Well - we're back from a last minute holiday to Northern Ireland (arrived home late last night), and I have a fair amount to do before I'm ready for our in-service day tomorrow, and pupils arriving on Tuesday (eek!). But since it's been a week, I wanted to write a short post about a different approach to Number of the Day that I'm planning to try out this year.
Last year, 'Number of the Day' was a mental maths routine for my Primary 1 (kindergarten) class. It will still be a mental maths routine on some days this year, but I want to introduce 'Maths Journaling' into our maths block, and I'm hoping to incorporate our Number of the Day routine into that.
I really like the idea of Maths Journaling - getting kids to write about their mathematical thinking. The K-5 Math Teaching Resources website has a great explanation of what Maths Journaling is.
In their journals, we want children to be thinking mathematically, in an open ended way. Many of the 'Number of the Day' cards ask closed questions, but for getting started with Maths Journaling, with a new class who has never done it before, that's OK with me. :-) Once we have established our oral 'Number of the Day' routine, it will hopefully be fairly straightforward to transfer that into written form in our journals.
Last year, 'Number of the Day' was a mental maths routine for my Primary 1 (kindergarten) class. It will still be a mental maths routine on some days this year, but I want to introduce 'Maths Journaling' into our maths block, and I'm hoping to incorporate our Number of the Day routine into that.
I really like the idea of Maths Journaling - getting kids to write about their mathematical thinking. The K-5 Math Teaching Resources website has a great explanation of what Maths Journaling is.
In their journals, we want children to be thinking mathematically, in an open ended way. Many of the 'Number of the Day' cards ask closed questions, but for getting started with Maths Journaling, with a new class who has never done it before, that's OK with me. :-) Once we have established our oral 'Number of the Day' routine, it will hopefully be fairly straightforward to transfer that into written form in our journals.
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With P1s, I usually only used 4 cards per day (sometimes 5 or 6), but with P3s, I might eventually use more (we'll see how it goes). But if, as an example, I had the above 7 cards up (taking out the '100 less' for now!), I would ask children to draw the following simple grid in their journals (we can probably get some fraction thinking out of that!):
I know many of the 'Number of the Day' routines you find on-line have photocopied sheets with a variety of number tasks, similar to the ones you see on my cards above. But I'm always looking for ways to use journals, rather than photocopies - it makes my life easier (I have less copying and less filing to do) and it's more eco-friendly.
Additionally, it's much easier to see the progression in what the children are doing, as everything is naturally in date order in a journal (once you train your class to NOT skip pages!). Using a journal rather than a static photocopied sheet also lets you more easily change the maths skills you want to focus on and practice that day. Rather than making up and photocopying a separate sheet of paper, with different skills to practice, you can just change the cards you have up on your Number of the Day board.
After drawing the grid, the children would then fill in the answers for each card, beginning with the cards at the top. If this is already an established oral routine, then hopefully it will transfer into journals fairly easily (although that is never guaranteed, of course). The finished page would look something like this:
Additionally, it's much easier to see the progression in what the children are doing, as everything is naturally in date order in a journal (once you train your class to NOT skip pages!). Using a journal rather than a static photocopied sheet also lets you more easily change the maths skills you want to focus on and practice that day. Rather than making up and photocopying a separate sheet of paper, with different skills to practice, you can just change the cards you have up on your Number of the Day board.
After drawing the grid, the children would then fill in the answers for each card, beginning with the cards at the top. If this is already an established oral routine, then hopefully it will transfer into journals fairly easily (although that is never guaranteed, of course). The finished page would look something like this:
Once the 'Number of the Day' journaling is established, I plan to add in more of the 'open ended' journal questions. So on a separate page, the class might be asked to write and illustrate an answer to a question like:
Sally had 25 chocolate bars, she gave some to a friend and kept some for herself. How many did she give away and how many did she have left?
This kind of question is asking children to decompose 25, of course - which is a task they will be familiar with from the 'Addition' and 'Subtraction' sheets in our mental maths routine.
I'll let you know how it goes once school is back, and we get this up and running!
Sally had 25 chocolate bars, she gave some to a friend and kept some for herself. How many did she give away and how many did she have left?
This kind of question is asking children to decompose 25, of course - which is a task they will be familiar with from the 'Addition' and 'Subtraction' sheets in our mental maths routine.
I'll let you know how it goes once school is back, and we get this up and running!
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