On Wednesdays and Fridays we do math rotations in our class. The students spend about 15 minutes at each rotation working on a skill that we have already learned during our math time. I wanted to share with you some of what we've been doing recently.
These are our ten-frame cards and mats. What the students do at this station is they lay their blue sheet onto the red and yellow mat. They already know that each blue sheet has ten dots on it (we counted and counted them just to make sure :) Then what they do they look at how their blue sheet is laid down and color how many are on yellow and how many are on red. This is an important skill for them to have, because it helps them to learn the different combinations that make ten- it is so important for students to be able to anchor to numbers 5 and especially 10! It helps them in their development of number sense.
Another rotation is taking a dice and drawing and writing the number of dots on each side, and then counting and adding them all together. This helps them with their ability to look at a dot arrangement and know how many dots there are. We work a lot with dice and being able to recognize the dot pattern for how many dots there are. We also have just recently begun to add things together, and the students really enjoy doing this rotation.
Rotation number 3 is our teddy bear rotation. The students have cards that they can use to either add bears together, make patterns with the bears, or sort the bears. This helps to reinforce previous learned skills.
The last rotation is number writing. We talk a lot about writing numbers the correct way, and how "12" is not the same number when you write a "2" first and then a "1." We talk about how numbers have to be written in the write order or they become a different number. We also have been working on writing our numbers correctly and not backwards.
So those were our rotations from this past week. And here are a few other things we've done in math this week:
We did an activity this week about making patterns. We got to use the privacy folders (they make the kids feel so grown up :) What they did was they were told a pattern to make- ABB, AAB, ABC, etc..They were given two minutes to make a pattern and then they switched seats with their neighbor and gave them a thumbs up if their pattern was correct, and if it wasn't, they helped them to correct it. It was good for the students to help the other kids in the class if they didn't get their pattern right- they were all very kind and helpful if another classmate didn't quite get it.
They also did an addition activity using a dice. What they had to do was roll the dice one time. They used a crayon to color the number of squares that they rolled. Then they rolled again, used a different crayon and colored the number of squares that they rolled. Beneath the squares, they wrote out the problem and added all of them together.
We had a busy but fun week last week! And looking forward to this week, with getting our classroom ready for Spring, and getting ready for our Easter Party on Thursday!
Don't forget that our Easter Party will be on Thursday at 1:45. We will need parent volunteers to come in and help sort the eggs and also parents who would be willing to help with the Easter egg hunt.
If you would like to bring cookies for our party, please let me or Chelsea or Brooke know!
We will also need your child to bring 12 numbered plastic eggs already stuffed and taped shut. This is what the kids will look for during our Easter egg hunt. Every child will end up finding 12 eggs, so please don't forget to send them!
And lastly, if your child would like to share something in an egg for our show-and-tell on Tuesday, please fill the plastic egg sent home with your child on Friday and fill out the guessing sheet!
Thanks for all that you all do! This week we have a lot going on, so please let me know if you have any questions or anything!
*Next week are flex days again on Thursday and Friday (April 12 and 13). If your child did not attend the first set of flex days, they do not attend these two days either. If your child did come to the first flex days, please send them like normal on those days. Thanks!
