Math Resource

As of three o'clock this afternoon I am on fall break!  I love this time of year!  Jacket weather, fire pits and s'mores, colorful leaves, and trips with friends are some of my favorite fall things. Lucky for you as well that I get a little breather and get to catch up on some blogging!

As I've mentioned earlier I have had a great year. My schedule is working out well so far. I have a mixture of collaboration and resource this year. I collaborate in third grade math, fourth grade science and fifth grade reading and math. I teach resource to a third and fourth grade reading group, third grade math, and fourth grade math. I have a busy day, but that is a good thing, never a dull moment! 

I want to share with you what my resource time is like, in fact I have been meaning to write this post for a long time, but well...anyway:)   So here is a little sneaky peek into my math resource class:

In my math class I use AddVantage Math Recovery. Last school year I completed the Kentucky Center for Mathematics Math Intervention Program. I am now a certified math interventionist, as well as my normal title of special education teacher. Along with Math Recovery strategies, I use Dreambox. Dreambox is an online (paid) program that follows closely with CCS and use the same strategies as AVMR.  (Both of these programs are research based and proven effective!)

During math I focus on four areas that are assessed in AVMR: Forward Number Word Sequence (FNWS) & Backward Number Word Sequence (BNWS), Structuring, Numeral Identification, and Addition and Subtraction.  I have my students for thirty minutes and the activities that I do with my students move very quickly, yet effectively.  I try to use one to two settings (this means the games and materials used) and keep the pace upbeat and engaging.

Here are a couple of activities that we would do:

Number Family Sorts

Materials needed:  numeral cards, something to sort your cards into (I used these cute little baskets from Walmart)

Number family sets of cards are face down on the table.  Students choose one card, say the name of the numeral (Numeral ID) and decide whether the card chosen fits in one of the number families they are responsible for.  If the number picked is not in their "family" then the student returns the card to the pile and play continues.  Above you can see the students sorting the cards into the correct family.  After all of the cards are sorted the student chooses one family to put in correct order.  (Sorry I don't have a picture of this) The student arranges the cards least to greatest.  They point to and say the names of the numbers on the cards (Numeral ID) forward and backward (FNWS & BNWS).  After the student can comfortably name all cards while looking at them, I flip over a few cards and the students must name the flipped over card.  I also ask questions about the flipped over cards, such as: "What is this card?," "What is the number before?"  "What is the number after?" "What is two more (one more, ten more) than this card?",  and so on.

My students have difficulty naming the cards when they are upside down, especially if I ask them to count the sequence backward.  We are working hard on this!  This activity seems incredibly simple, but my students really benefit from doing this type of exercise.  

Frog Jump (On 100s chart)

materials needed: large 100 hundreds chart, flipping frogs (I found these in the party aisle at Walmart)

Students flip each frog to a number on the hundreds chart.  The students then add the numbers together using mental math.  My students usually want paper and pencil, but I don't let them.  I am trying to help them develop strategies for addition and subtraction without using the standard algorithm.  For example:  This student landed on 15 and 15.  The student may know this double :)!  They could count on...which is a habit I am trying to break.  They could say, "15 + 10 is 25 and five more is 30."  They may even say, "10 + 10 = 20 and 5 + 5 =10.  20 + 10 = 30."  Any of those ways would make me jump for joy!!  Right now, I am just working on them not counting by ones. :)

I plan on sharing more posts like this!  Hope you like them!  :)