We have been on a roll with warm-ups lately, and maybe since we’re still talking about many different things, they’ve given us a way to keep all the balls in the air. Love that. Enjoy! 🙂
Monday
One of the topics we’re working on right now is the foundation of fractions, and understanding about equal parts. This warm-up led to a GREAT conversation about how 1/5 is always a 1/5, but the actual portion that is being considered changes based on the whole. Oh, and we were all hungry when we were finished. 🙂
Tuesday
It seems like addition and subtraction is a never-ending concept with 2nd graders, and we’re still working on it. Oh well, as long as it takes. School year’s not over yet and they can get it! Here was another opportunity to practice.
Wednesday
Ok, so I need to explain that that picture is a pizza, not a target. It’s based on a picture we had looked at the day before in a math conversation. It was based on an 8-slice pizza and how we could share it fairly if twice as many people showed up for our party. This was the way one group suggested we do it, and we had to discuss whether we agreed if it was fair. Which piece would you want? 🙂
Thursday
We had a FABULOUS walking field trip on Thursday at the time we normally do math warm-ups, so didn’t have one that day. We had a great day in the park and a movie instead! 🙂 (Don’t worry–it was connected to our curriculum!)
Friday
Another topic (which I found a way to weave into this conversation, too!) is the foundation of multiplication. We told many stories of groups of things with this one. Great thinking, Rm. 202 kiddos!
Since we had been studying slow changes and fast changes in Science for a while anyway, it made perfect sense to try it out! And unfortunately, there had also just been some major earthquakes in both Japan and Ecuador that same weekend, so the idea of creating earthquake proof buildings was a real life one to solve. And yeah, it would be fun. 🙂
We began by reading a pretty great Seymour Simon book on earthquakes to gain more information, and answer any questions that might come up about how they work. Knowing exactly what happens helps us build stronger buildings that would withstand the tremors.
We talked and discussed and made predictions and inferences. Then we got with our partners and planned–most on paper and some with some help from their iPad.
Then we got busy building. The 1st building part was actually spread over two days (an afternoon and then the next morning) because we ran out of time.
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We used this design cycle protocol to help us know what to do, and wrote down the timing so we could keep on track.
Some even tried out their prototype on the earthquake machine before the “real” deal. They got some ideas about redesign or shoring up their foundations.
Caught some groups in their planning stages:
We took videos of our trials, and many kiddos voiced their ideas for redesign in their recordings. We all did some writing/thinking about it, but I’ll share those in another post, since after I add our videos, this piece will already take you 7 hours to read it! Thanks for hanging in there–it’s worth it, I promise!!
I shared some building challenges we had done a couple of weeks ago, where we solidified our understanding of both bodies of water and landforms. We still had some thinking to do, as well as demonstrating that we understood the difference between slow changes and fast changes that happen on Earth. Besides using things like Legos, big blocks, pattern blocks, and other things to build with, we often incorporate art into our science and social studies work and represent ideas with pictures. This was one of those times. It was a mural/collage project, much like these that have happened in 5th grade (with both regular units as well as with test preparation).
Our first step was to jot down what we remembered about slow and fast changes we’d already learned about. We made this chart together:
We brainstormed what we knew about the difference between slow/fast, as well as examples of each, and the causes for these effects on the land: wind, water and ice. Their directions were then to create a representation (2D with paper and other art supplies) that everyone could recognize and explain when they looked at the poster. No words (except for the two parts of EROSION and WEATHERING since these were important vocabulary terms) were allowed.
While kiddos worked, they went through the design cycle as they planned, created, tested (by sharing their representation with another group or two to see if others could recognize the concept they were trying to display), redesigned and then shared by putting their creation on our poster. This mural did a couple of things for Rm. 202 learners–helped them solidify understanding of concepts, demonstrate that understanding, as well as remind them of that learning as they connect the picture to the idea in their heads. I plan on using the images on this poster as a part of our assessment at the end of the unit (I just haven’t fleshed out exactly what that will look like yet…still in the design phases!).
Here are the images on our mural. Can you tell what each of them represent?
Each one up close. Half are slow changes and half are fast changes. Oh, and there is one image that we thought was an example of both:
I was really impressed with the diligence portrayed while they worked on this project. There were a couple of pairs who had to go through 2 or 3 versions of their creation before they figured out one that made sense to someone but themselves. There was lots of cooperation and suggestion that happened during our work session, too, as kiddos bounced ideas off each other, shared supplies and asked other pairs for help. Another example of an engaging, motivating and focused way to practice science without pencil/paper or just reading about it. Way to go, Rm. 202 scientists!
