Plans for TNT Day
I know it is so tempting to take the day off, but I hope you make time to come to TNT Day this year. It will not disappoint! We have over 60 sessions being offered. Teachers from around MPS are presenting along with special guests from all over the state.
You should have received the TNT Day schedule from your principal. Take a look at sessions that appeal to you. One suggestion: Divide and conquer. Each member of your team can go to a different session then share all the information with you team afterwards.
How will TNT Day work?
- All elementary (except 6th math - more information below) is at Southmoore.
- You can park in the front or in the back. Side doors will be locked.
- Doors open at 8:30.
- Everyone will head to the commons (center open area with all the tables).
- You will find the table for your school and sign in.
- Presentations schedules and maps will be provided at the sign-in tables.
- Most sessions are at 9:00 - 9:50, 10:00 - 10:50, and 11:00 - 11:50
- Double/Triple sessions are noted on the schedule.
- PD Certificates are available for each session.
- After the last session come back to the commons to sign out. You will sign in the column next to your sign-in signature.
After TNT day, a file will be sent with links to all presentations will be sent so you have access to all the resources.
Upcoming Additions
Some of the features you have been asking for are on the way. These should be available before the start of the 25-26 school year. Once they are released, I will let you know.
- Teachers can set practice and assessment assignments to auto submit.
- New "By Student" tab on the item analysis report.
- Standards-based reports.
- Send back assignments to students for completions or redo.
- See grade and item analysis on one screen.
Test Prep with IXL
Tailored study plans for every student
It’s simple: Students (or teachers) input STAR scores, and IXL tool creates a personalized plan with the exact skills they need to master test content. (See video below)
Engage and track with Checkpoints
Use Checkpoints to challenge students on rigorous clusters of skills they need for testing success. Teachers can pinpoint trouble spots and adjust instruction as needed.
Make review fun and collaborative
Gamify test prep with interactive activities like Group Jam or Lightning Jam. These engaging formats make learning a team effort!
State Standards Mastery Report
This report looks at how you class is performing on individual state standards/objectives. First, make sure that you "turn on" end of school year projected mastery. This will give an estimate of how the students are expected to perform at the end of the year if the current learning level stays consistent.
Once you look at the report, there are two views you want to take: Vertical and horizontal.
1. Look for whole class trends vertically. For the example below, it looks like most of the class is struggling with using place value to understand rounding. As the teacher, this would tell me that we may need another full day (or two) of instruction on this to the entire class.
2. Look for small group trends vertically. Seeing lots of yellow? Try some review games in centers or problem of the day to help solidify that learning. Seeing a few yellow or a few red? Time for a small group with the teacher for some reteaching and practice time.
3. Look for trends horizontally. Seeing one student with lots of red/yellow? Take a look RTI, tutoring options, etc. Make time to meet with parents to show them this data. It is very eye-opening that the student may not be working on grade level and some considerations about placement, summer school, tutoring may need to be put into motion. The report that you could show to parents is the "Monitor Student Mastery Dashboard." This is slightly different view, but it will show data for only ONE student at a time.
OAML
Looking for a way to stretch your math leadership muscle? OAML is for you! We are starting a book study Rethinking Disability and Mathematics. No need to purchase a book for this meeting. We can take care of that at a later date. If you are interested in attending or becoming a member of OAML, please let me know.
A Focus on Fractions: Bringing Fractions to Life with Interactive Activities
February 19th 5:00 - 6:00
Join Developer of Navigating Numeracy Learning Progression Centers Sue O'Connell to explore a variety of interactive tasks designed to help students grasp the essential concepts of fractions. Explore ways to break down complex fraction ideas into accessible, tangible experiences for learners. Gather practical strategies to make fraction learning fun, effective, and understandable for all students.
Using Manipulatives as the Building Blocks for Math Fluency
March 18th 4:00 - 5:00
During the webinar, author of the Figuring Out Fluency in Mathematics series and more John SanGiovanni will focus on the important skills and concepts that are necessary for students to be fluent in math. John will share ideas about how to teach and review core concepts and provide opportunities for student practice with the integration of hands-on manipulatives.
