The Destitute Teacher

Countdown supermarkets in NZ recently had a promotion. For every $20 spent they would give you one 'free' collectible domino. So I put the word out to friends and family. I put it in my class newsletter, on Facebook, everywhere I could think... I would trade handmade goods for dominoes. Due to the generosity of my friends and family I had a surprisingly large collection of dominoes by the end of the promotion. So now I am putting together some Math resources for my classroom that use dominoes as the main material. I am sure that I have come across the idea of Domino War somewhere in the wilds of the internet, but when I went to print it out for my classroom, do you think I could find a source? No way Jose. Tried and tested, this game is much loved by my year 2 students at the moment. The craze of the promotion may be contributing, but they are enjoying this relatively fast paced game. The idea is quite simple. First, turn all the dominoes so that the dots are facing do...

Today I am sharing a quick little math group warm up with you. I love using playing cards, and so do my students. This pack is a set from a 500 game... the numbered cards go from 2-13 and Ace becomes one. To keep them tidy and organised, I like using one of the tiniest Sistema containers I can possibly get. A little bit more expensive than other storage systems, but they seem to be practically indestructible, come in great colours and when on sale they are way more affordable: Sitting in a semi circle, I go round the circle giving the students cards, and they need to answer as quickly as they can. The questions vary: * What is your number (you can give them two cards to make a two digit number etc) *What comes before your number *What comes after your number Once they have a set (maybe 5-ish cards)... *Put your cards in order from smallest to biggest *Put your cards in order from biggest to smallest Swap sets between the children so they have a different set to work with. Next we swi...

Went for a trawl through the local dollar store on the weekend and found some goooorgeous ice-cream shaped bowls so simply just HAD to buy them.I scored these ones ages ago: from an op shop and they got an absolute thrashing. We use them with pom poms or plastic beans (JELLYbeans so I am told), and create number problems involving ice-cream sundaes with sprinkles on top. However I only had four, and this seriously limits my group sizes for using this equipment. We want the children to be engaged, and using the manipulatives themselves right? So I bought three sets of these bad boys... ...and we can now all have a go at using the bowls! Much excitement!

We have been working hard on improving our recognition of numbers on tens frames recently. It seems that sometimes we know it... and sometimes we don't! I put together some resources and activities to help to develop instant recognition. These include... * Good, old fashioned flashcards. In a group we play tens frames speed (flip a card over, first to read it correctly gets it and the winner is the person with the most at the end). Handy hint... enlarge the tens frames, laminate and attach a magnet on the back for whole class work on the whiteboard. * Roll and Cover Tens Frames games. I made two versions of this game (apologies as I made the clipart, it could do with some refinement). One version is for a 1-6 die, the other is for a 10 sided die (if your die has a '0', use a fine permanent marker to turn it into a ten). Just click here to go to my GoogleDrive and download the PDF file. * Tens frames timed powerpoint. My children love this one. I made a powerpoint presenta...

So at my current school we begin each year with a mini 'about me' unit. We look at our community, our rules etc... and usually link Math in through Stats or Measurement. This means by the time they get to me, they have already charted their heights, eye colours, fav food, etc before. Been there, done that, Miss. We want something different. Yesterday I gave each child a handful of pom poms each. You want to get a child interested in Math? Try pom poms. Totally focussed and on task, we set about sorting the pom poms into categories. Most children went for the standard- colour sorting- to begin with. Then we began to talk about other ways to classify our pom poms; size and sparkly v.s. non-sparkly were other popular possibilities. At this point, I want to say that I needed to model the sorting on the board- identifying common attributes and sorting data was the focus of the lesson. I made a mental note to glue some pom poms onto magnets for future lessons. Today I gave th...

A while back we did a short unit on pattern making. I was absolutely blown away by some of the patterns that the students made, and just had to share them with you here! Color patterns with buttons (some children used them to make repeating patterns with size e.g. small/big/small/big) Number patterns with dice. Color patterns with Jovi's. Creative patterns with classroom equipment. Increasing patterns with unifix cubes. Unfortunately I can't find a photo, but one student made number patterns using playing cards as well. Love the affordability of these manipulatives!

One of my Math groups is currently learning to join and separate sets. This has been a long and drawn out process for them, as it has been addressed in many formats over their schooling history. My challenge was to find equipment that would capture their interest and imaginations. I wanted them to be enthusiastic about Math! To want to do Math in their spare time! One student is a little girl who loves sparkly, fluffy things. You know the type, I bet you have one in your own class right now. During a standard trip to the dollar shop I found some awesome plastic crystals. I think that they are used as decorative centerpieces, and in vases etc. I snapped up two packets (in green and blue, that way they can be used for pattern activities later). The crystals became 'diamonds' and are stored with some pictures of pirate treasure boxes, and my students LOVE them! Especially if I use a pirate voice when making the questions! Since taking this photo, I found that these guys...

