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A few weeks ago, I shared 10 ways to work on counting by 2's  and yesterday I shared some of my new favorite count by 2 math literature .  Today I want to keep the count by 2 fun going with a very fun lesson that has many applications.  My students had recently brainstormed a list of things that come in pairs.  They had thought of things like earrings, shoes, socks, hands, twins and ears.  I knew I wanted to provide them with an authentic experience counting real world objects by 2's.  I looked around for something I had that came in pairs and I found baby socks.  Socks are not usually the go to object when you are looking for something cute and fun to count but baby socks are not like regular socks.  We had a great time with these baby socks! I simply taped a piece of plastic string to the chalk board and used mini clothespins  to attach the socks in pairs.  I then had kids take turns numbering each sock. Once the socks were numbered, w...

This time of year you will find me working hard on counting skills including counting by 2's.  A few weeks ago, I shared 10 ways to practice counting by 2 .  I received an email from a reader with a few suggestions for other math literature book to practice counting by 2's.  Because I am always on the lookout for more Math Literature , I was intrigued.  I have many math literature books that mention counting by 2 but none where it is the entire focus of the story.  I knew I had to get these books, and I am glad I did.   Mooove Over!: A Book about Counting by Twos   The entire focus of this book is counting by 2's!  It is in the context of animals getting on a trolley with a capacity of 20.  I used these cute cards along with this story.   Penguin Pairs: Counting by 2s I love using penguins as a winter theme in primary classrooms and this fun count by 2's to 20 book will be a great addition to my penguin math materials.   I also st...

A tool that I use again and again in my classroom is dice.  They make math time into game time.  They provide a fun and engaging experience for students.  I have a massive dice collection consisting of dice of all shapes and sizes with a huge range of numbers on them.  I also always keep a box of blank dice  on hand so that I can a customized dice in a matter of minutes.  Despite my massive dice collection, I also make origami dice to use with students.  Sometimes I make these myself for specific uses such as large or small group work.  Other times, I made these dice with kids.  Making these dice or doing other origami in the classroom can be a great way to review geometry concepts such as the names of shapes, ideas about symmetry and words like similar and congruent.  The best part about doing origami dice is that not only does it let kids have a rich mathematical experience during the dice making process, but it gives them a tool that ...

I used to think that if a kid could count to 1000, then they had a good understanding of three digit place value.  After many years of teaching math to kids of all ages, I have found that I could not have been more wrong.  I know think about place value understanding all day long.  I find that it is the single biggest thing that holds kids back from developing conceptual understanding of bigger math ideas like multiplication, division, fractions and decimals.  I have made it my mission to make sure the kids I work with in grades 2 and 3 have an excellent understanding of three digit place value so they are ready for bigger ideas by upper elementary.  When I get an upper elementary student in need of intervention the first thing I do is check for a deep understanding of place value. This August as I was prepping for back to school, I got Fishing Around with Place Value Riddles written by Linda over at Primary Inspiration .  This is a product that works extr...

Today I am linking up with  A monthly REAL WORLD math blog link-up hosted by   4mulaFun ,  The Teacher Studio ,  Teaching to Inspire in 5th , AND  MissMathDork , In the last several months, my local electric company has seriously upgraded their technology.  They have installed smart meters and made huge updates to their website.  I can now pay my bill online and generate graphs and statistics for my power usage by the month, week, day and even hour.  As I was playing with all of these graphs and statistics, I started to think about how important it is for folks to understand how their choices will effect their bill.  Bringing this into the classroom would be a great lesson for all! I think this lesson is best done in upper elementary through high school.  It is an important real life skill and could be incorporated into a lesson on decimals, proportions, graphing or measurement conversion.  I spent some time analyzing my electric bi...

My students have been hard at work learning how to count by 2.  I have been polishing up my count by 2 resources and have recently posted them in a money saving bundle on TPT .  To help you get your kids counting by 2's with fluency, here are 10 ways to work on this important skill.                                                                                                     1) Fairies in the Fog: 2's This is a fun game to do on a SMART board or projector but also works well on any computer.  Kids find and touch or click on the missing number.  The music pulls kids in and it gets harder as kids get more right.  Check it out over at ICT games ! 2) Number Puzzles       These count by 2 puzzles make...