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Comparing Numbers 2.NBT.4 – And a Freebie!

Anchor Charts, Math, TPT February 6, 2014

I’ve been meaning to post about this standard and post this freebie for a few weeks, but life got in the way.  So, better late than never…

A few weeks ago we worked on comparing 3 digit numbers – specifically standard 2.NBT.4.  The kiddos did really well with this standard so we only needed a quick few days of practice and they were good to go.  Below are some ideas and pictures from our work…

Here’s our anchor chart we created with vocab, symbols, and a few examples. I love creating these math anchor charts and adding to them throughout the lessons. I find the kids referencing them at later times and love that they are referring to them and using them!

 
 
We then practiced on white boards.  We started with 2 digit numbers and then moved onto 3 digit numbers.

 
I found a ton of great activities from Sunny Days Common Core Essentials Packet – that can be found here.  My kiddos loved playing the Compare and Capture game.
 

And, here’s a little game I created for students to also practice comparing 3 digit numbers.  This game can be found as a freebie in my TPT store…here.
Here are a few pictures from the kids playing…

 
 
Roll and Compare - Practice with 2.NBT.4
 
Hope these ideas are helpful! Be sure to check out my Roll and Compare Game freebie!

Skip Counting Activities and Stations

Anchor Charts, Common Core, Math, Math Stations, TPT November 25, 2013

We’ve spent the past week in my second grade class working on 2.NBT.2.  They are doing a great job skip counting and below are the activities and stations we did to practice.

To introduce skip counting, we spent time with counting collections.  I used pom pom balls, snap cubes, unifix cubes, highlighters, popsicle sticks, straws, etc.  Each item had a different number and was given to the partnership on purpose – to help with differentiation.  Higher kids had numbers in the hundreds – lower kids had numbers in the 40s-80s.  The first direction was just to count and tell me how many the had.  I stopped them about halfway through and we talked about how they were counting.  Most weren’t organizing the items and most were counting by ones, so we discussed was this a good way or is there a better strategy?  I had two groups who had already figured out a strategy.  One group was counting by 10s and another by 20s.  So, we tried this with an example and decided skip counting was easier and it was easier if you grouped them. We went back to the counting collections and now counted while putting them into groups of 2’s, 5’s. and 10’s.

Next, we worked on a skip counting chart to help us.  We colored all of the numbers that were by 2’s yellow, circled all of the numbers by 5’s in orange, and underlined the 10’s in green.  The kids did a great job with this and then had a resource to use throughout the week (especially with the Skip Counting Task Cards (more info on this below)).

 
After making our own skip counting resource, we worked together to create a Skip Counting Anchor Chart.
 
Throughout the week, I introduced the activities below and then on the last day we used each activity at a station.
 
Station #1 –  Skip Counting Task Cards. I created these and have them in my TPT store here.  We used these whole group first and then they were put into a station.  This provides students with multiple chances to practice counting from and to different numbers.  It also goes up to 1,000 and has a few harder cards to provide differentiation.
 
 
Station #2 – School Bus Bump – I found this on TPT here at Lory Even’s store. The kids love bump and now they can play it while practicing skip counting by 10’s.

 
Station #3 – Ordering the Numbers – I found a ton of great skip counting resources on TPT.  Here is a sports one to practice skip counting by ordering the numbers.  This one is from a Series of First Grade Event’s store, which you can access here.

Station #4 – Skip Counting Puzzles.  The kids loved putting these together. I found some cute Home on the Range ones in Haley O’Connor’s store here.

 
Station #5 – Counting Collections – More counting practice with manipulatives – they were told to practice counting the items while grouping them in 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s.

 
 
Thanks for checking out my skip counting ideas. Be sure to check out my Skip Counting Task Cards in my TPT store.

Place Value – 2.NBT.1

Common Core, Math, Math Stations, TPT November 17, 2013

Last week, we studied place value specifically the standard 2.NBT.1.  I found a ton of great games and ideas on TPT and even created a few to help my kiddos out.

To start off, we made an anchor chart with some place value examples and things to remember. 

 
Then, after a 4 day study and introduction to the different activities below, we had place value stations on the fifth day. The kiddos loved it!
 
Station #1 – Show Me the Number – this is an activity I created and can be found on my TPT store, here.  This activity offers chances for kids to practice working with 2 digit and 3 digit numbers.  Students can build the numbers using base 10 blocks, draw a place value model, write the number in word form, expanded form, etc.  This provides students with a chance to practice working with multiple numbers.

 
Station #2 – Write the Room – Place Value.  Students got to get some movement in and find the different values of the numbers around the room. I found this on TPT at Shuna Pocket Full of Kinder’s Store – this activity is called Place Value Rock.

 
Station #3 – While this picture is upside down, the station was still too great to not share.  This game was called “Mystery Number” and can be found in Love to Learn’s TPT store, here.

 
 
Station #4 – Roll It, Make It, Expand It can be found at Rebecca Anderton’s TPT store, here.  Great chance for students to practice writing the number, modeling it, and expanding it.

 
Station #5- Digit Game – This is a game from our Everyday Math Unit. Students play with a partner and each turn over two cards.  With the 2 cards they have, they need to make the largest number possibly (for example, 28 or 82 – they’d choose 82). The student with the larger number wins.  You can also differentiate this game by having students flip over 3 cards so they need to make the largest 3 digit number.

 
Station #6 – Miss V – Students were put into groups based upon levels. When students met with me, we worked on place value skills that they needed practice on or started to challenge with expanded notation.
 
 
Thanks for checking out my place value ideas.  Be sure to check out – Show Me the Number in my TPT Store.
 
 

Graphing

Math, TPT November 11, 2013

Graphing is one of my favorite math concepts to teach.  I found some great ideas online to get it up to 2nd grade level and also created a 2nd Grade Graphing packet that can be found on TPT ($1.50).

The first thing that made a huge difference in my kids understanding of graphing was using Teaching from the Core’s idea to help kids understand the term difference.  Every year when I was teaching first grade, the kids were great with representing data, great with answering questions like which had the most, how many had this, etc – but when it came to how many more or how many fewer did one graph item have over the other….it was a disaster.  So, while reading through all of my favorite blogs I stumbled upon her post.  You can check it out here…  I used it this year with my 2nd graders and they got it! And, what a fun way to learn it.

Another great item I stumbled upon was Sunny Day’s in 2nd Grades Math Common Core Assessment Packet.  This thing is fantastic! There are 3 math pages for each Common Core Standard. I purchased it and have loved using it! I use one of the pages as a pre-test so I know what areas I need to focus on when teaching the standard, another page as homework, and the last page as the post-test. 

Now, on to graphing… 

In my graphing packet, you’ll find some practice pages, where students need to take the tally graph data, turn it into a bar graph, and then answer questions about the graphs.

You’ll also find a Favorite Book graph. This is a great way for a whole class activity or a survey activity that students could do independently. I used this activity whole group and we asked each student in the class, which book was their favorite and filled in the tally graph accordingly.  The kids had a lot of fun and I love when we can represent them and their opinions in the graph.

The next graph was a fan favorite of the kiddos. This was during Halloween week so I bought some of those fun size Skittle bags and we graphed the colors they found in their bag.  Their favorite part…eating them when they were done graphing.  My favorite part…seeing that they were getting the concept of representing data and how to use it to answer questions.

The last graphing activity we did before the post test was a survey of the class. This turned out better than I imagined.  First, we came up with possible survey questions that kids would maybe want to ask each other. Afterwards, the students fill out their survey question sheet with a question they wanted to ask their fellow students and the four answers that would go with it. They loved this! Afterwards, they got to go around the room and ask each student their question and represented their response in their tally graph. Once their tally graph was filled out, they transferred the tally graph information into the bar graph and answered the questions. For my students that finished early, I challenged them to come up with other questions they could ask about their graph on the back of their page.

 
 
Please check out my Graphing Packet in my TPT Store!!
 
Hope everyone is having a great long weekend!

Doubles Math Station and Fact Family/Addition Station

Math, Math Stations, Thinking Maps, TPT November 10, 2013

Again, I’m a few weeks behind, but I still figured why not share.  A few weeks ago we spent time learning about doubles and fact families in math. I found and created some great activities that I wanted to share with you.

Double Math Station

I found this great game Dinosaur Doubles from Oceans of 1st Grade Fun.

I can’t remember where I found these cards, but I found a doubles memory game that I then glued to cardstock. The kids love playing this!

Here is a Doubles Tree Map activity that I created. You can find it as a freebie in my TPT store, here.  This activity gives kids a chance to practice their facts, learn some vocab, and use the tree map to organize their doubles facts.
 
 
Another station I added, included this great Fact Family Triangle I found at This Reading Mama’s Blog.
 
 
 
And, my last game addition is a math game from Everyday Math. Students start their counters at 1 and roll the die to move up. The first person to 120 wins. The neat thing about this game though is if you roll a 1, you can choose to move 1 or 10. If you roll a 2, you can choose to move 2 or 20. It’s a great way to start adding up 10’s from different numbers.
 
 
 
These are a few of the additions to my math stations. Stay tuned for more as the year continues and please check out my Doubles Tree Map freebie in my TPT store.
 

Short and Long Vowel Tree Maps

Phonics, Reading, Thinking Maps, TPT November 4, 2013

I have a new product in my TPT store that I am excited to share with you! We’ve been working on reviewing short and long vowels in 2nd grade and I love to use thinking maps, so I thought, why not combine the two!  So, I created Short and Long Vowel Tree Maps, which is now active in my TPT store. 

In this pack, you’ll find tree maps for each vowel – a, e, i, o, and u. You’ll find two pages for each with a word bank and one page without a word bank so students can come up with their own short and long vowel words.  I’ve used it a few times for homework and also during literacy stations. This is a great way for kids to practice reading the words and also having a chance to sort them.

Here are a few preview pages and a sample for you to see.

 

 
 
 

Thanks for stopping by and please check it out in my TPT store, here. 

Place Value Strategy for Problem Solving

Math, Story Problems, TPT October 13, 2013

We’ve been working through the story problems in my October Story Problem Packet, which can be found on TPT here.  There are a variety of add to, take from, part/part whole, and multiplication and division problems. We’ve been focusing on the straightforward addition and subtraction problems so far, but this week we’re going to try some of the others.

Here are some of our problems…

Prompt: ___ spiders were hanging from the web.  _____ more spiders crawled over.  How many spiders are in the web now?  Number Choices: (23, 20), (43, 41), (67, 52)

 
 
 

 

 
What I love about these is students can choose a number choice that works for them. One that challenges them, but doesn’t challenge them so much they get frustrated.  I also love seeing all of the kids using the place value model to solve their problem. We’ve been doing a lot of review of place value with tens and ones and I’m happy to see them applying it to story problems too.
 
If you’re interested in some October Story Problems to use in your class, check out my packet on TPT here.
 
 

October Story Problems – Now on TPT

Math, Story Problems, TPT September 30, 2013

I finished up my second story problem packet called October Story Problems.  This packet has 16 story problems.  There are 4 Add To, 4 Take From, 4 Compare, and 4 Equal Groups.  I used equal groups and compare to up the challenge a bit for kids and classes who are ready for it. In addition to the various problem types, there are three number choices for each problem, which lends to easy differentiation.  I also have two formatting methods. A cute full page with clipart and a half page, which makes for easy copying with limited copy numbers.  See a few pages below and be sure to check it out at my TPT store here.

 
 
 
 
Be sure to check it out at my TPT store.
 
Happy Sunday everyone!
 
 

Opinions, Opinions, Opinions

Thinking Maps, TPT, Writing September 29, 2013

We’ve been coming up with lots of opinions in my second grade class.  We’ve done a variety of opinions – some literature based, favorites, and taste-tested.  Here’s what we’ve been working on…

We started off with this great opinion writing unit by writing about Oreos.  We taste tested two different types – Halloween Oreos and Mint Crème Oreos.  I got this fantasic idea and cute Oreo writing paper from First Grade Fanatic. The kids loved this! Who wouldn’t love eating Oreos in class.  Most students picked the Halloween Oreo, but there were a few who liked the Mint Crème flavor.  Below I have a picture of my circle map.  In the middle, we put our favorite Oreo and then we put our reasons why in the bigger circle.  I also have my teacher model of the Oreo paper. This was a great way to start opinion writing because the kids were engaged instantly!

 
 
Next, we wrote about our favorite pets.  Again, we used a circle map to set-up our paper and brainstorm our reasons.  We had quite a few different favorite pets – ranging from your typical dog and cat to bunny rabbits, snakes, etc.  Here are two student samples.  We have spent a great deal of time slowly writing our paper and doing parts together.  We’ve been focusing on including a topic sentence, three reasons, and a conclusion. 
 
My example that I modeled for the kiddos:


 
Student Samples:

We’ve also read a lot of stories that went well with opinions. Some stories we’ve used include: I Wanna Iguana, Chrysanthemum, and Listen Buddy.
 
 
Here is my teacher example for I Wanna Iguana:

 
 
Student Sample:
 
 
I also decided to incorporate opinions into my writing station during literacy stations.  I’ve created some Opinion Writing Prompt Cards on TPT here.  These cards can be used for whole group prompts or could be put on a ring like below and used for students to pick a prompt to write about during their station.
 
 
Happy Saturday!
 
 
 
 

 

Story Problems

Math, Story Problems, TPT September 8, 2013

I love teaching story problems.  When I was a kid, I actually despised doing them. Something about seeing words in a math problem freaked me out. Now, after being CGI (Cognitively Guided Instruction) trained and after using story problems extensively at my old school – I love them! They are a great way to hit multiple Common Core Math Standards and a great way to get kids thinking and sharing their strategies. 

I came up with a Back to School Packet of Story Problems for 2nd graders, which is on Teachers Pay Teachers, here.  This packet could also be used for high first graders or for 3rd graders in need of some interventions.  In this packet, I have 4 story problems for each type of joining problem and 4 story problems for each type of separating problems.  In addition to the 4 story problems, each story problem has 3 presentation choices.  The story problem can be printed with a graphic, with number choices (great differentiation), or on a half sheet to save paper.  This document can be edited so you may change the numbers, names (students love to see their own names in the problems), or the problem. 

Here are a few student samples from this week in my classroom:

For this problem, my student chose to use the 10 frame to help her organize her problem. She put 25 dots on the one side and 10 on the other. Then, she counted by 10’s, 10, 20, 30 and then the 1’s, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35.  Nice number sentence too!
 
This student used the place value model to figure out this problem. I was so excited because we really focused on place value this week.  Most of my kiddos are still stuck on drawing everything out by 1’s so I was excited that this student was ready to move on to place value. She has two tens sticks and 5 ones and then another ten stick. Then, she counted the tens and then the ones and got 35. 
 
 
So, here is a little sample of my TPT creation that you can check out here…
 

 
 
Hope everyone has a great Saturday!!!