly and accurately. This only happens with practice. We are revising and practising addition facts in class this term but there is only a limited amount of time in the school day and in order to become proficient at addition and subtraction facts, most students need a lot more opportunity to practise.

The Australian Curriculum identifies four proficiency strands in Mathematics. One of these is "fluency". Fluency is the efficient recall of basic facts and concepts, and this certainly includes addition facts.

It is important that children understand the importance of knowing these facts so they will be willing to put in the effort required, but it also helps to provide some suggestions for fun and/ or simple strategies for practising basic facts.

There are many cheap/free apps available for iPhones/ iPads/ iPod Touch, as well as some fantastic websites that you can access for free.
The aim is for speed of recall so look for a game that doesn't have too much "story" that takes away from the practice of facts. Some games take so long between questions and allow an unlimited time so there is no sense of urgency to come up with an answer in a reasonable time and the child could play the game for twenty minutes and only answer a handful of problems. This is unlikely to produce efficient recall of facts.

The Math Training DS app is a good game that will intuitively adapt to the level of your student and set achievable goals for them to reach. There is a you tube introduction here.
The game is relatively expensive (compared to an app or free website) but it will grow with your child and goes well beyond the expected level for Year 2. It suits children who are competitive against themselves because it works on setting personal bests then trying to outdo them.
It gives good feedback about your child's progress but it is fairly simple and not at all glitzy, so children who only like bright colours and fun storylines in a game might be uninterested.

Of course, the time that you are able to spend with your child practising facts is incredibly beneficial too. Playing good old-fashioned board games like Monopoly and Snakes and Ladders provide many opportunities for children to practise adding. Two dice games are best because as they roll the dice over and over, they get quicker at recognising the dot patterns (this is called subatising) and adding to find the total.

Asking your child five quick facts in the morning during breakfast, in the car on the way home and while you are cooking dinner is great practice if you can make it a regular habit.

Playing cards are great for using to invent your own simple games that practise addition (and later subtraction and multiplication facts). For example, you could play a game similar to "Snap" in which the child has to say the total of the top card and the card they place down each time. If it makes a specified number (eg 10) then it is played as a "snap" and the fastest player to recognise that the total is 10, wins the cards.

How do you practise addition facts with your child?

Literacy and Numeracy Rotations

I have launched into literacy and numeracy rotations for an hour a day. I do Literacy for an hour three times a week and Maths for an hour on the other two days. Obviously there are plenty of other whole class lessons, games and activities, but this is the time for direct instruction and ongoing assessment. I was going to wait until I had a bit more response from parent volunteers but I thought since I have such a variety of learners that I may as well get the routines ironed out as soon as possible.
I have only had the rotations for two days so far, but I am really pleased with this way of teaching and I feel much more effective than when I try to lock-step the whole class through a learning episode.
I read this scholastic site on Math Workshops a few weeks ago and I have implemented some of these ideas, particularly the order in which I see the students. I am really pleased with the logic behind the rotations and I think it is working.
Basically, the class is split into three main groups. (When I get more help I will try to increase the number of groups so they are smaller and they are getting through more work). I work with the lowest group first and basically go through the workbook activity, giving a bit more instruction and teaching explanation along the way. It is a good chance to work with hands on materials and really see that these students are understanding the concepts. During this time the middle group is working on a game or using the iPads on a related activity and the top group are doing the workbook independently. In the second rotation, I work with the middle group and do some small group teaching and a basic introduction to the workbook activity to get them started. The lowest group go straight on to completing the workbook activity that they started with me, and the top group play a game to consolidate the skill they just practised in the workbook.
In the final rotation I check the work done by the top group to ensure they understand it and then do a challenge or extension lesson with them. The lowest group are ready to play the game and the middle group get a chance to finish the workbook activity.

So far it is working well (after two whole days). I would love to differentiate the games a little more and make sure that the independent groups are working effectively but I'm sure this will come as we get used to the routine.

I am keeping the same groups for this week to make it simpler for me (and the kids of course) but once I learn more about the Daily 5 and CAFE system I would like to make the groups more flexible.

How do you manage rotations?

First Days

Well, the first day came and went and I was still excited about going back the second day. That's got to be good news!
I am blessed to have such a lovely bunch of "curious cats" in my class.

I think I did the lion's share of the learning in the first two days - having to learn all of their names and then begin to work out some personality and learning traits. At least they had some fun while I did some learning. When we return to school tomorrow it will be their turn to start some serious learning!
I tried a simple Mathematics Investigation to see if they had an understanding of place value, and also to see how they were able to work with a partner. Each pair was given a fistful of matchsticks and were challenged to work out how many matchsticks there were altogether.
As they tried to solve the problem I noted some of the strategies they used, and then stopped them after a while to discuss these strategies.

All of the children realised that moving the matchsticks as they counted in some sort of systematic way made the task much easier. Some students split the group into two so each partner had a turn to count, but funnily enough, none of them counted the separate groups first then added to find the total. They waited for one partner to finish counting, then the second started. Even the pair of boys who counted simultaneously and could tell me that one of them had 53 and the other had 58 still counted on from 53 in ones to get to the total. When I write "58 + 53" on the board, they could tell me the total, but it hadn't occurred to them that they could add.
Not one group used grouping to help them count, which surprised me, so I stopped them and we looked at a hundreds board and saw how it was in rows of ten and that made it faster to count to 100 because we could count in tens. After this guidance (and a bit more hinting) the students tried to count their matchsticks again, this time, grouping them into bunches of ten. THis was much easier for them!

On Friday I am going to keep working on place value ideas and then I will assess them next week to see how they are going.

Math Mats

A few years ago when I first taught Year 1 my sister put me on to the idea of using placemats for the students. This year I have adapted the template further to suit my Year 2s and to help them to meet the standards in Mathematics in the Australian Curriculum.

Making the placemats was fiddly and time consuming. My teaching partner tried to convince me that it would be easier to make one and photocopy it rather than make individual ones for 24 students (plus a spare just in case - and as a teacher model). I was afraid the colours wouldn't be as bright so insisted we make them by hand. After making 25 placemats each (printing, cutting, gluing, laminating) our fingers were tired and our minds were numb. She might just be able to convince me to make one and photocopy next time!

But don't they look lovely????

The front side has a handwriting model sticker (purchased from Young Ideas), left/right hand stickers (also purchased), a name plate (created using a table in MS Word with text box overlays), and a list of "No Excuses Words" which are a combination of a few high frequency word lists and a few other words that I wanted my students to spell well - including my name. ;-)

You can purchase placemats from various places that are similar to these but I like to be able to personalise them and include the bits and pieces I feel are important.

The back side has a hundreds chart which is sized to fit counters, a tens frame which also fits counters, some shapes and their names, the poem about the months (important for Year 2), the days of the week, a number line and some other maths things.

We found these great little containers (that are Decor brand - supposed to be for salad dressing) that fit 20 counters in neatly so each child will have their own set of counters and a hundreds chart at their fingertips for daily number awareness and games!

The placemats were great in Year 1 a few years ago. I am hoping they will get lots of use again this year.