If you want, leave us a comment about what you think our pictures are images of. We’d love to share our learning with you. What questions do you have? We’re becoming experts on these ideas of forces that shape the land! 🙂
This was a 4-day week at school, but since we’ve moved our MWU to the afternoon (instead of first thing in the morning), it has seemed it’s been easier to make them happen every day. Maybe it’s just because of the unit we’re in, too, but our conversations about them have been SUPER POWERFUL lately. Can’t imagine teaching without this part of our day!
Monday
I definitely should have taken a before and after picture of this one. The circles were all filled up with post-its when we sat down to talk, but we had to work through them and decide which ones sounded like things mathematicians would say about these polygons. Many of them were vague or didn’t use mathematical terms. They said things like “they’re different” or “they’re the same.” We talked through the definition of polygon (hence the words over there) as well as what some mathematical terms were that we should listen for as we narrowed down the choices. This idea of comparing is something that students are expected to know how to do independently with two different polygons by the end of the unit, so trying some together along the way was crucial.
Tuesday
This one matches up with both some work on shapes we had done earlier (names and attributes), as well as a replay of the question from the day before to see how they’d do in the same situation with different shapes. The number of specific, mathematical responses was much greater this time and we had less work to do to make our Venn Diagram make sense.
Wednesday
This question has a great story to tell (which is SO long and involved I’ll be nice and put it in a different post!), and really gave us lots of math to chew on. And I thought I would be an easy one. Those are always the problems that surprise me.
Do you see the marks on the word HALF up there? Here’s a close-up:
We’re applying our knowledge of lines, angles and polygons everywhere we look! This wasn’t even part of the question, but of course was a great part of the discussion!
Thursday
After all our hard work (which I hope you’ll pop over and read about), I wanted to see if they could remember and apply it to a similar but new situation. Most could see how the knowledge we had gained the day before about halves applied to thirds (and therefore to fourths, fifths, sixths, etc.).
What did you work on as a mathematician this week? What warm-ups would you suggest to us that include angles, polygons or fractions? We’d love to try some more! 🙂
We’re on #3 Skypes in about 2 weeks! YEHAA!! Today was the 2nd in two days!
Like last time, we had jobs, but at the end of the last session we decided to trade. Unlike last time, our camera worked, though (did I mention that? They were Skyping with a blank screen the whole time! 😦 ).
By the way, this post has made me think it might be a good idea to start a new page just devoted to Mystery Skypes. Would make it easier for us (and everyone else!) to find the archives when we need them.
This was another great session, and at the end I’ll share what we know now that we didn’t know just three short sessions ago. 🙂
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The debrief this time was a question about how much more they know now than they did just a couple of short days ago. Here where their responses when I asked “What do you know now?”
“I am a better greeter because I’ve practiced three times. I don’t need my dos/don’ts sheet anymore!” JH
“Now I can visualize a map in my head when they ask a question.” KB
“My job was easier today [than yesterday] because I wrote shorter words.” EM
“I think doing a job more than once makes it easier.” AM
“I know more about maps.” PM
“I know more about what to do as task manager. I can just sit and watch what’s going on [and give reminders when they need them] instead of walking around.” AK
“I know where to stand and use better angles to take better pictures.” CB
“I am better at Twitter. I did it almost alone!” JM
What great thinking, Rm. 202 friends! As always, you amaze me with your reflection and insight. 🙂 Keep it up–excited to see what happens as you keep going with Mystery Skypes!
What? This week I did MWUs every day? Partly that happened because we actually had every day this week at school, but also because I moved the MWU to a different time of day and it made the timing easier (sometimes mornings can get a little crazy and sometimes I have other things I need them to do instead). Now (at least for the time being), we’ve moved Writing Warm-Ups to the morning and Math Warm-Ups to right after lunch, and that conversation is then the beginning of our math time together (that part is still the same). Confused enough now? Don’t worry–the big deal is that I have FIVE MATH WARM-UPS TO SHARE!! They’re pretty great, too, so I’m glad you stayed through that long intro to check them out. 🙂
Monday
We have been working on subtraction lately, and my kiddos have started to do some amazing thinking with negative numbers as a means of figuring out differences. It started with just a couple of friends a couple of weeks ago and now probably at least half the class has tried it! The chart here is similar to the HTO model (which we called Sticks and Dots back then) we used in 1st grade, but connected to an investigation we did with the T-Shirt Factory and refers to the inventory of t-shirts. The come in Boxes of 100, Rolls of 10 and then loose ones. Same idea, but inside the context it makes much more sense. Like most times, you’ll see we did it using two other strategies, as well. The green numbers on top are from the strategy Making an Easier Problem, in this case by adding 11 to both numbers (which we know is possible because of the idea of constant difference).
