Mrs. Storch, Math Coach

Summer Fun With Math

Here are some  fun ways to help  your child retain all those math skills he or she learned this year.   Engaging your child in activities that require movement or  and incorporating learning in to things you do around the house, allows them to see how math effects us every day.

 

 Pool Fun

Many of you own, or can purchase at the Dollar Store, the diving sticks and rings for the pool.  Have your child swim down and pick up two sticks.  You can have them tell you if they are odd or even, which has a greater value,  and add or subtract the two numbers.  For those super smarties, they can swim down for another pair of sticks and solve some double digit addition or subtraction.

Hopscotch teaches early number recognition. A variation on the sidewalk chalk game is using a bean bag to add the numbers. In the car, change the Alphabet Game to the Number Game - what do you see one of? two of? and so on.

Buy an inexpensive stopwatch to use for a variety of races. Time your child, or let him time a friend, as he swims from one end of the pool to the other or runs a certain distance. Record the times on a sheet of paper. You can also teach your child how to record the times on a chart or table. He can look for improvement and trends in his race times. Another use for a stopwatch is to inject a competitive spirit into chore time.

Around the House  

Cooking is a great home activity that teaches math concepts. Choose recipes that require measurement of a variety of ingredients. Cookies are perfect for this yummy math learning activity.

Pretend you are going to re-carpet a room in your house. Have your child create a 12 inch square out of construction paper.   Have them figure out how many squares are needed to cover the room. Younger students may enjoy creating different patterns. For an extra challenge have them measure the room in non-standard and rulers or yard sticks.

Shapes are everywhere.  Have your child find shapes in your home, yard, pool, stores and playground.  Have a contest to see who can spot the most of a certain shape or angle.  Design new wallpaper for a room in your house using a variety of shapes and patterns.

Money

This skill seems to be an area students need additional practice.  Have them count the change in your purse.  Have a coin scavenger hunt. Tell you that you have hidden coins around the house and they have to find a given amount.   Hide more than that given amount so you can play several times.  If the child brings you more than that given amount, have some extra change on hand so they can practice making change.

Don't forget to use your First in Math account your child's teacher set up for you.  It will be available through July!

Have a happy and FUN summer!

SMART Boards

   SMART Boards
 

We are so excited to have our new SMART Boards up and running.  The teachers have been busy collaborating and creating new math lessons to intrigue your students.  The students get to engage in hands-on activities on a daily basis.   I hope your children are talking about this wonderful new learning tool.

As we look at our data, as to how our students are progressing on their math facts, we are excited to see their understanding of facts to ten. We have two areas that we will focus our instruction on for the remainder of the year.  The first skill is adding numbers eleven to eighteen.  Counting on , Minute Math and Touch Math are great strategies that will be implemented in the classrooms. Subtraction is the other skill, that with the addition of our SMART Boards, we hope to see a gain in understanding.  Please continue to work on math fact fluency at home.  Those good old-fashioned flash cards still work.  Our website has links to many popular sites to also help with addition and subtraction.

Let it snow, let it snow, Let It Snow!!!!!

       

 

Math Clubs were are a big success!  Mondays and Wednesday afternoons were full of great hands-on activities reinforcing numbers sense, addition and subtraction, and money.  We encourage all parents to continue practicing those basic math facts with their children.   SMART Boards are being installed in every classroom in January. The teachers will be trained on how to use this wonderful technology and collaborating on ways to create interactive lessons for our students.  We are very excited to be one of the first schools to receive them!

 

 

Each Winter, we all keep our fingers crossed that it will snow and that we will be able to build snowmen.  This year will be no different.  It is a wonderful way to include math skills without your child thinking they are doing homework.  You can measure the height and circumference of the snowman, as well as count all the objects that were added to decorate.  You could put a dollar amount to each object and see just how much it cost to build him.  If more than one snowman is created, the children can compare the sizes using their math vocabulary words such as taller than, shorter than, and the same size as a given object. 

 

 

This is the world's tallest snow-woman.  If you can tell me how tall it is, I will give you a prize! She has  pine trees for arms, wreaths for eyes, tires for her lips  and eyelashes made of snow skies. 

 

 

 

 

Measurement will a topic covered over the next nine week period.  This is a wonderful way to explain how measurement is introduced  to primary students.

 

 

 Students will be working on developing their understanding of the concept of length. The Kindergartners and first graders will be using nonstandard measurement to determine the length of items in the classroom. Nonstandard units are units that are the same size, but not typically used to measure length. For example paper clips, linking cubes, toothpicks, Popsicle sticks, etc.

Students are working to understand that the length of something is the measurement of how many units it is. We are also working on proper measurement techniques.

The units cannot overlap. The above image shows an inaccurate measurement because the units used to measure (paper clips) have overlapped in several areas and are not all turned the same way.

The units must fill the entire space. The above image shows an inaccurate measurement because the units used to measure (paper clips) have gaps in between each unit. This is not measuring the full length of the pencil.

The units must go from the starting to the ending point. The above measurement is accurate. It shows that the pencil is 4 paper clips long. It is an accurate measurement because the paper clips are lined up end to end, have no gaps in between, and measure the full length of the pencil.

Next, we move into standard measurement. Here, students use a ruler to measure the length of objects. The ruler must start at the beginning of the object. We will look at measuring with a ruler in two different ways. The first way, students will line up the object to the ruler at the zero mark and measure the length of the object. This is the easiest way for students when they are learning to measure, but it is not the only way to use the ruler to measure.


The second way we will look at the ruler is starting with a piece of the ruler and measuring how long an object is. We will not necessarily be starting with the zero, so students will need to be able to count units measured. The ruler below shows that the pencil is 8 inches long. Students will have to line the pencil up with an inch mark and physically count each inch.

Holiday Fun!

Integrate math into your holiday and seasonal celebrations, with these activities, lessons, and printables. Your children won't mind doing homework when it's holiday-themed.

• Gingerbread Men
  • Making Gingerbread cookies is a great measurement activity for younger children as they use cups, teaspoons, etc. to measure and combine the different ingredients.
  • Gingerbread Man Graph: Ask children to take one bite of their gingerbread cookie.   Graph or tally how many students bit off the head, the right arm, left arm, right leg or left leg.
  • Gingerbread Person Glyphs:   Create gingerbread people decorations that are glyphs so that they represent the answers to different data-collection questions: boy/girl, like/don't like gingerbread, favorite dessert, etc.
  • See legend for Gingerbread Man Glyph
  • Print out Gingerbread Man Template for glyph
  • See legend for Gingerbread Man Glyph 2 with blank template
  • Print out Gingerbread Man Blank Template
  • Gingerbread Math Activities
  • Gingerbread Man Themed Math Pages for Grades 1-2.
• Gingerbread Houses
  • Gingerbread Geometry: challenge students to find the footprint, perimeter, surface area and volume of their proposed gingerbread houses before actual construction begins.   If students are covering milk cartons, small groups could use empty cartons to find the measurements and describe the tools they used for each item.   Have students use customary (in.) or metric (cm.) measurements, depending on teacher choice.   Volume will be a challenge to younger students but they might fill the carton with water, rice or sand and then calculate how many cm-cubes or inch-cubes would fill the same number of cups to get an estimated volume.   They could also fill the house with cm-cubes if a good supply is available.   Students could leave the measurement in cups, if they are studying liquid measurements.
    • Download the Gingerbread Geometry worksheet for students to record measurements and how they found these measurements.
  • Decorating on a budget: Price candy decorations and allow students a certain budget to purchase decorating supplies.   Allow students to plan out their house before actually constructing it.
  • Patterns: encourage students to use patterns for the roof and for walkways.   Students should classify the patterns as AB, AAB, etc.

Featured Activity: Elf Glyph

Glyphs are a fun way to add data collection activities to the math curriculum. Creative teachers adapt seasonal and holiday craft projects to glyph activities. This elf glyph comes complete with legend and patterns for easy assembly by students.

• Modifications: There are many elements of the design (belt, buckle, face) that were not included in the glyph legend. Please feel free to add these or to modify or omit any of the suggested glyph legend items to personalize the experience for your students.
• Although this activity was designed as a holiday glyph, the elf glyph could easily be modified for use with "The Elves and the Shoemaker" story as well simply by changing the colors and legend choices. 

• Test your data analysis skills:
  • Based on the Elf Glyph Legend, what do you know about the person who made this elf?

