Awesome Addition

Wow! We have come along way from when we were growing up and learning how to add. When we were learning facts, we were just told to memorize. You didn't need to know why 4 + 3=7. All you needed to know was that it was 7! You just learned your facts.

Then when we moved to adding 2 and 3 digit numbers, all we knew was that we stacked up the numbers and remembered those facts. If there was a number bigger than 9 in a position, we "carried" the other number to the next place. No one explained why. No one told us that the 1 in 12 was really 10 ones that could be regrouped into 1 ten and then that is why it was moved to the tens place.

Now we not only teach kids this but we expect them to be able to convey it on state and national tests. We no longer want to know that 53 + 29 is 82. We want to know "how did you find that answer", or "what method did you use to solve your problem", or "how did you use mental math to help you".

In other words, students must be able to show the "how" and the "why" and not just the "what". The problem is that anyone who has been teaching more than five years never learned how to teaach like this. All we know is the "old school" algorithm.

Through out my thirteen years of teaching, I have been criticised for teaching students using unconventional methods, especially when it comes to addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Teachers have told me that kids have to know how to do it the traditional way! Why? Does it say it in a standard somewhere? Oh, it is in the book? Well, guess what...math books are becoming obsolete...so you might want to stop resting on your laurels and the way we have always done it and spread your wings a little bit.

I have created 2 different PowerPoint presentations on Addition With Regrouping and Addition Without Regrouping. These presentation include many different strategies for adding numbers, like drawing the problem out, expanded form, branching, a method called Give and Take, and even...Old School. You can see my

I have also created a packet entitled Autumn Addition that includes lessons on each method of addition without regrouping. It includes printables, rules, games, and more!

Finally, I have created a unit for teaching addition without regrouping entitled Game On:Addition with Regrouping. It includes lessons on each of the methods of branching, drawing, expanded form, give and take and old school. It has printables, activities, games, and songs to make learning about the "how" and "why" of addition with regrouping engaging and fun!

Show What They Know

We are taking the CRCT (Criterion Reference Competency Test) this week and next. This is the test that the state of Georgia uses at the end of each year to determine if students have mastered what they should in order to move to the next grade. Third graders must pass the reading portion and fifth graders must pass reading and math. Needless to say, there is  a lot of stress placed on teachers and students alike.

I am not going to even get started on my feelings about the injustices of basing a child's pass or fail on one test given on one day where any one thing could have thrown the child off for the whole day. What I am going to do is share some tips and great videos we found to pump our kids up for the test.

One thing I do to motivate my students is to give them a ticket the day before the test. The ticket has my "Fab Five" test taking strategies:
1. Read Carefully
2. Circle key words
3. Prove it!
4. Take your time
5. Check, check, check...and check again

Each day students have the chance to get 2 stickers (1 for each section of the test). If they use our strategies, they get a sticker. If they don't, they get...nothing. One the final day of the test, we have a celebration in the afternoon. There is a movie, popcorn, dessert, and coke. They get the following for their stickers:
6 Stickers=Just the movie
7 Stickers=Movie and popcorn
8 Stickers=Movie, popcorn, and coke
9-10 Stickers=Movie, popcorn, coke, and dessert
Not getting a sticker one time, does amazing things for motivating a student to change their tune about not doing their best.
Download my card free.

These helped to calm them down and actually get pumped up for the test.

I play these before school starts as students are coming in. They sing along and enjoy the lyrics, which help them to remember test taking tips. Then after the morning announcements and a trip to the bathroom, we mediate and calm our nerves with a visualization video. I found a great one on Youtube and you can see it below. After the video, the students are calm, focused, motivated, and ready to Show What They Know!

Pencil Problem Solved...FINALLY

There are somethings that take years to figure out. This is especially true when it comes to teaching. It takes years to perfect a lesson, years to organize your classroom perfectly, years to become an expert at dealing with parents, and years to figure out what to do about the dadgum PENCIL PROBLEM. 

I know you know what I am talking about! Kids lose pencils. Kids break pencils. Kids need to sharpen pencils in the middle of your lessons and grind away while you are trying to talk. Kids bring their own pencil sharpeners so they can sharpen quietly only to have all of the shavings fall onto the floor!! Then there are the kids that never, ever bring a pencil through your door!

Needless to say, it is a problem. In fact, I am pretty sure that at some point in time I have heard every teacher I know complain about the Pencil Problem. Here are some of my solutions, the tried, the trued, the failed:

1. Just keep asking for more pencils and start screaming every time someone gets up to sharpen a pencil during your lesson. I think in my early years I might have even thrown a pencil across the room in a fit of sharpening rage!

2. Provide everyone with pencils and their own sharpener. Problem #1: expensive (I mean I really think they eat pencils) and Problem #2: The blasted shavings all over the floor!

3. A central pencil cup. Everyone is to sharpen their pencils at the beginning of the day. If during the day your pencil breaks, you can trade it out for a pencil from the cup. The problem arose when kids brought no pencil to school or lost theirs.

4. A central pencil cup. Everyone is to sharpen their pencils at the beginning of the day. If during the day your pencil breaks, you can trade it out for a pencil from the cup. If you don't have a pencil to trade in, then you have to leave your shoe and to get your shoe back you had to put the pencil back.

5. Mechanical pencils for all. And then came the lead and more lead and more lead that none of them could ever get loaded into their pencils.

At this point I was ready to throw in the towel and just go completely to pens which doesn't seem to work to well in an elementary school classroom!

Then my partner teacher last year came up with a marvelous plan. We attached cups to each of my desks. When the kids came in, there were 2 sharpened pencils in their cup. If during the day, both pencils broke they could trade them out for newly sharpened pencils that were sharpened every morning and afternoon by my Equipment Helpers.

This was the key, and works exceptionally well. Especially since we trade classes four times a day and I have four differently groups rotating in and out of my classroom. Each time a child sits down at their desk their first task is to check their cup and each time they leave my room they are to check their cup. If at any point (no pun intended) a pencil is missing, they are to tell me immediately. The person who walked out of my room with my pencil will, no doubt, rue the day! Trust me, after one time they don't leave again with my pencil. Now our cups not only hold our pencils but, also, an Expo marker and eraser.

Where do I get the pencils from? Well, at the beginning of the year we require all students to bring in 2 boxes of 24 pencils. Instead of letting the kids keep them and lose them (or eat them as I swear they do). I take up the boxes from the children leaving them with 6 or so to keep in their book bags. Then I store all of the rest of the pencils and pull them out as needed to replenish our supplies.

I do the same thing with notebook paper. They each bring in 2 packs. One goes in their folders and one goes in my paper drawer. When anyone runs out of paper, I give them more from the paper drawer.

I have found that handling supplies like this saves sanity and embarrassment. It keeps the kids whose parents won't keep them supplied with what they need from being embarrassed, and it keeps my sanity. Now, instead of getting frustrated when kids don't bring pencils into my room I point to their cups. And instead of nagging them to bring in more paper, I just had them a stack.

Pencil Problem Solved!!

Linky Party: Teacher Tips

 

Teach123 is having a linky party!  When you think about your first year of teaching or when you switched grade levels, what do you wish you would have known before you began?  What advice can you give your fellow teachers?  


Here are some tidbits of advice that I always share with new or soon-to-be new teachers:

What are your best tips for teachers starting out either in their career, a new school, or a new grade?