We also tried it with Circle, Split, Subtract and modeled our thinking on a number line.
And check it out–we got 289 every time!
Tuesday
Another concept we’ve been playing around with is the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction. This one also asked them to analyze someone else’s thinking. We tried it by adding up…
…as well as with our negative number strategy. Again, we got the same answer both times!
Wednesday
On Tuesday during math, I gave kiddos a check-in sheet to see what they could do on their own with subtraction, now that we’ve been working on it for a while together, and the last problem was a challenge problem. Ok, it really isn’t that much harder (just another place), but I wanted to see what kiddos would do when I added 1000s to our work. Landen and Ava decided to that the BRL chart would probably work the same way if you just added another column, and suggested that we try it together as a math warm-up the next day. Great idea, kiddos!
Somehow I took my picture before we had done our work on the chart, so you can’t see it, but believe me–it worked just like they thought it would. Oh, and when I was using this chart again with someone later that day, we decided that instead of just T for thousands (which doesn’t fit the context of the t-shirt story), we’d say T was Trucks, because you could put 10 boxes on trucks.
Thursday
We’ve been working on both geometry as well as subtraction in math for the last couple weeks (and some still also on money from our last unit), but I decided that we’d use the MWU as the start for our conversation by throwing up some geometry vocabulary I needed to emphasize. So using examples and non-examples, I had them think about parallel:
They were able to figure out the meaning (for the most part), although many kept saying it meant “straight” and we had to clarify what they really meant, because ALL of those lines are straight….and while I don’t like math tricks, I did show them that in the word PARALLEL are clues to what it means: PARA for the PAIR of lines, and that the l’s make two parallel lines themselves (ok, well they do if they’re lowercase…see, told I don’t like tricks).
Friday
Today’s MWU was geometry again, related to work we’d done this week, as well as connecting to the work I knew I’d have them do during Math Workshop today. Win/win! (Oh, and I realize now I mislabeled the trapezoid as a parallelogram. Oops. I’ll fix that on Monday. 🙂 ).
After this conversation we went on a great shape hunt challenge outside, but you’ll have to wait about it. We’re not quite done yet. 🙂
Note: See that “next” on the bottom? I’d tried many versions of that extra question this week on math and writing warm-ups. It seems that when I put “bonus” there, kiddos thought that meant they didn’t have to do it. LOL So I tried “next” and also “big ?” to help them see that they could do both of them. Or at least start thinking about the answer, since it would be what we’d be talking about anyway.
We have been studying Earth and how it changes. We’ve talked about slow changes like weathering and erosion; fast changes like earthquakes, volcanoes and floods; landforms like plateaus, mountains, plains, barrier islands (which I have to admit I didn’t really know about!); and about bodies of water. Because we needed to breathe a little bit of life into our work after having been discussing and watching videos for a few days, and because I know my kiddos are builders and creators at heart, I tried to figure out a design challenge of sorts that we could try. There were many options I could have employed (and still might), but I thought that bodies of water would be a nice place to start.
So kiddos chose groups (in 4s) and then I explained their job: Create a representation of the body of water they get (I passed out cards to each group) so that everyone else can guess what it is. They had options for research before they got started if they needed clarification on the characteristics of their body of water, and they could use whatever supplies in our room that they wanted. There was a 30 minute time limit.
So do you think you can guess what each one is? Try it out. Here is body of water #1, a picture and a video (oh, and the video might have a spoiler, so guess before you watch it!):
Ok, here’s #2:
Try it with group #3:
Group #4 made this:
Check out #5, made with Legos:
Ok, and now that you’re done, check your answers. Promise that you’ve tried it?
#1–ocean #2–creek #3–lake #4–river #5–bay
The best part? We had fun, we learned alot and the only thing I’ve heard since we finished is “When are we going to do this again??” 🙂
We started a new unit this week on geometry, but aren’t all quite solid with adding and subtracting within 1000 yet, so we came back to that as well.
