Beat the Calculator

In my weekly newsletter, I know I've mentioned the math games we play in class. These games are a great way to practice our multiplication facts in a fun way. We learned a new game last week that quickly became a class favorite - it's called Beat the Calculator. One person is the caller, one person is the Brain, and one person is the Calculator. The caller draws two cards and calls out a fact, and the Brain and Calculator try to be the first person to get the correct answer. Whoever calls out the correct answer first gets the cards. The person with the most cards at the end of the round is the winner. This game is high energy, so there is a LOT of noise in our room while small groups of kids play this game. But I hope this short video gives you a feel of our class "game time"...

What's the Chance?

While Challenge was out this past week, we created a pretty fun probability game. A student puts 10 unifix cubes into a paper bag (any combination of colors and amounts). Another student then pulls out one cube at a time and records the results. After 50 or so "pulls" the student then makes an inference as to how many of each color are in the bag. This game took lots of inferencing - you really had to study your results. We learned that the more "pulls" you make, the more likely you are to have accurate results. With more accurate results, you're able to make a better inference of what's in the bag. Here are some pictures of our kids at work...

Probability Games

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Learning Facts...with Baseball

Kids have to learn their multiplication facts - it's a part of growing up. Hopefully, we can make the process a little more fun. We play LOTS of different games in class to reinforce the facts. Here are some pictures of the kids playing Multiplication Baseball - a class favorite.

Multiplication Baseball

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Pentominoes

Last year I read the book Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett. It's an interesting children's book where the two main characters solve a mystery about a stolen piece of artwork. One of the characters is intrigued with patterns and puzzles, and he always carries around a set of pentominoes with him. After reading the book, I became intrigued with this mathematical puzzle. I ordered a classroom set, and I began exploring them at the beginning of this school year. I found out that pentominoes are a lot like tetris (for those of you who remember that very fun Nintendo game). You have 12 pieces, each consisting of 5 squares. Each piece is named by the alphabet letter it represents. You can arrange the 12 pieces to make a 6x10 rectangle, and there are over 2,000 different ways you can arrange the 6x10 rectangle. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. My daughter and I played with them every night for two weeks...no luck. My father-in-law was the only person in my family able to make the rectangle! So last week I introduced this puzzle to our class to see what they could figure out. The pentominoes proved just as challenging to our students as it did to me. This will be a mathematical puzzle that we will continue to explore all throughout the year. Here are a few pictures of our kids in action...

Pentominoes

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Ordering Numbers

In order to better understand how to compare numbers, we played a game in class. Each student had five small pieces of paper. They wrote a number on each one, and then put the numbers in order from least to greatest. Students also made answer keys for their game (we tried to think like test takers...creating tricky numbers). Everyone had a chance to go around the room and "play" other students' game. Before AND after playing, we discussed effective strategies for comparing and ordering numbers. Here are some pictures...

Ordering Numbers

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Math Games

One of the best ways to learn math is by playing games. So far this year, we've learned several math games: Poison, NIM, Addition Top-It, Subtraction Top-It, Name That Number, Number Top-It, Around the World, and High Number Toss. Ask your child about these games. Which ones were their favorite? What did they learn by playing these games? Here are a few photos of our students playing hard...