Our weather is delightful!

Thanks to a special teacher in the United States who shared her idea for creating clouds to assist the students in remembering their various roles.  I might have based this bulletin board on her idea!

It's always fun to see a model to help understand how things work!  Using shaving cream as the cloud and the jar of water as the atmosphere, blue drops of food colouring were added until the cloud was full (think condensation) and then we witnessed precipitation!

The Alberta curriculum focuses on problem solving with partners in every subject area.  It's one of the reasons that our class has tables, to allow the students to work collaboratively when appropriate.  The students worked on finding information (research) about different aspects of weather such as rain, snow, tornadoes, rainbows.  They were given the choice of working alone or with a partner and they were given opportunities to search in non-fiction books as well as using the internet.

The students search using the search engine Kiddle.  I believe it is sponsored by Google or is a Google product, but it is a safer search engine, designed to avoid those OOPS moments when searching a topic by a younger child.  As some of the students found out, searching for something other than the required topic, means that they lose the privilege of using an electronic device in the classroom.  We work on being digitally aware students too!

There was a happy hum of learning!  I love that sound!

Today the students made snowmen, but using some very unusual materials!

There were socks, elastics and rice.

They filled the socks with about 3 scoops of rice, an elastic was used and then another scoop of rice added before another elastic was used.

The top of the sock was rolled down and the students knew what was created.

Each student got to choose the fabric for the scarf, the pom pom for the top of the hat, the buttons and then they used sharpie pens to add the nose and mouth details.  I wonder what a group of snowmen are called?  Herd? Gaggle? Flurry???

Wonderful weather = Wonderful learning

In Grade Two, the science curriculum has five different units of study including Hot and Cold Temperature. The students are recording daily temperature since Groundhog Day, learning how to read and interpret a thermometer.  This past week, they had the opportunity to read this book Snowflake Bentley using the mini iPads and the Bookflix website.

The story is full of rich vocabulary, and it became an opportunity to work with words that many of the students were not familiar with.

These word cards were placed around the classroom and the students participated in a 'parts of speech' word scoot.  This means that they walked around the classroom,

read the vocabulary words and then decided if the word was a noun, verb, adjective or pronoun.

There were a great many words but they had the definitions of the various parts of speech on their sheets to help them remember what each term meant.  This type of activity allows the students to challenge their thinking.  They can decide how the word would be used in a sentence and then figure out which type of word it is.  

William Bentley really brought the world a gift in his research on snowflakes.  Much of what we know today, is thanks to this man who was interested in something that most just took for granted.  The students attempted to make a snowflake with 12 q-tips using the criteria that no two q-tips would cross or overlap, that snowflakes have six sides and that each side looks like the other five.  It was a challenge!

Each student has a lapbook where their new learning is being recorded.

There are multiple copies of thermometers and the students are recording how the temperature would look.  They are recognizing the difference between temperatures below

and above zero.

Using boiling water and borax,

and pipecleaners,

we are trying to make crystals.

We're crossing our fingers that is will work!

Lots of new learning about how it snows or rains....understanding the water cycle.

Using this bead bracelet, the students are also trying to remember more 'scientific' vocabulary.

They might tell you:
The sun powers the water cycle (yellow bead)

The sun evaporates the water and it goes up into the atmosphere (clear bead)

The water condenses and we see it gather in the clouds (white bead)

When the cloud is too full, then there is precipitation (blue bead)

The water collects on the ground (green bead

Cool idea (not mine!)

The students created the water cycle on a large plastic bag.  They took it home so that they could add water into the bag (not more than about 1/2 cup), zip up the top, then put it onto a sunny window spot.  Again not my idea, but it should demonstrate the water cycle.  Hope it works!

Thank you to those who came to adore Our Lord last Thursday in the chapel.  Here is the monstrance that was used,

the red light to remind us that Jesus is present,

and the tabernacle that was used.

How lucky we are to be able to know Our Lord within our schools!

Adding Large Numbers

Sometimes parents want to know how to do this 'new math'  Actually, there is nothing new about what we are doing in our class.  We are adding large numbers.  The difference from when most adults learned how to add big numbers, to now, is that we are asking the students to understand what they are doing.  We do not introduce the algorithm until the students can both demonstrate and explain their understanding.

I'm going to walk you through today's lesson.