Monday
Somehow I got home today (it’s Friday, when I usually post these while I am eating pizza and watching our family movie) without a picture of Monday’s MWU. Oh well, I’ll just tell you. The chart simply asked the question “What is a polygon?” Well, I thought it asked it simply, but I was surprised that many kiddos answered it very differently than I expected. What I thought I was asking them to tell me was the definition of a polygon. What most of them game me was a picture of a hexagon. Those that didn’t draw a hexagon pretty much described one in a few words. I was puzzled by their responses, but as has happened more than once with these problems, it was a great lesson in asking better questions. Had I asked “What is the definition of a polygon?” or even “Use words to tell what you know about polygons,” it would have made more sense to them. I guess I did get information that they knew that a hexagon was a polygon, and that they didn’t understand the word itself, too, so it wasn’t a total wash. LOL
Tuesday
This one was another attempt at a vocabulary question, and was based on responses to the pretest from our geometry unit. We had a great conversation about the difference between these two things, and how one is for 2D shapes and the other is for 3D. We got out the rectangular prism and a Power Polygon that was a square and looked at the differences. Oh, and notice how they connected the word “difference” with comparison, and so many of them drew a Venn Diagram. Nice work, Rm. 202 kiddos!
Thursday
This was a great day, because Ja’Mia and Ava volunteered to create our Math Warm-Up (like has happened with lots of things in our room lately!), so I told them to have a go. They had to solve their problem, too, so that they would know if we got it right. Unfortunately I changed the numbers just a teeny bit when I wrote it, but I do know I got the -18 part correct from their original problem. Check it out:
Want to explain a couple of things on the chart, based on our conversation. The 900 at the top is because we talked about how estimating the answer before we solve the problem is a way of helping us know if we’re right. We knew that the 300 and 500 would be at least 800, but then since both of the numbers were so big, it would be closer to 900 than 800. We decided that the 69 in 369 was screaming at us (do you hear it??) that we should compensate and make the problem easier so we moved 1 from the 532 and made 370+531. Then we moved 30 over to the 370 to make 400 and added together the resulting numbers. Once we got to 901 – 18, we remembered what we had learned about constant difference and knew that if we added the same thing to both numbers we could get the same answer with an easier problem–thus we did 903-20, which is super easier than subtracting 18. I was impressed with their hard work and glad to see that so many of them could apply the strategies we’ve been practicing.
Friday
Today is a busy morning usually, because we do a Week-in-Review sheet that takes the place of the math warm-up. Often we don’t even get to it, but I decided to try it as our right-back-from-recess activity and it worked pretty well. We tried another one like yesterday’s but I changed the numbers a bit.
This one has many annotations, too. Let me explain:
We had to have a quick explanation of the directions, as many of them thought I meant that they should use their calculator. I just meant I wanted them to figure it out. 🙂 The 800 is our estimate, which we figured out by thinking about 500 + 400, but then realizing that 73 is about 100 so we subtracted that next. The red words were a request for a reminder of the strategies we have learned (as well as a reminder that I still owe them an anchor chart!): Circle, Split, Add; Circle, Split, Add with a number line; splitting; a chart that we’d used during our investigation into the T-Shirt Factory (that is really a visual form of regrouping 10s/1s); and compensation (making an easier problem). As we were deciding upon a strategy to try together, I reminded them that good mathematicians choose one based on what the numbers tell them, not based on their favorite or the one they know the best. Kiddos decided that the numbers were telling them to subtract first, because they noticed that the 75 in 475 could help us subtract the 73. Once we rearranged the numbers, we realized our problem was a SUPER easy addition problem.
On a side note, at our class meeting today, the topic of math came up and many kiddos marked it as their “trouble spot” with a red dot.
Again I was puzzled by this (probably because I define trouble spots as places where our class has something to figure out together or areas/activity where our choices could use some reworking and they instead mark them as things that were hard for them to figure out), so I had them explain. Many said that the warm-ups were hard this week because they had to both add and subtract in the same problem. We came to the conclusion that it was probably “hard” because we still needed practice. We also discussed that labeling something as “hard” can sometimes lead us to believe we can’t do it. If our self-talk is always negative instead of saying “I just don’t get it YET”, that ends up being our reality because we’ve quit trying. We agreed that I could give them just one operation in a problem and that they would work on positive self-talk as they tackled these tricky problems next week. Win/win. 🙂
You might remember that last year we prepared for a Mystery Skype by Skyping with Ms. Turken’s class INSIDE of our school. We were ready and had a plan, but then our Skype that we had scheduled fell through. Somehow we didn’t get another on the books until this year. So a week or so ago we did a Mystery NUMBER Skype with Ms. Bartin’s class at Keysor–the next step above someone in our school is in our school district. hee hee
Then, when I tweeted about how much fun we’d had, I asked for any takers on another Mystery Skype. We quickly got a bite from Mrs. LaRose’s 2nd graders! We quickly put a day and time on the schedule and I got busy getting my class ready for the big time.