We are hammering away at our skip counting sequences at the moment. So when my husband went fishing a couple of weekends ago, I found it the perfect opportunity to make a couple of skip counting activities for the classroom, using my favorite math manipulative- milk bottle tops! To begin with, I took an A3 sheet of colored paper and traced around a bottle top multiple times, to create one long, windy snake. I filled it in with permanent marker and drew on a head and snaky tongue. I then wrote the skip counting in fives sequence that I wanted to re-inforce on each body segment. This took a surprisingly long time, so I was on the hunt for a quicker way. So I cut some chux cloth and glue it onto the back of a milk bottle cap, creating a simple stamp. I then chose white paint to stamp my second snake, to create a skip counting sequence in twos.  By the time I finished the second snake, I was totally sick of serpents. So my final game is a flowering vine, with petals stamped wit...

I love celebrating Easter with my little darlings! Normally Easter heralds the beginning of the school holidays here in NZ, however this year we are starting with a 12 week term, so we qualify for an Easter break! This year I am teaching year twos, so we did the usual routine on the Thursday before Easter.... Easter poems, Easter Math games (into their group boxes), Easter baskets and some Easter printables which were available as a fast finisher activity (dot to dots, spot the differences, find a word and an Easter themed boggle). Our boggle activity was vastly popular, as the prize offered up was some glittery eggs and little fluffy chicks (both available from Spotlight). I buy them after Easter each year, when then are marked down to ridiculously cheap prices and pop them in my cupboard for the following Easter. This year I made my class an Easter themed bean bag throw activity for Math. It began with 10 circular bean bags, decorated to look like bunnies (inspired by this blog h...

Although this post is has "St Patricks Day" in the title, the content is totally adaptable to any themed holiday or occasion- as you will soon see! In NZ, Valentines Day occurs fairly quick into the school year. I usually take the opportunity to pop some Valentines themed board games into the Math group boxes for the children to play as part of their rotation tasks. Last year I made up a set of 'tic tac toe' for each group box. The sets had a coloured game board (glued onto card) and 6 felt hearts of one colour, 6 of another colour. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I forgot about the games, and they were in the group boxes for the entire year. However, am excited that every set survived! I credit it to the fact that each heart was a double layer of felt blanket stitched together- very durable. However, this year I was less organised and just cut out single layered felt hearts. My plan is to stitch them together before next Valentines Day. No doubt it w...

Shifting classrooms always requires a scramble to inventory current equipment and to replace those old regulars that you use a lot. I know that almost every classroom must need counters at some point in time! Having a range of alternatives can often pique children's interest, but can be a budgetary stretch at the same time. Here are 10 alternatives that I have rustled up with a minimum cost. 1. Smooth stones come ready made and freely available from your local beach or stony river. Small pebbles are perfect as game tokens, or collected for use in Math lessons. They look great with stickers and glitter glued on and are REALLY durable. However, they can be heavy when stored en masse. 2. Wooden shapes are available in packs of 12-20 from your local dollar shop. These are particularly awesome to use for number stories (i.e. 6 bumble bees were sitting on a flower and 3 flew back to the hive, how many were left?). They are more durable than paper cut outs, intriguing and reasonabl...

I find Math to be an absolute headache in terms of resource management. There is never enough resources, occasionally too many, and they are often in bad repair. This is why my next few posts are about Math resources. Enjoy! As I teach in NZ and follow the Numeracy Projects, place value houses are a common material to work with. I printed mine off A4 size from http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/sites/default/files/Numeracy/2007matmas/Bk4/MM%204_11.pdf . Each 'house' was copied onto a different coloured paper, and then cut out and laminated. I didn't cut them out again after laminating, as it made it easier to punch a hole in the corner and thread a ring through (are they 'magazine' rings?).  My awesome set can now hang from the wall if there is space. No more scrunching up in the bottom of a drawer! They are also really quick and easy to unclip and use, then pack up again. I started off using a whiteboard pen to write the digits directly onto the laminated charts...

Its been a while since I last updated this blog, so I am going to do a bit of an 'idea vomit', as I have been stockpiling ideas and just haven't gotten around to getting them up online lately. In Math we have been looking at place value a fair bit lately, developing their number knowledge. We have been using a lot of concrete materials- beans, iceblock sticks, unifix cubes, money etc. I am now trying to link the more abstract with the concrete- using place value 'house charts', where the children need to image the materials and quickly tell me how many tens/ones are in a number. Quite frankly, my slow brain does not generate numbers fast enough. The poor thing finds it hard enough to make my body breathe, talk and eat, without generating random numbers for the children to computate. After a while I realised I was using the same digits over and over, and completely forgetting digits like '7'. Poor 7. In the interest of using completely random two digit num...