Here we are going to add two large numbers: 26 and 32

We are using an open number line  so that we can see the addition of one number to another.

I asked the students which number they would like to put onto the number line first and the child chose 26.  We then 'jumped' 32 more.  It is difficult for us to jump that far and know where we are going to land so we jumped in smaller amounts.  We jumped 10 to land at 36, another 10 to land at 46 and then 10 more to land at 56. (NOTE: 10+10+10 is 30)  We felt that we could jump 2 more easily because we know how to skip count even numbers so we landed at 58.  We proved that 26 add 32 is 58.

We then reminded ourselves that in adding, the order of the addends is not important, so we tried it again, starting with 32 and then jumping 26.  Notice that the girl who was helping suggested that  she could jump by groups of 3 to make up the 6 at the end.

In 'teacher talk', the students are able to decompose and compose numbers.  It is a very important part of understanding numbers, which we call number sense.  It is also important that students are able to make those 'jumps' rather than counting on.  It demonstrates that they are visualizing.  Think of it this way:  I started at 14.  Can I visualize what 10 more is?  How about 10 less?  Could I visualize 2 more than 14?  How about 2 less?  If the student is doing this and especially if they can explain or prove that the number they are sharing would be the correct one, then they are confident in their number sense.

It they are looking up and just counting on...their number sense is still as the beginning stages and they need more practise.  We have been practising since September here at school.  Not all students are confident yet.  It may be time for some home practise.

Here is one student explaining their thinking for 38 add 83.  She said "I put 38 on the number line and then I need to jump 10 8 times to add 80."  Can you see how she was able to decompose 83 into 8 tens and 3 ones?

This boy said "I started at 51 and jumped 2 10's and then 3 small jumps and it ended up at 77"

Actually 51 add 23 is NOT 77, but now I can see where his thinking was wrong.  His three small jumps were of 3, not 1.

You might say: "Why bother?  Just teach them the algorithm.  It worked for me!"

The answer is that we want students to be confident with numbers, to understand their patterns, to be able to compose and decompose them because when these students are working with algebra in 5 short years, those are the things they will be asked to do with unknowns.

We want them to have confidence that they know how to do this with our number system so they their concrete thinking can move them into the abstract thinking of algebra.

It's not so far away!  When these students are in the first month of Grade Three, they will be writing a provincial exam known as the SLA.  This kind of thinking and explaining is part of that exam.  It is the way that number sense is revealed.  In the most important way possible, we are working to ensure that students understand what the algorithm is asking them to do.  We don't want them to say "I just do this" without understanding why they do it.

The other thing that is different from mathematics classes of twenty years ago, is that we offer a number of ways or strategies for students to use.  We suggest that they try them but settle on the one that works for them.  This way I call the pull down method, but some people call it branching.  It doesn't matter, but it might be easier for some students to understand.

The two numbers are written horizontally and then the student identifies the tens in both numbers, pulls them down (by drawing lines) and adds them.  They say "20 add 30 is 50", to demonstrate that those digits are in the tens' place.  They do the same with the ones, saying '6 add 2 is 8' and then finally saying that '50 add 8 is 58."

Here's one girl's explanation:
How I pull down - I thought what's 5+2. Then I thought what's 1+3. That's how I did math.

What will I give her as feedback?  I'll write: Remember that it really is "What's 50+20"  Those digits are in the ten's place.  

Why is that important?  Think about what will happen if the digits are '8 and 9 in the ten's place.  What does the student need to recognize then?

This girl wrote "I know because I remember the old pull down and I did that but changed the numbers"

To most of you that won't make sense, but because I have heard her talk about this, I know that she is trying to explain that this method 'old pull down' is something she knows will work every time, no matter which numbers she uses in the equation.

This girl said "I really like the pull down strategy.  It's fast and easy. I learned it in Grade One."

This is a variation of the pull down method and I introduced it this week because I would like to see if the students are ready to have the algorithm introduced to them.

They are again decomposing the big numbers and adding.  

Here's what it might sound like:
20 add 30 is 50 (and they would write the 5 in the ten's place)

6 add 2 is 8 (and they would write the 8 in the one's place)

26 add 32 is 58!

This is the step before introducing writing the two addends vertically.  They need to recognize the place value of the numbers to ensure that they are line up correctly.

LONG explanation but I hope that helps you all understand what your kiddos are doing in math class.

How would you use these strategies for subtraction?