Bingo: All Operations
An oldie but a goodie - BINGO! Here are 40 different versions of Bingo for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Three DIce Take: All Operations
Materials:
- three dice,
- one shared Three Dice Take gameboard (laminated),
- dry-erase markers,
- one recording sheet per player
How to Play (2 or more players):
1. Player 1 rolls all three dice.
2. Player 1 uses all three numbers with any combination of operations to get an available number on the shared gameboard and marks out the box with their number.
3. Player 1 records their equation on their recording sheet and receives 1 point for the box they crossed out and one additional point for each marked box that touches their number.
4. Player 2 repeats steps 1-3.
5. Continue, taking turns, until the gameboard is full or out of time. Player with the most points wins.
Softball Hits: All Operations
Materials:
three dice (6-sided or 10-sided with 0 treated as 10),
one Softball Hits gameboard and
one dry-erase marker per player
How to Play (2 or more players):
1. Player 1 rolls all three dice. Player 1 then uses 2 or all 3 of the numbers and any combination of operations to equal 1.
2. If Player 1 is successful, they record the equation(s) on their gameboard, cross out the 1, and continue their turn.
3. Without rerolling, Player 1 then tries to create an equation(s) for position 2. If successful, they continue to position 3, and so on.
4. When Player 1 cannot use the rolled dice to create equation(s) for the next position, they pass the dice to Player 2, who repeats steps 1-3. 5. Each player picks up where they left off on their next turn. First player to make expressions equal to 1-9, in order, wins.
Practicing Fact Fluency
IXL has many skill lessons that you can use to help your students with fact fluency. Use individual assignments, group jam, competitions, etc to encourage your students to master those facts! You can go down to the skill plans that are needed no matter your students' grade level.
Where do I find them?
Learn -> Skills -> Find the grade level of the skill.
3rd Grade:
- Multiplication Fluency to 10
- Multiplication Fluency to 12
- Multiplication Skill BUilders
- Division Fluency to 10
- Division Fluency to 12
- Division Skill Builders
- Mixed Operations (Multiplication and Division)
- Mixed Operations (all 4)
4th Grade:
- Multiply by 1-Digit Numbers
- Multiply by 2-Digit Numbers
- Divide by 1-Digit Numbers
- Mixed Operations
Maker Mat
To play, you will need the following supplies:
- Printable maker mat
- a die or a set of dice
- Materials that can be used for both counting and creating (ideas….craft sticks, cotton swabs, toothpicks, pipe cleaners etc)
- play dough (optional)
- Free Printable
Directions:
To play, kids roll the dice and count the appropriate number of materials. They can then use those materials to make a creation on their maker’s mat. When their creations are complete, the children can make another design/creation with the same materials,…or they can roll and select a different quantity. You can add a ball of play dough to the maker mat before you begin. Kids can use the play dough, along with their counted materials, to create a 3-dimensional design.
Number Path Floor Game
- Prepare a number path on the floor that is big enough for children to jump on. Start with a path from 1 to 5 or 1 to 10, and make the path longer as the children gain experience (and as space allows).
- Player 1 starts as the frog, standing at the beginning of the number path but not on lily pad 1.
- Player 2 rolls the large game cube (see “Number Path Games: Materials and Teacher Tips” for tips on making cubes) and calls out how many to jump.
- Player 1 jumps that many spaces, counting as she goes. For example, roll ; count “One, two, three”; land on 3.
- Play continues until Player 1 jumps on (or beyond) 10 and goes for a swim in the pond.
- Many children enjoy continuing the game by jumping back to 1. This gives them practice counting backwards!
This game asks children to integrate many concepts. When children roll the cube, they have to use their counting or subitizing skills to know how many dots in all. They have to remember the number that was rolled and then jump that many spaces—one space for each count (one-to-one correspondence). They also have to know when to stop jumping (cardinality) and roll again
Number Path Table Game
- Give each pair of children a number path game board. Give each child a cube and a frog token (or whatever is available).
- Place the token on the picture of the frog below the number 1 (home).
- Taking turns, children roll the cube and jump that number of lily pads.
- Play continues until children’s frogs land on (or past) 10 and go for a swim in the pond.
- Many children enjoy continuing the game by jumping back to 1. This gives them practice counting backwards!
The numerals on the lily pads are arranged vertically. We want children to see that as they move from 1 to 5 or from 1 to 10, they are moving farther from the start (home). We also want them to see how much farther: 10 is a lot farther away from 1 than 2 is from 1. Preschoolers are developing their understanding of number magnitude—knowing that 5 is greater than 2 and beginning to understand how much greater. Each time children jump on the lily pads, one by one, they are reinforcing kinesthetically that each number gets bigger by one jump. Jumping also helps them understand that the distance between consecutive whole numbers is the same—10 is one jump bigger than 9, just as 2 is one jump bigger than 1.
Go Fish - Subitizing
Materials:
- Dot Cards
- Numeral Cards
Directions:
- Shuffle both types of cards into one stack.
- Deal 5 cards to each player.
- Play a traditional "Go fish" to make pairs of numerals and dots.
- The first to have no cards left in her hand is the winner.
Match My Number
Materials:
- Dot Cards
- Numeral Cards
Directions:
- Hold up a written numeral—for example, 3.
- Ask, “Can you find a card with the same number of dots?”
- Ask, “Can you find a card with one more? With one less?”
Talking about more, less, and same is critically important for building children’s math vocabulary and their understanding of the number line—especially knowing which numbers come before and after each other. When you show children a dot card, you are focusing their thinking on subitizing and recognizing quantity. When you say the number aloud, you are focusing on recognizing number names. When you show children a number card, you are focusing on recognizing numerals.
Fingers, Fingers
Materials:
None
Directions:
- Say, “Hold your hands behind your back.”
- Together, chant, “Fingers, fingers, 1, 2, 3. How many fingers do you see?”
- Using two hands, hold up three fingers. (Start with the typical ways of showing 1–5 on your fingers.)
- Children can say three or show three with their fingers.
- Keep playing with different numbers of fingers, focusing on 1–5 and slowly moving up to 10.
- Vary how you show each number on your fingers.
Valentine's Day Math Books and Activities for Early Childhood
This sweet book Valentine’s Day, Here I Come is a collection of short poems perfect for a pre-k through 1st grade classroom. As you read the poems aloud, choose a math activity or two that complements the poems in the book!
Poem: We Love Heart's
Activity: Draw a collection of hearts on a piece of chart paper. Your students’ task? Tell you how many hearts they see! You can customize this activity by choosing a number of hearts that would be relevant to your students and by choosing an arrangement of hearts that is relevant to their skill set. For example, in a 1st grade classroom, you might draw 30 hearts in groups of 5. All of your students would have an entry point to the activity by counting by 1s to 30 but some students will be able to extend by noticing that you can count by 5s. Other students might find different ways to count the hearts!
Poem: My Lacy Heart
Activity: Provide each student with a heart cut-out. Ask them to fold the heart in half and talk about the word “symmetry”. Allow your students to cut a design into the heart much like you would cut a paper snowflake. As your students open up their heart they will be able to see their symmetrical design. As a bonus, allow the students to use markers and stickers to continue to decorate their heart but ask that they keep these designs symmetrical as well!
Poem: Happy *Sniffle* Valentine’s Day
Activity: In this silly poem about being allergic to roses on Valentine’s day you will see an illustration with roses of all colors for sale at the store. Provide your students each with 10 red and yellow disks to represent the red and yellow roses in the illustration. Ask your students to see how many different “bouquets” they can create with red and yellow roses. This is a partners of 10 activity! Your students can record the different bouquets as illustrations, number bonds, in a table or as equations. Notice which students work methodically as they find different combinations of 10, notice the different ways your students record their equations, and ask your students questions such as “Have you found all of the different bouquets that are possible? How do you know?”
Differentiation Strategies for Gifted Learners
Create tiered assignments
Tiered assignments allow learners to complete the same assignment at different levels of difficulty.
How you implement this strategy will vary based on your classroom. For example, you may design an assignment for the middle tier of students and then add additional challenges for gifted students.
Another option is designing a more difficult assignment and then adding scaffolding, such as a graphic organizer or supplied reading material, to those at or below grade level.
With this strategy, it is important to routinely assess your students to understand where they are at. This way you will always know who needs advanced content and who needs more help.
Shorten the explanations
Gifted students typically understand a concept the first time it is explained, whereas their peers may need the content to be taught a few different ways.
Try giving a short pre-assessment or a pop quiz once you have taught the concept one time to see if the gifted students can move on to the next topic.
Doing this will hopefully prevent boredom and, in turn, misbehavior from gifted students.
Offer open-ended and self-directed assignments
Open-ended tasks are great for differentiated lessons because they leave plenty of room for students’ skills and ideas to shine. They are especially good at stimulating higher-order thinking skills such as problem-solving.
Self-directed assignments give gifted learners responsibility for their own development and let them decide how far they want to take their own learning. Assignments with open-ended questions encourage students to offer creative responses, work in small groups and build other ways to further explore. But make sure you deliver open-ended sessions with an end goal rather than leaving the students alone.
Try a compact curriculum
A compact curriculum is similar to shortening explanations, but it will actually throw out whole lessons that the gifted student already understands. Instead, the gifted student will be given lessons on content they’ve never been exposed to.
Most often in this method, students will be given a pre-test that allows them to show mastery over various problems. Then, the curriculum is adjusted.
It’s important to remember that curriculum development for gifted students is a dynamic process.
Gifted Education Pitfalls to Avoid
1. Using gifted students as teaching assistants
While gifted students may seem like a great help in the classroom, they should not be tasked with mentoring or tutoring other students. They need to be challenged in their own education and reteaching a concept that they already know doesn’t do that.
A different way to go about this is having flexible grouping projects that let students work together for a short period of time. These projects allow gifted students to practice interacting with their peers and allow other students to learn from gifted students, but it’s temporary.
This method allows gifted students to learn and avoids attaching a ‘teacher’ role to their interactions.
2. Working independently without oversight
A differentiated lesson for gifted learners should lead to more collaboration and content enrichment without the learner working constantly on their own. Assigning open-ended tasks without oversight or accountability can actually have the opposite effect of what you’re going for with gifted learners.
Ensure that lessons allow for student choice while still conforming to school district standards. And check in often with your gifted students.
3. Assuming mastery in all subject areas
Don’t assume that just because a learner is gifted in one area means that this means they are gifted in every area. For example, a student may be reading at a high school level but is not a strong writer. Or they may excel at math problems but struggle to understand graphs in science.
Evaluate each subject area individually before assigning advanced lessons to gifted students.
Lilly's Chocolate Heart
This Valentine’s classic tells the funny tale of Lilly and her precious, last red-foil-wrapped chocolate heart. She wants to find a safe place to keep it. No location is quite right until she finds that the best place is, of course, her own mouth. This silly story is also mathematical, as it explores spatial relationships in a number of ways. You can have children play their own hide and seek game with a chocolate heart and have it lead to a discussion that uses all kinds of useful spatial words such as above, below, around, and inside. Perhaps a map will help some kids in describing where they hide their special Valentine’s treat?
The Boy Who Loved Math
This picture book biography describes eccentric mathematician Paul Erdos and his incredible love for mathematics. He was drawn to numbers at an early age, which turned into a life-long love for math and mathematical problems. This colorful and often quirky story incorporates math throughout the text. And it describes his love for his mother, his love for prime numbers, and even his love for traveling in interesting and mathematical terms.
Guess How Much I Love You
The beloved tale of Little and Big Nutbrown Hares’ efforts to describe their love for each other is a staple of bedtimes and story times. When Little Nutbrown Hare stretches out his arms to show how much he loves Big Nutbrown Hare, the question of measurement naturally arises. How can we measure love? Little and Big Nutbrown Hare express their love as increasingly far distances, ending with “I love you right up to the moon and back.” Children can make valentine cards expressing their love for family or friends in this way, or calculate the actual distance to the moon and back. Measuring distances around the school or playground is also a way to extend this story into thinking mathematically.
Grandfather Tang's Story
This traditional Chinese folktale begins and ends with a loving relationship between a granddaughter and her grandfather. As he tells the story of two shape-changing and competitive fox fairies, the use of tangrams is a natural way to have children explore shapes through the ancient fun of tangram puzzles. The eventual concluding friendship between the fox fairies provides a return to the theme of the season, love.
