Five for Fraturday: Near Doubles Strategy & A Cute Kid Quote

It's been a few weeks since I've been on here...I've been extremely busy with school and all the extra commitments that come with it!  I'm back today to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching and share a little bit about the past couple weeks.

1. Equality vs. Equity

As part of my grad program for elementary mathematics, my cohort is looking at how equity (or lack of it) affects achievement in mathematics.  I found this visual on Facebook, and I love how it shows the difference between equality and equity.  So often, there is a focus on making things equal, when really, there should be a focus on making things equitable. I am excited to delve more into this topic in the coming months.

2. Make It True Problem Solving Activity

This activity is from Month 4 of my Ready, Set, Math series.  It was a great practice activity for algebraic thinking because kids had to fill in the numbers so it would make sense.  It was also a great review for turnaround facts and fact families because kids made the connection that you could have the addends flipped and it would still be true! :)  Even though it's from an earlier pack, I love that I could pull it back out later in the year without it being the wrong season or theme!

3. Visual Model for Near Doubles Facts

Start with a doubles fact and show that the towers are equal.

Add a cube to one of the addends to make it a near doubles fact.  Ask kids how to make the other side become equal.

Add a cube to the tower representing the sum.  Once that side gets another cube, things are equal once again.

 Some of my kiddos were struggling with near doubles facts, so I used cubes to visually model how to go from a doubles fact to a near doubles fact.  It really helped to see the extra cube getting added and how we needed to add 1 more cube to the total as well.

4. Number Tiles

This was actually from a few weeks ago but it never made it to the blog.  Once my kids were pretty solid with knowing the patterns of the number chart, I made these number tiles that the kids had to put together as puzzles.  It will be sooo much easier to make the connection to "10 more, 10 less" later in the year because they've already been doing it with these tiles!

5. Tables Problem Solving Activity (Cute Kid Quote) :)

That little square with the circle around it is the desk. :)

I did a great activity on Friday where I asked the kids to help me solve a problem.  I told them that I needed their help in deciding how many tables I should have in my room next year for 20 first graders.  I pretended that our principal had said I could order as many or as few tables as I wanted, and that they could be any shape.  (Clearly, this was a fictional activity- haha!)  They took it so seriously and worked for about 45 minutes straight on this.  The conversations around it were fantastic, but the best quote has to come from the kid whose work is pictured above.  When I asked him to tell me about his picture, he said that he would have lots of small tables that each sat 2 kids.  Then, when I asked why there was a little square all by itself, he said it was "a desk that kids could go to if they were angry and needed space, or a it could also be a place that you could send kids to if you were just all done with all their moaning".  HAHAHA!  Clearly he knows I don't accept whining. :)

Well, that's a wrap folks!  Make sure you head back over to Doodle Bugs Teaching and check out what else people were up to this week!