• Penguin Math

• Math-Literature Connections: Penguins

  
  

  Penguin Measurement:

• Read the book Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester as an introduction to penguin math activities.  Students can count, measure and graph penguins

• Build on students' natural fascination with penguins by including these math pattern activities:

• Penguin Fishing challenges students to identify the pattern in the number of fish the penguin catches each day, write a rule for the number of fish the penguin catches based on the day, then use that rule and pattern to predict how many fish the penguin will catch on each of the next three days.
• Capture the Penguins Game uses outcome of two-dice toss to form a coordinate pair.   Student captures a penguin if there is one on that coordinate.
• Play FunBrain's Penguin Waiter to practice using percents to compute the correct tip for dinner checks.   Four levels of difficulty make it possible to meet the varied needs of learners in a class.

• Build on students' natural fascination with penguins by including these math pattern activities:

• Penguin Fishing challenges students to identify the pattern in the number of fish the penguin catches each day, write a rule for the number of fish the penguin catches based on the day, then use that rule and pattern to predict how many fish the penguin will catch on each of the next three days.
• Capture the Penguins Game uses outcome of two-dice toss to form a coordinate pair.   Student captures a penguin if there is one on that coordinate.
• Play FunBrain's Penguin Waiter to practice using percents to compute the correct tip for dinner checks.   Four levels of difficulty make it possible to meet the varied needs of learners in a class.
• See Penguin Links for more information about penguins and their habitats.

Becoming Fluent in Math Facts and Money

This year, we will be focusing on becoming fluent with the addition combinations up to 10 + 10. Students learn these combinations over the course of the year. Combination sets include:

Make Ten (combinations of 10 with two numbers like 8 + 2)
Plus 1 (any number plus one like 1 + 8)
Plus 2 (any number plus two like 3 + 2)
Doubles (any number plus itself like 5 + 5)
Near Doubles (any number close to a double like 5 + 6)
Plus 10 (any number added to 10 like 3 + 10)
Plus 9 (any number added to 9 like 3 + 9)

Students will learn these combinations through frequent and repeated use. In school, we will be playing several games that help students learn particular combinations. Students will also play some of these games for homework, such as Plus 1 or 2 Bingo and Make 10.
Students will learn these combinations through frequent and repeated use. In school, we will be playing several games that help students learn particular combinations. Students will also play some of these games for homework, such as Plus 1 or 2 Bingo and Make 10.

We will also be using “Combinations Cards” to help students practice. We are not encouraging students to memorize these combinations! We are encouraging students to find efficient ways to solve the combinations. For example, look at the sample cards below:

We want to encourage students to efficiently (quickly and accurately) solve basic addition combinations. We are doing this by having students think of clues to help them solve the combinations. They may write the clues on their practice cards to help them. For example, if they are familiar with the double combination of 6+6, they may choose to look at 6+7 as one more than 6+6. If they are more familiar with the combination 7+7, they may choose to look at the combination as 7+7-1. There are many different ways to look at these combinations. Again, we are stressing that we are NOT looking for memorization, but efficiency and problem solving.

Money

 

What should your child know about money this year?

-to recognize the value of coins by picture and by name (example- know what a dime looks like and what is is worth as well as knowing the word "dime.")

-to count values of money (example - if your child has a small handful of coins, he/she should be able to tell you how much money is in the pile. We typically only use values up to $1.00 at this time of the school year.)

-to tell you how much change students will get back when purchasing something for less than $1.00. (example- I have $.75 and I want to purchase something for $.25. How much change will I receive?)

How can class activities be reinforced at home?

This is a great activity to work on with your child at home. Have your child help you clip coupons from the paper (or even from sites on the net that have coupons to use). Gather change from around your house and have your child decide how many of each coin will be needed to equal the amount on the coupon. Have your child count the amount of money and practice writing it as well. 

 

 

Check out some of these other great coin games:

The US Mint

Counting Money

Another Counting Money Game

Spending Spree

Too Many Coins

Coin Tutorials

Coin Printouts

Websites

                                                                                                                                                                 

 

Please visit Links for Kids, click on math and explore all these wonderful links for your child to practice math concepts in a fun way!

Math Coach

Welcome!  My name is Laura Storch and I have 23 years of teaching experience.  I have taught grades k-3 in Fulton and Cobb Counties.  Most recently, I taught second grade.  I have been asked to be the school's math coach.  In this position, I am fortunate to keep my passion for teaching alive by working in classrooms with students, while also helping teachers gather resources to make their instruction meet the rigor of our math standards.  Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about the math curriculum.