Are You My Mother? / A Mother for Choco
This pair of similar stories tells a tale of a child’s loving search for his mother. The connection to Valentine’s Day can be made while the search itself involves thinking about an important mathematical concept: attributes. The characters use physical attributes to “sort” their mother from other animal mothers. Acting out these stories will help children play with sorting problems; puppets, felt boards, or small collections of items can be incorporated into centers and free play options to keep the thinking going. Links: Are You My Mother? | A Mother for Choco
Fraction Activity
Making and designing your own chocolate box is another fun Valentine’s Day activity for students who are beginning to delve into fractions! Students will design their own chocolate box and then describe their box using fractions. This activity also makes a beautiful bulletin board when they are complete!
Conversation Hearts
- Graph the number of hearts of each color. Take the activity a step further by asking students to grab an index card and write a question that can be solved based on their graph. Ex: How many more red hearts than orange hearts are in my collection? Students can complete a gallery walk to answer one another’s questions.
- Practice fractions of a group with conversation hearts. Provide each student with a pile of hearts and ask if they can demonstrate fractions of a group using their candies. Ex: Grab a group of candies where 1/3 of the candies are yellow. Your students can turn and talk with a partner- did they create the same model or different models? Can both models be correct? How do they know?
Lots of Good Going on in Moore!
These are some of the positives that I've heard from around the district. Keep looking for those positives!
The students and their daily Math prompts and number sense.
I am excited that many of my students are using the correct math vocabulary when responding to my questions during the lesson.
I'm getting more participation from students during whole group instruction! They seem to enjoy the flow of this math curriculum and all the extra practice.
The math IEP students who are monitor only, so they get instruction in my class, are getting long division.
My students were very worried about learning equations and solving for the variables. Once we got all the worry out, they did AMAZING. I loved being able to see all the smiles and confidence come out!
I’m loving the new curriculum!
My 1st graders have caught on to addition AND subtraction!
We had great success with 2-digit addition strategies!
Students are learning!
We are working hard on our compliment chain. The students work so hard to follow the wildcat way in order to add a chain.
My students are adjusting to the Myada tests and some are making 100s!!
My students find JOY in simplifying fractions and showing me with manipulatives what that actually looks like!
We are taking fractions slow, but they seem to be grasping them well!
No students under benchmark!
We have completed Science Olympics!
I had a kid actually make almost 2 years of growth on STAR math already!!!
We have done 10s and 1s with calendar each day so now when we did it in the curriculum it was so much easier!!
We are working hard to learn about fractions. We love to use our manipulatives to help us understand fractions better.
My students are excited to start integers!
Our routine is set and everyone knows how to follow the rules, FINALLY! LOL.
I went over how to use a physical number line to help solve fraction questions and I love seeing the kids use them to solve questions. They use their pencil, the edge of their paper, or their body.
I teacher- where students show others the steps in solving a problem
Counting the days of the school year using place value has made it any easy transition for "most" of my students when we are doing the place value lessons from the math book.
We are using dominos to use as fractions to add, subtract and multiply.
My students love using their manipulatives to double check the answers to their adding/subtracting with unlike denominator problems!
Students are remembering how to do things that I've spiraled into review!
I am enjoying small groups with my students!
Students are getting better at helping one another (not doing the others work).
Big Ideas lessons are so helpful and my kids like the Math games.
We do Genius Groups in class;)
Lots of growth in writing.
The kids are enjoying fractions!
I only have 2 kids that didn't benchmark on STAR in December, and they are both in the blue with scores close to benchmarking.
We're learning about making goals: only things we can control.
Students think simplifying fractions is easy!
I started tutoring 5 kids to build strategies and they are doing fab-u-lous!
My student has come back from Christmas break ready to work and learn with enthusiasm!
My kiddos are doing GREAT with the part/part/Whole concept!
My Entire Job
My entire job is to help you in whatever capacity you need.
- Off on the pacing and need help getting back on track?
- Lesson just flopped and need some ideas?
- Have a small group of students still struggling and don't know how to help?
- Need help with the curriculum and how to use it?
- Had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day and just need to vent & talk?
These are just some of the ways I can help. Please reach out when you need some help, ideas, or just a shoulder to lean on.
