Wocket In Your Pocket ~ Seuss Day 2

"Did you ever have the feeling there's a WASKET in your BASKET? ...Or a NUREAU in you BUREAU? ...Or a WOSET in you CLOSET?  Sometimes I feel quite CERTAIN there's a JERTAIN in the CURTAIN."       On Tuesday, we read There's a Wocket in My Pocket.

The children were challenged to wear as many pockets as they could.  My goodness, were these students ever clever!  We made a tally chart of all our pockets, then counted by 5's to discover that our class wore 142 pockets on Tuesday!  Wow!

Dr. Seuss has so many crazy ideas and characters.  We have had sometime this week to explore a website called Seussville.  The website is packed full of games, activities, videos, and printables.  The children love it!

Fox in Socks ~Seuss Day 1

 To "kick off" our celebrating Seuss week, we wore silly socks.  Reading the book Fox in Socks was a must today!  We read it despite the clear warning at the beginning of the book that the sentences can tie your tongue in knots with all the rhymes.  The children wore their craziest socks and we practiced finding and making rhymes.  In our morning meeting, we greeted each other with a foot five.  We even did a fun sort of real words and nonsense words.  Later, we also read Dr. Seuss's Foot Book, for feet go well with socks.  Check out our  "Foxy" socks and cute feet!

 

Our literacy centers are filled with Dr. Seuss this week. Here are just a few. We have several books on our class ipods. The children are loving listening to them at "read along" center.  There is a magnetic letter center where students are assembling famous Dr. Seuss quotes. Students are writing silly sentences of rhyming words in another center.  For word work, students are matching the scrambled green eggs of mixed up sight words.  I also have a collection of Dr. Seuss digital books for the iPad. The apps are the books with the option to have the books read aloud. The apps are on sale this week from Oceanhouse Media Books. I highly recommend!

There was one more important FOOT activity that we finished on Fox in Socks day.  Our culminating project for our Project Lead the Way module on animal adaptations ended today.  For a couple weeks, the students have been in different environment groups.  The students in each group have been researching four different environments: the Arctic, Amazon Rain forest, African Savanna, and the Sahara Desert.  The groups studied the climate, landscape, and animal adaptations of their habitat.  The groups also presented their learning to the class.  Last, the groups had to design a shoe for their environment.  The shoes had to have a design element to help with camouflage, locomotion, and protection in their specific environment.  While the shoes may look odd, straight out of a Dr. Seuss book, the designs had very important, scientific purpose.  Here are some pics of the weeks leading to the culmination.

Add It Up

Second grade is working on adding and subtracting with in 1000.  We have been discussing different strategies to solve problems.  More importantly, we have been explaining our mathematical thinking.  I love to hear how they are thinking and solving problems.

In class, we have spent time on three important addition strategies specifically; bracketing, open number line, and the traditional regrouping (carrying) method.  Each of the students made a video to "teach" the strategies.  All the videos are delightful, it was hard to just choose one to share!



The students know the strategies, so now we just need to practice, practice, practice.  For addition we have been playing different games that involve adding double digit and triple digit numbers.

Here is a great game that would be really easy to play at home.  The students love playing it at school.  All you need is a deck of cards and some scratch paper.

Mental Math ~ 10 more, 10 less

The students are getting very proficient at place value concepts.  They have been working so hard.  We have now moved to adding large numbers with in 100.  You would never guess that they are first graders with how they add, subtract, and build tens.  They are amazing.  Before getting in the thick of double digit addition and subtraction, we are building some mental math fluency by taking a number and quickly knowing 10 more, 10 less, 1 more, and 1 less.     To build this mental math quickness we practice in a variety of ways.  For example, we have been solving different number mazes.  The children start at a particular number, in the example to the left it was 34.  The path to the next step gives a direction: 10 more, 10 less, 1 more, or 1 less.  Each time a new direction is given the students have to model the action on two reflected iPads (pictured below).  One iPad has base ten blocks to model the numbers, additions, and subtractions with manuplatives.  The other iPad has a 100s chart to flip the number path.  Students quickly discovered numbers moved to the left for one less, to the right for one more, to the top for ten less, and downward for 10 more.  At the end of the maze, the students discovered the "secret number." 

   The students really worked well as a team to read the clues, act out the additions and subtractions, and write down the numbers on the maze.  Such impressive thinking. 
    Of course, we have a partner game for every important math concept!  When students were doing well whole group, the concept of mentally adding and subtraction ten went into a partner game.  In this game, student uncovered a number at the top and then had to add or subtract 10 to cover and number on their game board.  The first player to get three in a row won the game.  Look at the concentration!

 

 Certainly part of the students' success and achievement with place value has to be the apps and online computer games.  The ipads and computers provide such engaging independent practice.  Further, the apps give the children immediate and specific feedback about their math work.  The apps also allow the students to work at their exact level, pushing and strengthening their conceptual knowledge right where they need it.  For this particular standard, a great app has been Mystery Number . The app contains four different games that give students lots of opportunities to explore concepts of number and place value.  The game "More or less?" practices ten more ten less.