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We are finishing up our book study on Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids today!  We will be taking a look at what is offered in the Bonus Chapters.  If you are just joining us, feel free to use the links below to start at the beginning.  I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on Whole Brain Teaching even if you are finding this months after the initial posts! September 3 First Words, Chapters 1-3 September 10 Chapters 4-7 September 17 Chapters 8-10 September 24 Chapters 11-14 October 1 Chapters 15-18 October 8 Chapters 19-22 October 15 Chapters 23-26 October 22 Chapters 27-29 October 29 Bonus Chapters 30-32 Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids (and the rest of your class, too!) Chapter 30: Designing your Whole Brain Teaching Model Classroom This chapter contains a lot of information!  I find it very interesting and fairly unique that you can get your classroom WBT certified by doing it for a year and submitting some documentation.  I think this...

Are you working on comparing fractions with your students?  I have written in the past about different strategies for comparing fractions .  Today I want to share with you a fun and free computer game for kids who are working on fluency with comparing fractions.  I most often use this in grades 5 and up.  It is best for kids who already have a lot of strategies for comparing fractions and are working on being fluent with this skill.  My students like this game because it can be played against each other or in teams.  You can also play by yourself and challenge the computer.                                                                                                               ...

 Today I am joining some great math teacher bloggers to bring you a new series of blog hops: Fly on the Math Teacher's Wall.  These blog posts will be all about SQUASHING teacher, student and parent misconceptions.  They will give you a look inside math teachers classrooms and help you find new ideas and understandings across the grade levels.  Today we are talking about place value.   Today I want to talk about decimals.  I feel like teachers have gotten pretty good at using manipulatives with young students first learning about place value.  However, I think there is a huge misconception that older kids learning decimals don't need as much hands on practice with models to develop their understanding.  I would like to SQUASH that misconception and share with you 6 different models for learning decimals.   Moving between these models will give your students the hands on experience they need while helping them to see how decimals are used in t...

Monday Math Literature is happening on Thursday this week but what can I say.... it has been a crazy week.  I wanted to share this book and lesson with you today because it is very seasonal and great fun to do in the fall.  Check out this fun book! How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? This story is about a group of kids who are asked by their teacher to figure out how many seeds are in 3 different pumpkins.  They talk about the size of the pumpkins, estimating and counting ideas.  Some kids count by 2's some by 5's and some group the seeds into piles of 10.  There is also some great information in this story about how to estimate how many seeds a pumpkin has just by looking at the outside.   I love this lesson because it combines my love of math literature with counting and estimating routines .  I began this lesson by presenting my students with 2 pumpkins. I did this lesson with second graders but it would work with other kids K-3 with some small adaptation...

We are finishing up the main chapters this week and next week will be wrapping up our book study on Whole Brain Teaching.  If you are checking out this book study for the first time, it is not to late to join in!  If you want to catch up, just grab a copy of the book and pick up where we are or go back and comment on past posts.  Here is the posting schedule.  Click on any of the links below to see past posts! September 3 First Words, Chapters 1-3 September 10 Chapters 4-7 September 17 Chapters 8-10 September 24 Chapters 11-14 October 1 Chapters 15-18 October 8 Chapters 19-22 October 15 Chapters 23-26 October 22 Chapters 27-29 October 29 Bonus Chapters 30-32 Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids (and the rest of your class, too!) Chapter 27: Whole Brain Teaching Review I have absorbed so much information over the past 6 weeks about Whole Brain Teaching that I was very happy to review this chapter and think about how all the pieces work together.  I am someon...

This week I found a new game for working on fluency with kids.   Halloween Math  is a great game for grades 2-6.  It is an excellent way to work on fact fluency in a game based setting.  This game will not help your students develop strategies but is a great way for them to practice strategies they have already developed on their way to becoming more fluent.  If you have a diverse range of students in your room, this game is great to help you differentiate because it looks like everyone is playing the same game but you can choose which operation each student is working on.    Once you choose which operation you want to work on, a fact will appear at the top of the screen.  Several pumpkins will begin falling from the sky.  You use the arrow keys to move the ghost at the bottom of the screen and try to catch the pumpkin with the correct answer.   If you catch the wrong answer, you get to try again.  Watch out for the bat!  If th...

We are really getting into the big ideas of Whole Brain Teaching.  If you are checking out this book study for the first time, it is not to late to join in!  If you want to catch up, just grab a copy of the book and pick up where we are or go back and comment on past posts.  Here is the posting schedule. September 3 First Words, Chapters 1-3 September 10 Chapters 4-7 September 17 Chapters 8-10 September 24 Chapters 11-14 October 1 Chapters 15-18 October 8 Chapters 19-22 October 15 Chapters 23-26 October 22 Chapters 27-29 October 29 Bonus Chapters 30-32 Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids (and the rest of your class, too!) Chapter 23: WBT and Critical Thinking This chapter focuses on critical thinking which can also be thought of as creative thinking.  It introduces some gestures that can be used in the classroom during teach sessions that engage kid's  brains and help them think creatively.  This chapter left me feeling like I really needed to see thi...

I use dice all the time with my students and sometimes they drive me absolutely crazy!  Despite calmly showing students and setting expectations for how we will use dice in the classroom, some kids can't seem to keep them in their hands.  There are also those days (usually Thursday afternoons!) where I have a headache or would just like things to be a little quieter.  I have been thinking for a few years how it would be nice to have something to keep the dice contained and quiet.  This summer when I had a pile of fresh vegetables from my garden, I started buying hummus to dip them in.  That is when inspiration struck.  Hummus containers would make the perfect dice rolling helper.  They are clear, they stack and I had a pile of them sitting in my recycling bin.  So I stacked them together and forgot about them for a few weeks.                                   ...

Several weeks ago, I shared with you that I had recently purchased this book and was anxious to use the ideas in it with students. Why Can't I Have Everything? Teaching Today's Children to Be Financially and Mathematically Savvy      If you have never heard of this book, it is full of great ideas for getting kids to think about money and finances.  My goal with K-2 students is to make sure they know where money comes from and how it is used.  The best part about this book is that all the lessons incorporate literature!        Today I want to share with you a lesson from this book that is great for identifying coins.  It is lesson 1.2 in the book entitled Beginning to Identify Coins.  It could be used with kids from pre-k up to grade 2.  I choose to do this lesson with first graders.      This lesson could be done with any of the coins but I decided to focus on the quarter because this particular group of students...