Happy Thursday!! I remember spending some Thursday mornings last summer reading Throw Back Thursday posts - and realizing that I had nothing to "throw back" too as it was my first summer of blogging. Another thing I realized through this blogging process is that often times when I post what I am doing it is already too late for others to use since other people start school a month before I do.
But no more : ) Today I am linking up with my friend Nick from
Sweet Rhyme and Pure Reason for....
Today I am sharing a post on math ideas for the first few days of school - including a few freebies!!
Hopefully this time the post is not too late for you to use - or if you are new to the blog it is just helpful to you : )
(Originally linked up with
Amanda and Stacia at Collaboration Cuties for their Must Read Mentor Text Linky)
The book I am suggesting is a book I am sure many of you use...
I don't want to spend too much time talking about this super fun book so I will just give you the description from
Goodreads
Did you ever wake up to one of those days where everything is a problem? You have 10 things to do, but only 30 minutes until your bus leaves. Is there enough time? You have 3 shirts and 2 pairs of pants. Can you make 1 good outfit? Then you start to wonder: Why does everything have to be such a problem? Why do 2 apples always have to be added to 5 oranges? Why do 4 kids always have to divide 12 marbles? Why can't you just keep 10 cookies without someone taking 3 away? Why? Because you're a victim of the Math Curse. That's why. But don't despair. This is one girl's story of how that curse can be broken
The reason I picked this book is that I just wanted to throw a couple of teaching ideas out there to go with this book for the first week or two of school.
I use this book on the second day of school during our first full math class. I use it as a jumping off point to talk about how my students feel about math and to highlight how math is everywhere.
I follow the book up with a couple of activities.
#1. A math survey. I was given a very long and very official survey from one of our math consultants. It was 3 pages long and had a marking key and I am sure would be very helpful to many people - just not me :)
I made this quick little survey to just let me know how my students felt about math and to help me group them (I also use a quick little assessment - but I will tell you more about that on Workshop Wednesday).
Here is my survey. It is not fancy or official - just a little something to get me started on grouping and looking at what kind of feelings my students are bringing with them.
Click here for a copy.
#2. A "Math About Me" page. This is sample from Pinterest with no link - sorry!!
I am undecided if I will do this again this year and use it as their Interactive Math Notebook cover or if I will give them this page to decorate for their cover. Click on the picture to get a free copy - there are different subject pages to choose from.
#3. An "I Can't Believe I Used Math in the Summer" page. This was an idea I read about on
Teaching with a Mountain View who did a similar activity after Spring Break, so I adapted it for B2S. Students have to draw and write about how they used math over the summer break. I will go through a few examples with my class first of how I used math over the summer. Since most students will have done some B2S shopping that will be an obvious example but I hope to get to some more creative examples - math for baking, building with lego, what time to leave to arrive at the movie on time, how much money my daughters saved, how many cobs of corn to make....
I will use this activity as an opportunity to introduce my math goals chart. In particular - the pictures, numbers and words pages.
Click here to get a free copy of these pages.
Woohoo - that is it, my first Back to the Archive post!!
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