Since a few years ago when I did this with 5th graders, I have made some new “friends” on Twitter and knew that they would be the right ones to go to for help. Paul Solarz, 5th grade teacher extraordinaire and author of Learn Like a Pirate has some GREAT Mystery Skype resources, and I used many of them to get us prepared for our conversation.
It started with determining our jobs. While Mr. Solarz has 5th graders and does most of his Mystery Skype work online, we were still able to use many of their listed jobs, modified a little to fit our needs.
While I think that Mr. Solarz assigns jobs, we had a meeting before we got started and I explained each job, then we decided who should do each one. If more than the allotted number wanted a specific job, kiddos had to find a way to decide who should do it (many of them played rock-paper-scissors to get to a decision). In the end, we agreed that the right people were in the right jobs, based on their strengths and personalities.
I was excited (as were they) and even though I had done this many times before, I really didn’t know what to expect because I hadn’t done it with this format in any other session previously. Because we were ready a little early (ok, I did that on purpose), we were able to practice. We were able to run through the whole deal twice, with me pretending to be the other class and them trying out their assigned jobs (thanks, Mr. Solarz for that idea–it was SUPER helpful!). First I was in Illinois (Chicago, actually) and then I was in Florida (ok, fine–Orlando). If you know me at all, you could probably guess those would have been my choices. Ok, fine, they probably had a little head start on that, too. Anyway…
While we were working, I was surprised with how busy everyone was, how well they worked together and how quiet but bustling the room was! We were even able to host a few teachers who wanted to see what this whole Mystery Skype thing was about without any real trouble. Thanks for Ja’Mia and Landen for submitting the pictures for this post, and for Khalani for taking the video.
Check out our archives from our first-ever REAL Mystery Skype!
After we were finished, we sat down to debrief and it was great how excited they all still were–I had them turn and talk so everyone could get all their thoughts out, then they shared some with me. Here is a little of what kiddos said, some positive and some things we might change:
I liked holding up the “Good job” sign, it made me feel great to see everyone focusing, learning and doing the right thing! -Sara
I thought it was fun and I really wanted to do a good job to help out our class! -Thomas
I liked that I helped find Vermont! -Amber
I didn’t like walking around the whole time. -Landen
I liked my job because I got to remind people. -Ella Marie
I thought it was tricky trying to find a question. -Emily
I liked it when Nate and Charlie asked about the time zone. -Lawrence
I like that my behavior was good. I got a “good job” card and I really wanted to do my very best for our class! -Jacob
I liked being a greeter. I was good at that job because I am friendly. -Joshua
I liked learning things that I didn’t know about our state. -Ava
I liked learning about maps. -Evan
We also debriefed on jobs. The consensus was that there were too many researchers, and that we needed to add a couple of new ones: Tweeters and Closers. Mrs. Sisul, our principal, texted me during our session and asked that I make sure to Tweet since she couldn’t make it and I could not believe that I hadn’t even thought about it! We will definitely find some friends to do that next time, as well as choose two friendly kiddos to close the call and say thanks and good bye. 🙂
One more thing…it’s very long and it’s kind of shaky–it’s our first time, after all–but I think it gives a great example of all the hustle, bustle and hard work that was happening during our Mystery Skype. We’d love to hear what you think, especially if you notice anything or have any questions.
We were continuing with our study of subtraction this week, and so all our MWUs are related. Happy calculating!
Monday
This one is just to keep our brains fresh about money and time, since we’ve “officially” moved on, but that we obviously should not forget. 😊
Tuesday
This problem pushed my kiddos to think about the reciprocal relationship of addition and subtraction. I had to remind many of them how this could be solved with subtraction, but we had a great conversation once I convinced them it was possible. The strategies are ones we had been working on in Math Workshop lately.
Wednesday
Just because, you know, I don’t want them to forget how to add…:)
Thursday
Tried this format again because I wanted to see what they remembered. The great question after we modeled our thinking with the number line was “Where is our answer?” This one took a few minutes for those that still didn’t see the connection between the parts and whole, between how we could either add or subtract. It was also surprising (still) to some that the answer to the second equation is the same. Ja’Mia had to convince us of you she knew. And yes, she was able to do that by telling us about how addition and subtraction are “opposites.”
20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher 