End of Year at School

The season of silly is upon us!  I had no idea that the last week and a half of school was all about Christmas craft, cleaning, presentation night and community Christmas Carol based events.  Everyone at school is exhausted, myself included!!

I finished prac and got back to work just in time to SENA test year 3 and year 4.  A lot of these children have been coming to me for intensive maths classes for the past 6 months so it was with great excitement that I plotted growth in nearly all areas for nearly all students.  Even more exciting was seeing students use different strategies;  I loved seeing the different ways the students' approached problems in different ways. 

I was sad to tell school that I would not be taking any more hours in the short term next year.  I have practicums organised for term 1 and from there I will be applying for my teaching number.  I am very grateful to this wonderful small school for giving me so many opportunities and look forward to being 'just' a parent next year before hopefully returning as a casual teacher on class.

The Mathematical Association of NSW {MANSW}

Back in September I was lucky enough to be able to go to the MANSW 2013 conference with 3 of the teachers from the school I work at.  I am not traditionally what would be called a 'maths' person so I was in part worried that a lot of it would be over my head and also excited to be learning new things that would help me teach maths.

The conference was at Terrigal and the above photo was the view from our shared apartment.  As a regional Australian it was nice to wake up and see the water each morning.

We went for a walk and saw some wonderful views of the surrounding headlands too.

There was so many good sessions over 2.5 days that it would be hard to mention them all.  I had fun folding paper and investigating shapes although I did have trouble assembling my cube shown above so I am not sure many of my primary school children would be giving that a go under my watch!

I loved the idea of using bendy straws fitted together to investigate angles and 2D shapes.  This will get used for my upper primary children but I think lower primary would lack the gross motor skills to assemble them and would be easily distracted and wanting to play (and blow) in the straws.

I enjoyed snipping strips of paper into different trapeziums and then sorting them in relation to size and angles.  This would be a great way to demonstrate that shapes can come in all shapes and sizes but still share common properties.

The food was great too.

I am lucky that I was given the chance to go to this conference even though I am not yet a qualified teacher.  I know when I enter my own classroom for the first time with a full class of students that I am responsible for teaching that I will be a better teacher because of the opportunities I have been granted so far as I finish my degree and move closer to my teaching number. 

Manipulating Maths

For my lower Stage 2 children I try to keep maths as hands-on as I can.  Concrete materials help them 'see' the concepts in action and they always engage well with tasks such as these. 

A deck of cards and bingo to test multiplication facts.

Jigsaw puzzles based on a hundreds chart.  This is great for working out the decimals as they can use their knowledge of whole numbers on the hundreds chart to help work out the problem.

Using base ten to introduce the addition of decimals before a formal algorithm is applied.

Function machines for fun and as an introduction to algebra (not that they know that).

Fractions.  Different orientations and options explored through cutting up paper.  Some of the children did not think they were still quarters if some of the pieces were cut out differently as seen in the orange example so this proved to be very valuable (and still fun).

Fraction games...

...more fraction games...

...and more hands-on fun.

Some of these children have gone from actively disliking maths to asking if I would come in on my days off to make up missed lessons.  It is a good feeling to see them starting to enjoy mathematics.

Numeracy Warm Up

picture

 

Race to 100: The students worked in pairs and took turns to roll two dice, they had to add the total from their roll and then use the base ten blocks to record their score.  Each player had to add and trade up as their score got bigger with each roll of the dice. 

It can be a race to 50, or 100.  If addition and trading up is going well you can direct the class to start subtracting so that they have to trade down as well.  A simple activity that can be fun while students use mental strategies to trade while showing an understanding of place value.

Less than or Greater than: Still in pairs, students roll the dice and write down the number rolled in the thousands column of their laminated sheets, they roll again for hundreds, tens and ones.  They either model this number in MAB blocks or write it using a whiteboard marker.  Get them to read the number out loud to their partner and then work out whose number is greater than and whose number is less than their partners number.