Counting Around the Circle

A new warm-up routine that I am using with my math group comes from a book I read over the summer, Number Sense Routines by Jessica Shumway. The routine is “counting around the circle.” I choose a student to begin the counting and tell them how to count (by two’s, three’s, five’s, ten’s, etc.) At first we just practiced counting in different ways. Now as we get ready to begin counting, I ask them predict what number a certain student will say. Or we count around the circle once and I then ask what number we will get to when we go around a second time. It is a fun way to wake up their number sense.

Frog Riddles

Last week we did an activity from Marilyn Burn's and Bonnie Tank's A Collection of Math Lessons from Grades 1 through 3. Basing my lesson on the chapter on "Riddles with Color Tiles," I do frog riddles. First students use frog counters in four colors to come up with solutions to clues I give about what combination of frog counters are in a bag I have. They work in groups of two (generated by drawing a colored cube from a box). After we do a couple of riddles and talk about the process, each group is asked to come up with their own riddle of at least 4 clues. Each clue should move the solver closer to the solution, and the solver should be able to get the solution by the last clue. It takes some thought, logic, and planning to develop a riddle. After each group completed a riddle, we exchanged bags and clues and tested each others' riddles. Some were returned to the pairs that developed them for additional clues or clearer clues. Each partnership ended up with a successful riddle.

World of Math

On the first day my new math group met, I asked the students to think of all the things they could that were part of math. As they suggested things, I made a “map” of the World of Math. If we think of more things to add as the year goes on, we will put them on the map as well. I was happy to see that they were able to think of a lot of things to add in addition to arithmetic. Patterns, problem solving, and fun all had their place in the map we created.

Counting

On Thursday Tom took the old-timers and the new second year students to the multi, which gave me some time with our first year students. One of the students had repeatedly asked if we were going to do another scavenger hunt. (There was a Lower School scavenger hunt at our Open House for new students on Monday.) I came up with a number scavenger hunt that involved counting various things in the classroom. As the students went about counting and recording, it was a great chance for me to see how different ones took on the task. I observed how they went about counting the objects and how much confidence they showed in the counting. One student proudly shared that he counted by 3’s. I also watched as they recorded the results. A student asked if 8 was the number with “two balls.” Two girls consulted together about whether the 1 in 12 should go first or not. They had fun with the activity and seemed satisfied as they turned in their recording sheets.