Rounding Numbers Round Up

I still remember my first couple of years teaching rounding numbers. It was so hard. I had the most difficult time getting through to children. They just could not understand when to round up and when to round down using the only tool I knew to use at the time: the text book.

Finally, two fellow teachers and I created a song that 10 years later is still helping my students be successful with rounding.

In addition to the song, I developed a technique that has helped countless groups of students master the difficult concept of rounding numbers. This method helps students remember what place they are rounding to, focus on the number that tells you whether to go up or go down, and how to remember that everything turns to zeros.

I developed a packet to teach others this method. It includes notes for teachers, the unique song that we created all those many years ago, several printables on rounding to the nearest ten, hundred, and thousand's place, a Rounding I Have:Who Has game, and a list of Rounding Resources including videos, websites, and games.

See a preview of it at my TpT store.

I also have several estimating and rounding PowerPoint Presentations and a multiplying by multiples of tens and hundreds at my store and on my Facebook page.

Career Day

The end of the school year is rapidly approaching. In fact, we only have 10 days left! I can't believe it. This year has completely flown by...in the blink of an eye.

But in that same blink, the behavior of the students has gone off the deep end. They are ALMOST as excited about the upcoming summer as we are. The massive full moon does not help at all! It is crazy up in here!!

So we are trying very hard to survive. And the best way to survive is to engage children. To get them excited about something, excited enough to try to behave. This year we have planned several educational, exciting, and engaging activities. We have a walking field trip touring our downtown, a 2nd/3rd grade picnic/orientation where our third graders will share their favorite memories and give them a tour of their future classrooms, and we will celebrate all of the places they will go with Career Day.

I created some phenomenal activities to help students share the career they chose to dress up as, research careers, set goals, and learn about all of the options that await them in this big world we live in as long as they keep their head on straight and pursue their dreams.

  

  My Career Day packet includes a graphic organizer for researching, a crossword and word search puzzle, "My First Resume" sheet, an "I Have, Who Has" game...and much, much more! Check it out my "Career Day: Oh the Places You'll Go" packet at my TpT store.

Esti...Who?

Estimation! I love teaching estimation. It is so much fun when students realize how much easier it is to estimate the answer to two numbers than to add, subtract, or multiply them together.  Over the years I have developed all kinds of tricks for teaching estimation.

My most effective trick in helping students remember how to round and estimate is the integration of some of my unique songs, chants, and raps. The first song I created help students remember when to round up or round down.

Next I created a song to help students remember the steps to estimation. Students frequently want to add, subtract, and multiply first and then round their answers. The problem is that it could result in a wrong answer on a test. They need to remember to round first and then add, subtract, or multiply. You can hear the tune of the song when you purchase my Estimating with Addition and Subtraction PowerPoint Presentation at my TpT store. (I honestly could not figure out how to add the sound here and I made up the tune.)

Finally, I (with the help of a class a few years ago) created a song to help students remember how to multiply after rounding by multiplying by multiples of 10's, 100's, and 1,000's.

You can hear the unique tune of Zero the Hero and get so fantabulous teaching tools, tips, and lessons when you purchase my awesome PowerPoint presentation Estimation with Multiplication from my TpT store.

Here are some of my favorite videos and songs from YouTube and United Streaming that I use when teaching my units on Estimation: