Roll a number...

One of our numeracy areas of focus recently has been multiplicative thinking. It's fascinating to watch the range of abilities in the class: it's as natural as breathing for some and as foreign as Swedish for others.  To be honest most of the teaching and learning cycle for this area is lead by my co-teacher (I'm focusing on shape at the moment) but I'm reinforcing the fluency aspect with quick and dirty games whenever I have a free moment can make time. (And as we all know from this post and its comments, I'm a big fan of injecting fun into our day with the odd game or two.)

The favourite game at the moment is one I first played with little tackers and addition. We sit in a circle and two children each roll an oversized dice into the middle. The first child to call out the product remains standing. The other child sits down and the next child in the circle
takes their place in the next dice roll. Our class is pretty competitive so we keep a tally for each child's correct answers. Our champion so far sits (rather confidently) with 8 correct answers. (She's one of those students for whom this kind of thinking is as automatic as breathing.)

The small group who respond to this game in the same way they would if I said "vänligen äter din plockat sill" play a modified game, with one dice, practising doubling. They seem to enjoy the independence I've given them to do this, and I've certainly noticed an improvement in their fluency with their 2 times tables.

We've been working with 6 sided dice which limits the game somewhat however, today, I discovered (my co-teacher pointed them out to me) the ten sided dice in our classroom. Bring it on.

We had a small hiccup during the game a few days ago when the reigning champ made a mistake and the rest of the class celebrated her error.  I was very surprised to see this sort of behaviour from this class, so a little chat about valuing everyone as individuals and celebrating our differences ensued. *sigh* Competition is a great thing, until it's not.

What games do you play in your classroom to reinforce basic skills?


This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 1.1 Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students

Standard 1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities

Standard 2.5 Literacy and numeracy strategies

Standard 3.3  Literacy and numeracy strategies

Standard 3.4 Select and use resources

Standard 4.1 Support student participation

Standard 4.2 Manage classroom activities

Standard 4.3 Manage challenging behaviour

It's War!

Early this week our class declared war. Well, not really but it was fun pretending.  As part of a whole school 'Maths Games Day' we ran an 'Addition War' stall and decorated it with genuine army gear (for which I must thank my dear friend +Adrienne Kajewski). Aside from our stall looking awesome...

Our class ROCKED the day with awesome attitudes, about the event and more importantly about maths!

My co-teacher is, amongst other things, the school's maths co-ordinator so this event was her baby. She did a great job. The school gym was split in half with dividers and each half was set up with tables around the perimeter (oooh look at the maths language). In the days/weeks preceding Maths Day each class chose a maths game to learn and then teach the rest of the school.  (Our class tossed up between three games but the competitive nature of most of our kids - and both teachers if I'm completely honest - meant that War was always going to win.) Over the course of the day each class was rostered to visit the gym and learn the games. Each class also rotated through student 'experts' to man their stalls.

The range of games the classes presented was great. The 'expert' helpers from each class really stepped up and were wonderful ambassadors for their class. Our kids went to town with our 'theme' and presented to the stall with war painted faces. (Between you and me, the war paint was my strategy for quickly determining who had already had their turn as an 'expert'... I painted them just before their alloted time.)

Have you ever played Addition War?   It's simple really: 

Our 'take home' instruction slip

• Remove jokers from a deck of cards and evenly distribute the remainder amongst players (the more players the more challenging the game). 
• All players place their top card on the table face up.
• All players compute the total of the cards' value (2-10 = face value, J-K = 10, A = 11) and call out the answer.
• The first player to call out the correct answer wins those cards and places them to once side.
• Play continues in this manner until player run out of cards.
• The player with the most cards is the winner. 

This game is pretty easy to differentiate in both directions. For students who are struggling: reduce the number of players; remove specific cards (I'd start with the aces); provide scaffolding support (posters with rainbow facts etc.) for starters. For high fliers: instead of addition try multiplication; have each player place down two cards and add the resultant double digit numbers; have each player place down two cards and subtract the lowest resultant double digit number from the other. 

Disclaimer: our student teacher introduced this game to our class and taught them how to play.

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities;

Standard 2.1 Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area

Standard 2.5 Literacy and numeracy strategies

Standard 3.5 Use effective classroom communication

Standard 4.1 Support student participation