Welcome back!

In Victoria, our students, families and school communities are about to begin Term 3... welcome back!

We hope everyone has had a restful break (no matter where you are!) and are ready to go, in what is sure to be another action packed term!

One way to get our students back into the swing of school is to ease them back in with an engaging and fun game. Here is a throwback to one of my favourites to get student's maths brains ticking over again...

 

 GREEDY GOATS

(also known as Greedy Pigs).

This is a whole class game that develops student's mental addition skills and thereby improves both fluency and accuracy. This game also provides great opportunities to to discuss strategies (reasoning) used for mental computation - counting on, building to 10, doubles and near doubles etc.

 

What you will need...

• Students - paper and a pencil
• Teacher - six sided dice

 How to play...

• The class decides upon a 'Greedy Goat' number (for example... 2)
• All students stand up (at their tables), the teacher rolls the dice & calls out the number
• Students record the number that has been rolled (for example 5)
• The teacher rolls again, students mentally add this number on to the first number and record the result (for example, if the teacher rolled a 3, students would now have 5, 8 recorded)
• The teacher continues to roll the dice and students continue to add on and record their next answer (for example, 5, 8, 12, 18, 19, 22...)
• Students can choose to sit down at any time - when they sit down they put a circle around their tally and cannot join back in that round
• If the Greedy Goat number is rolled - any students still standing are out and their tally does not count - their total score for that round is 0
• Play three rounds and all students add up their three final round scores - the student with the highest overall score is the winner

Variations...

• When introducing the game - play together and teacher also records numbers for students to see
• Stop after every 5 rolls and check what number students are up to - anyone who is not correct, is out
• Use a dice with larger numbers (eg 10 sided dice/20 sided dice)
• Select two Greedy Goat numbers
• To support students who find mental calculations difficult - allow them to use a calculator
• Only say the number once (if students are not listening - they will miss the number and will be out)
• Choose a starting number (for example 100) and get students to subtract from this number, rather than adding on. Students with the lowest number at the end of three rounds will be the winner
• For extension - use a dice with fractions/decimals

 

 I am sure we all have a favourite maths game! If you would like to share - feel free to email us at kpisurf@gmail.com or leave a comment below.

To all of our followers who are about to start back at school - have a great week!

 

Sunday Night Games

Sometimes we stumble across a gem that is worth exploring further...

Here is a great site (suitable for PC - as it needs Flash to run) that allows students to practice a range of basic skills in the following areas:

* addition

* subtraction

* multiplication

* division

* order of operations

 

 

Students have one minute to answer as many questions as possible and can complete the level as many times as they like. There are four levels, with an increasing range of basic skills available in each level. Questions become harder as students select higher levels.

These activities allow students to implement strategies they have been learning, as well as develop their automaticity across all basic facts.

Students can log in as a guest and make their own graph to track their scores over time.

This is a part of a wider maths tutorial website that is a user pays system, however, this game is free.

 

http://www.mathsonline.com.au/games/speed_skills

 

Give it a try and let us know what you (and your students!) think!!!

 

Sunday Wonderings

Mathematical language...

• How important is the language we use when teaching Mathematics???
• Is there a common language used at your school to teach and discuss specific Maths concepts???
• Do you have a particular resource that guides your teaching and helps form the basis of the language used???

Interesting questions that are worth a few moments to think about...

 

Yes, Mathematical language is incredibly important as it forms the basis for all learning. We use it to build and extend skills and develop understanding, so the correct use of terminology and consistency across a school helps scaffold students for success. Using a common language helps avoid confusion for both staff and students and ensures there is a strong foundation for growth.

 

There are many quality resources available to help both teachers and students develop their understanding of Mathematics. One of my favourites is Teaching Primary Mathematics by Booker, Bond, Sparrow & Swan. This particular resource provides detailed sequences of mathematical learning based on years of extensive research with children. This particular resource, linked to our Australian curriculum,  helps form the basis of language used in many classrooms and schools.

 

Over the next few weeks we will explore some of the language used when teaching specific concepts in Mathematics (based on content from Teaching Primary Mathematics).

 

The language of addition:

 

and - the first term used for addition. Students will often come to school already understanding this terminology. Example: you can have 1 of those and 2 of these.

 

add - once and is understood, add is used (moving to a more formal language). Example: 3 add 4 is 7

 

part & whole - a complete understanding of addition requires an explicit awareness that parts are combined to form a whole. The part/whole notion lays the foundation for subtraction and is crucial for building up an ability to distinguish between addition and subtraction situations, particularly in problem solving.

 

Alternative expressions can be introduced once the addition concept is fully understood. These can include such terms as: plus, sum, total, altogether.

Do you have any other language associated with addition? Feel free to add to our collection!

Next week we will explore the language of subtraction.

 

Sunday Night Game

Teaching Addition Facts with Cards 

If you want to teach your child an easy way to learn addition, have each player deal two cards face up. 

The player with the highest total wins. 

What’s great about this game, is that the playing cards have the symbols which they can use as a counting guide until they are able to memorise the addition facts. 

 Once your child has picked up adding two numbers, you can increase the difficulty level by having them turn up three cards, then four and five and add those numbers.