Creating a Strong Math Culture-Understanding Perceptions

Creating a Strong Math Culture 

- Understanding Perceptions -

A student drawing about Math Workshop.

Perception is everything. So, how do your students perceive math in the classroom? Do students really feel like the work was too easy? Too difficult or abstract? Am I talking too much with them just listening? 

I feel that it is important to continually reflect on these questions in order to create a strong math culture, but if these answers are only coming from the teacher's point of view, it doesn't really matter much. We are in the field of education to empower and enrich students, and how they are perceiving lessons, units, and classes is what matters the most--if the perception is negative, they will be less likely to engage in and retain the information. So, before diving fully into a unit on Base Ten, I decided to have my students draw a picture entitled "My math workshop". The only directions I gave before passing out the blank paper were that students were to draw whatever came to their minds when thinking of math workshop, and that they had to draw themselves in the picture. 

I was a little nervous to see what some students would draw--would they draw themselves with smiley or sad faces? Would there be lots of colors to make a bright impression? Would they have others in the picture or does the perception of math involve isolation? I love math and teaching and was secretly hoping during the activity that everyone in the class would illustrate that same love.

 This student recalls using the "Fast Nines" strategy while adding.

The final results were really eye-opening! Many students drew themselves with suns shining in the background and smiling faces;one even had a lovely beach scene for math workshop. I wish we really could have math workshop while out in the sunshine! Another student drew themselves using different strategies with their "bff" and yet another student had themselves with Base Ten unit manipulatives while someone else in the background was laying down snoring. Not sure what that part was all about, but overall everything was invaluable feedback!  

This student focused on using the online program www.xtramath.org

This student drew himself adding with apples.

One item that was not present in most of the pictures was our math talk word wall. I'm not sure why because we recite these words everyday, so I plan on having a conversation with my students about this absence.  I also plan on repeating this activity with each new unit to see how perceptions are changing and evolving.

Happy to see that this student loves math operations!

Kid's Math Talk Tip

In order to see if there is truly a disconnection between the teacher's point of view and that of the student's, it helps for the teacher to also engage in this exercise before giving the assignment to students. This is extremely powerful--seeing is believing, but sometimes what we as adults see is completely different from what our students perceive. Just make sure that you wait until AFTER students draw their own versions to show them how you view math workshop.

Invite your students to create a "My Math Workshop" drawing this week!

Managing Go Noodle in the Elementary Classroom

The Five "Rules" of Go Noodle 

in my Classroom

I found out about this wonderful and *free* resource for teachers to use in their classroom via Twitter and I have to say my students love it!

But I started to notice that some students were becoming a little too loud at times and that sometimes students had a negative attitude when an activity that they wanted wasn't chosen. 

With that said, the 5 rules of Go Noodle were born for my classroom!

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1. Students who choose to happily participate in the Go Noodles chosen by others will get a chance to pick their own for the class.

- This puts the onus completely on the students and gets rid of the negative attitudes when "girl" or "boy" activities are chosen.

2. The teacher gets to choose the minute length of each break.

-Sometimes we just need a quick energizer and other times our schedule will allow for a longer break. After students have been picked to choose a Go Noodle, they know to ask me how long our break is...this also motivates students to choose quickly so that they can enjoy the break time.

3. The teacher gets to choose when Go Noodle breaks happen in the classroom.

- I try to schedule at least 2 longer (5 minute) Go Noodle breaks each day and then 1-3 smaller throughout the day. Sometimes we fit all these in, but sometimes we have to settle for a more static brain break from another source.

4. Students who would like to have a Go Noodle break will keep their voices at a level 3 or lower.

- I have a voice level chart in my classroom where Level 3 is just above a whisper. We call this whole group voice. Anyone who raises their voice above this can not participate in our Go Noodle activity. This keeps things calmer and more focused for our classroom while respecting the fact that the classroom next door might not be taking a break when we are.

5. Have fun learning and moving with Go Noodle!

- Go Noodle has so many new activities for students to learn! I encourage my students to try out new videos and to really listen to the instructions that are given! And have fun! There's nothing wrong with singing to the songs! 

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How are you managing Go Noodle in your classroom?

Monitoring Classroom Traffic Flow with Google Forms

So I've been thinking...there is so much amazing technology to be used in the classroom that makes our time so much more efficient: attachments, bit-size urls, syncing calendars, and that oh so wonderful cloud...why not expand this time-saving and efficiency to the idea of entering and leaving the classroom!

 I used to keep track of this with an old fashioned clipboard and attached pencil and printed spreadsheet. I know many other teachers who have used this same system, but let's face it...some students are so in a rush that not all the data comes out accurately. 

With these ideas in mind, I went to my Google Drive and created a simple yet effective In/Out Form for my students to use.  

Follow the easy steps below and you can create your own Form!

Step One: Create a Google Form

As of 7.25.14 when you enter your Google Drive home page the red button on the left hand side will say "Create". Click on this. You will then have options to start a new Google Form. Click on Form.

Step Two: Title your form and choose a theme

Part one - Title your form

Click in the title box to name your new form. Make it something unique that you will remember later. For the creation of the first traffic flow form, I used the title "Week 1 In/Out for Room 11". 

Part two - Choose a theme

Google forms has lots of simple and colorful backgrounds for you to use to make your form a little more unique.  Click on one you like and then press "Ok" to save this template. I personally like the red and blue fish for my student's forms. (If you don't like it, you can always change it later!)

Step Three: Begin to create your questions and question types

             Now the really fun part begins!

Start typing in the questions you want to ask on the form.  

There is also a "hint" text box that you can add information to if you need it.

I always start by changing the "Question Type" from "multiple choice" to "Choose from a list" so that I can enter in the first names of my students. Just click on the drop-down arrow next to the words "multiple choice" to get a pop-up box of all your question type options.

I also make this a "required question" by clicking the checkbox next to the blue "Done" button so that students can't submit the form anonymously.

Here's what the final question type will look like when first viewing the form:

Having a list for student names saves even more time for elementary students because they don't have to find the letters on the keyboard to spell out their name!

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Kid's Math Talk tip: Don't spend all your time typing in each name individually! Copy the names of your students from a document that already exists and then paste them into the "list" option of the question on your Form. Google will automatically create a box for each name and you're done! 

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Step Four: Continue creating questions

I only have two questions on my In/Out Form, but the beauty of a Google Form is that you can add more questions, a variety of types, and you can go back an edit the form at a later date if you needs change (like if a student is added or deleted from your roster.)

My second question is a "Check Box" question type with the following question and options:

That red asterisk next to the question lets everyone know that this is a required question. The form can not be submitted until all required questions have been answered.

Step Five: Creating access to the Google Form

Whether you plan on embedding this Form into your class website or just saving this as a bookmark, you will need to change the access depending on your needs. 

The form will be set to private, so you will need to go into your form and change that by first going to File->Add Collaborators.

 You will then see that only you have access to this Form right now. Click the blue hotlink "Change..." to see your other options. 

I suggest making it so that "anyone with the link" will have access.

Save your option, and then Google will show you the following screen:

Now you are ready to have your students access and fill out this form when needed.

I have a class website, so I created a page and then embedded this form so my students can easily and independently access it when needed.

 Another option might be to simply bookmark the link on your classroom computers so that students have easy access.

So you might be thinking that you did all this work to create the form...where does the data go?  

Into a Google Sheet of course. 

Whenever you create a new Form, a matching Google Sheet is automatically created. 

Step Six: Accessing your responses

Simply go to your Google Drive and find your Week 1 In/Out Form (Responses) Sheet and open.  Once open, you will see that Google already set up headings for you from each question that you entered on your Form.

Each time a student submits your form, Google will timestamp the submission and enter all of the answers into this Response sheet.  With the features of A-Z sorting, this Response sheet makes it super easy to keep track of when, how often, and where students are throughout the day.

I like to keep track of my classroom in a Week by Week order, so when I finished creating my Week 1 In/Out Form, I created a copy and then renamed that "Week 2 In/Out Form". Again, Google will automatically create the matching Responses sheet for you!  All that would need to be done after that is changing the form link or embedding code on your website or computer browser.  

Of course, you don't have to create a new form since Google will timestamp everything for you!

Check out this Sample Form and adapt for your own use! Just make a copy to save to your own Google Drive.

So, how do you use Google Forms in the classroom?

Fractions of a circle

How can I represent a fraction with a picture?

Our math focus question for day 2 ended up being quite simple for my students to answer. That energized me and allowed me to alter the lesson on the spot and add a few challenges to the circle geoboard lesson, like finding and representing 1/12 of a circle.

I thought that students would have the most difficult time creating 1/3 of a circle, but I was pleasantly surprised when this came easily to the majority of the groups.  Getting students to use the Geoboard before simply drawing out the different fractions proved to be the largest problem. Oh the math practices and the heartache that can sometimes come with them!

Students had easy transitions into their groups and partnerships today, which was wonderful to hear and see. I have a voice level chart in my room anyway, which helps to monitor such events in the classroom.  I think that the numbering around the room is also helping in these transitions. Label everything you can to make math workshop run smoothly!

Partner Math Parallel Questions

How do you know that 1/2 is larger than 1/3?

How do you know that 1/2 is larger than 1/4?

How do you know that one whole is larger than 1/2?

Take Aways from Day 2

One aha! moment for me was actually during the independent math portion of the workshop. At least 3 different students let me know that they had forgotten what each comparing symbols meant (<,>).  Yikes!  I need to print off Comparing Symbols bookmarks for my students so that those symbols are easily remembered.

            Re-engagement for whole fractions
Yesterday I had three students that circled either 1/3 or 2/3 to represent one whole, which obviously concerned me.  So today during our independent math portion of class I invited them to my work table to talk about this concept. Turns out that one of these students knows an infinite amount of fractions that equal one...so I am thinking that he just rushed through the problem because it was the end of class. That's another issue to tackle, but I'm happy to know that his answer was not because of a misunderstanding.

The other two students who circled fractions besides the whole took a little longer to come around and I am only convinced that one of them now understands and would be able to recognize fractions that represent the number one independently. 

I wrote a variety of fractions on their white boards and asked them to circle the fraction that meant the same as one whole. Both were able to complete this task with success, but only one was able to create different examples of fractions that equal one whole.   

I will provide another re-engagement the next time we meet, but this time it will be with some different manipulatives...maybe some of that lovely Dollar Tree clay I found last week! 


Loving this math unit but we have an assembly tomorrow, which means no math...no school Friday...I have a meeting on Monday...

So no math until next Tuesday?? What am I going to do with myself...sigh.

Yummy Fractions!

So I started my fractions unit today by being a true risk-taker. And I'm so glad I was! We had fun with fractions while making Trail-Mix....Yum!

Pulling this off with 30 students took some planning and thinking about the proper set-up, but it was so worth it! I have five groups in my math workshops, but further dividing them into partnerships A,B,C, was a great plan. Since this was the first day of the new unit, the students belonging to partnership A were the captains. This proved to be clear for the students and quick for me when passing out materials. (Click here for more info about my math workshop organization.)
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I used some basic trail mix ingredients (minus the peanuts) for this intro fraction activity:

- One box of honey nut toasted oats cereal

-3 bags of mini-marshmallows

-one container of raisins

-one bag of mini-pretzels (that I crushed up even more)

-two bags mini semi-sweet chocolate chip pieces

The quantity you need will vary depending on how many students you have in your classroom and on how much of the mix you would like for your students to take home. 

We ended up with 1/2 cup of trail mix for each student, which I thought was just enough for them to enjoy while remembering that the true purpose of the trail mix was to think about and work with fractions.
-----------------------------------------------------------------          The Math Workshop Parts for Day 1


Math Talk
As students enter the room, they are to head to the "Math Talk" tray to grab the warm-up for the day. I used a simple and quick fractions worksheet to get brains flowing while not taking up too much precious time from the main activity.

Mini-Lesson

I started the mini-lesson with an anticipatory set. I had already asked students to wash their hands before entering the room (we had recess directly before this lesson) and they used that fact as a clue to help them infer what I was hiding inside my box. I also had some clues around the box (measuring cups and large zip-top bags) to help with the inferring. Look at that...math and reading strategies together in harmony.

Once I gave students a minute to talk about the clues with their partners, the work began. I passed out the jumbo zip-top bags and measuring cups to groups and then asked students "what do you notice?" about the measuring cups themselves.

Thinking quickly moved toward the fractions on the handles of the measuring cups (yes!) and then a student mentioned cooking...then the excited whispers started..."Food is in the box!"

Once students made the connections, I opened the box to reveal the zip-top bags filled with the ingredients for making the trail-mix.

Teaching Point: "Today I want to teach you that we can use fractions in everyday life. I also want you to think about how many ways we can represent one whole today."

Partner Math
The mini-lesson and the partner math then meshed together, as the class stayed whole group on the carpet while creating their trail mix with their groups. Each person had a turn scooping out a certain fraction of an ingredient to add to the trail mix bag. I altered the portions so that in total we had about three cups of food in the trail mix bag. When trying this with your own class, you might want to play around with the proportions to make sure the total can be divided evenly.

            Possible questions to pose during the activity:

"How do you know that you have more/less of _______ than _______.?"

"If we add 1/4 of a cup to the bag, how many total cups will we have?"

"If we need a total of 1/2 of a cup of pretzels, how many times should we scoop using the 1/4 measuring cup?"


Before each scoop, we talked about the fraction and if that fraction was less than, equal to, or greater than 1/2 of a cup.

Summary of Learning
At the end of the mixing, students had to figure out how much each person could scoop to make sure that they were being fair with the mix. 

I first proposed dividing the contents of the bag in half so that two out of the six students could take home trail mix, which was quickly shot down..."That's not fair!" one student protested, "unless I'm getting one of the halves!" She joked. Ahhh, I love when students forget that they are doing math and just decide to be present in the moment!

With students knowing that simply taking 1/2 of the bag would not be fair to everyone, I shifted the conversation into thoughts about what fraction would be fair.

I was blown away by how quickly students grasped the concept of using the measuring cups to be precise about their fairness...which then led to the discussion of precision of language...which cup? why? 

We soon found the correct language and vocabulary and students were using the 1/2 of a cup to make sure that the divisions were fair. Students then began scooping our their share into smaller zip-top bags for them to keep. Students were engaged the whole time and excited to see the connections that can be made between food and fractions. This real-world application really worked well!

Independent Math
In math workshop, I usually have the independent math portion come before the summary of learning, but the layout of this lesson did not lend itself to that tradition very well. I had another type of exit slip already planned for students, but due to how the lesson played out and time constraints, I simply used the Little Baker's Recipe Card as student's independent math.

                            I used the Little Baker sheet below as an exit slip...

                              Click on the picture for a free download!

Students simply filled out the questions and I paid close attention to which fraction was circled as I stapled this sheet onto their plastic bags. Out of 30, there were 3 that had something other than 3/3 circled...I will be meeting with them in a small group tomorrow to reinforce whole fractions!