Kicking off Math with Place Value

Now, I won't say that I'm totally in love with and want to marry Math in Focus, but I've found some things about it that I like and am enjoying.

One thing I really like-their place value chips!

I'm loving working with them, and I think they are really helping the kids visualize expanded form that much better.

Since my SMART Board is still a no-go (although it should be fixed eventually...), I've been doing a lot of whiteboard work.

We started by talking about numbers, and I would write a number on the board, and have the kids make it with their chips.

Then, I would have them walk me through how many I would need, and I would model how to write it in expanded form.

I've also spent some time teaching them different partner games that they can play so I can pull friends to work with them in small group.

(Groups have been created based on the pretest I gave before the unit started-it allows me to target friends who might need some additional help. If they come to group and don't need as much, I send them back to work in their workbook or play a game.)

My goal this year is to teach the whole group lesson (15-20 minutes), and then give them different choices to do while I pull friends to work with.

So far, it's running smoothly-but I've taken some time to teach them some different games.

One came from the book-Find the Value. I modified it a little, and of course, made it pretty :)

The other one, Place Value Battleship, is my own addition, but I've also made up worksheet with the different things you could do with the numbers (expanded form, comparing, adding and subtracting with regrouping, rounding, etc.) so it will be a long laster.

So far, so good!

Most of the kids are hard workers, and I haven't had any behavior issues yet (knock on wood!).

Hopefully, I can keep this up for the rest of the year!

Linking up with the amazing Jivey for Workshop Wednesday.

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn