Many teachers are already back to school, with the rest of us soon to follow. I'm re-posting this updated (free) 'Count the Days in School' pack. If there is only one new math routine you add into your K-2 school day, this should definitely be it. 

Why? Let me count the ways! 
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- It only takes 1-2 minutes each morning. Very quick, very easy, very effective!
- Children love it (you must find a way to keep track of who has already had a turn to add the sticker to a 10 frame or you will have arguments on your hands).
- It provides a visual representation that children are directed to each morning of both number amounts (how big a number is) and place value information (tens/units, but also hundreds if you continue to count past 100 days, which I highly recommend). 
- It provides an easy way into early years Number Talks, while also providing that important visual representation that helps kids to really 'get' numbers, how they are constructed and how they can be partitioned. 

I've updated this pack to make it slightly easier to print and cut out. I've also included 3 pages of Number Talk ideas for the 3 different stages (K-2 / P1-3 / Reception-Year 2).

The main title for this display is 'We are counting the days in school'. In this pack, however, I've also included 4 additional titles that allow you to count: 
1) Days in the School Week
2) Days until Christmas
3) Days until Spring Break
4) Days until Summer

I know that there are some settings where counting smaller amounts (or more repetition of early counting skills) is important, so hopefully these additional sign options will help more people incorporate this routine into their classes in a way that is meaningful for their own pupils.

Welcome Back to School!

When we start our different calculations on our 'Number of the Day', I have kids give me a 'thumbs up' (with their thumb placed right on their chest, so no arms waving in the air) if they think they know the answer to a given question. Then I take several different answers.

When another child gives an answer, I ask the class to either 1) keep their 'thumbs up' on their chest if they got a different answer or 2) give me the 'me, too' sign if they got the same answer. The 'me, too' sign is just making a 'hang 10' sign with your hand (from a fist, stick out your thumb and pinky fingers), and moving it from your chest outwards and back again). That way, I can see who is getting the right (or wrong!) answers. The idea with this routine is that EVERY child is expected to come up with an answer (and show that they have an answer by giving me a 'thumbs up'). We want everyone to be thinking!

The picture above is our first day - I wouldn't normally use quite as many cards, but I wanted to get a picture of what kinds of problems they were used to, and what was less familiar.

The picture below is our 'Number of the Day' from this morning.

Our number was 11, and we answered a few simple questions about 11, as you can see. We doubled 11 (they did that easily), then we doubled 22 - which was a bit trickier for some, but when we did it with our base 10 magnets on the white board, most of the kids 'got' what we were doing. In the picture, you can see the equations I wrote for doubling both 11 and 22 (with the 'expanded form' written below each number). In the picture, we've moved on to writing the expanded form for 11 (10+1), but when we were doubling both 11 and 22, I modelled what we were doing with the base 10 magnets - this makes the problem much more accessible to all of the kids, rather than only the kids who are comfortable working with the abstract equation.

Tomorrow, we'll add in our 'Addition' and 'Subtraction' pages.

If you'd like the 'Number of the Day' pack yourself, you can get it here. It is geared at Primary 1-3, stretching into P4, with the basic questions K-3 in the States), but it can easily be adapted to suit older stages as well (instead of giving them 11 to work with, you can give them 1147!).

I think I'm procrastinating, as there is so much to plan for this coming week!

When I wrote my last post about how I was planning to use my new Number of the Day cards, I decided that it made sense to go back and add a few cards that I used with my Primary 1s - you can see the 4 extra cards I've added above. If you want the updated pack, click on the link above. In this pack, I've also made the 'Number of the Day' sign a bit bigger. The previous pack (with the smaller Number of the Day sign) is still linked to from my previous posts).

With the additional cards, I think this pack should work well for most Primary 1-3 classes (K-2, for Americans). You can just pick and choose which cards are most appropriate for your own class. I hope you find these helpful, and I'd love to hear (or see pictures) about how you use these in your own classroom.

I've spent the afternoon planning for our first week back - the joys! One of the things I've been looking at is how to introduce the structure of our Maths block. The more daily routines that can be established during the first week, the better, right?

Mental maths is a regular component of our whole class maths time, and it is usually how we begin our maths block. In P1, my class enjoyed our 'Number of the Day' routine. As it's a structure that can easily be adapted to different age groups, I was re-looking at it this afternoon, with a view to adapting what I've been doing for Primary 3.

I knew I needed to adjust the difficulty level. But like my picture flashcards, when I looked again at the 'Number of the Day' cards I used last year, I thought they would benefit from a bit of an overhaul. You can see some of the cards I used last year in the picture below (the different 'task cards' changed each week or every other week, to keep the routine fresh and to make sure we were practicing a variety of maths skills). 

So - I've redone the cards for myself, and added a link so that you can use them as well - click on the picture above if you think these would be helpful in your own class (you can have a look at the pictures below to see how the new cards look). I've been aiming the cards at a Primary 3 level (2nd grade in the States), but I suspect they'd also work for some Primary 2s and 4s as well.

In the file, there are a variety of different cards, so you can pick and chose what will work for you. I've also included sheets that can be used like the 'Adding' and 'Subtraction' sheets (in white and orange respectively) in the picture to the right. I'm planning on copying the sheets from my new pack onto different coloured paper, so that the 2 operations are clearly differentiated from each other for the class.

I need to get back to my planning, but I have some more thoughts on how I've used Number of the Day in the past, as well as ways I'm planning to change my NotD routine this year. Please check back if your interested in hearing a bit more about how I've used this resource and how I plan to use it this coming year. Hope your Back to School planning is going well!