I've had the opportunity to work with some pretty fantastic people from Battelle for Kids this school year and they've been sharing some very helpful strategies for implementing the Common Core in my classroom. I've spent many hours deconstructing the standards. Stay with me here bloggers...I know you'd probably rather ___ than continue reading the rest of this post, but I promise it will be helpful!
What's "deconstructing" mean? Well, let me give you the low down! As you probably know, the Common Core is a bit more rigorous than what we've been used to...at least I am really feeling it. Many of the learning targets we taught in the past are no longer in the Common Core language. I can't remember the blog, but a few weeks ago someone said, "What happened to teaching antonyms and synonyms in first grade?" Although it is not directly stated in the Common Core, having schema about antonyms and synonyms would be a knowledge target essential to "determining or clarifying the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials" which is a first grade standard.
What does this mean for us? Basically, educators need to understand the underlying skills necessary to properly teach to the Common Core. When I first heard this, my immediate thought was, "For real, when am I going to have time to do that?" I can't keep up with school as it is already! Well friends, luckily, Kentucky Department of Education has done all of the leg work! If you take a look at the links below, you'll see that they've got a pdf for each grade level. The standard is at the top and the "deconstruction" (the underlying skills kids need to know in order to master that standard) is listed in the boxes below.
What's "deconstructing" mean? Well, let me give you the low down! As you probably know, the Common Core is a bit more rigorous than what we've been used to...at least I am really feeling it. Many of the learning targets we taught in the past are no longer in the Common Core language. I can't remember the blog, but a few weeks ago someone said, "What happened to teaching antonyms and synonyms in first grade?" Although it is not directly stated in the Common Core, having schema about antonyms and synonyms would be a knowledge target essential to "determining or clarifying the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials" which is a first grade standard.
What does this mean for us? Basically, educators need to understand the underlying skills necessary to properly teach to the Common Core. When I first heard this, my immediate thought was, "For real, when am I going to have time to do that?" I can't keep up with school as it is already! Well friends, luckily, Kentucky Department of Education has done all of the leg work! If you take a look at the links below, you'll see that they've got a pdf for each grade level. The standard is at the top and the "deconstruction" (the underlying skills kids need to know in order to master that standard) is listed in the boxes below.
If you'd like further explanation on using this document or if you'd like to see the first grade deconstructing I've done with my teammates, let me know. I don't want to bore you with a paper trail...cause by this point you are probably wanting the good stuff. I'll show you how I've deconstructed "Adding with Regrouping" and "Telling Time" for my kiddos, bloggy style.
ADDING WITH REGROUPING
ADDING WITH REGROUPING
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Understanding Place Value At the beginning of the year I begin by using these place value straws during calendar to represent how many days we've been in school. Once the 10th day rolls around, we make a big deal about bundling the 10 straws and moving it to the 'tens column'. Our good pal, "Zero the Hero" makes his debut and talks to my first graders about how 9 is the biggest number that can be in any one column...and since 'Zero the Hero' likes to be silly, he goes from right to left (unlike when we are reading!) Once 20 straws are in our chart, we begin talking about the value of each number in the 'ones' and 'tens' column. The '2' in the 'tens' actually represents the number "20". Then we move on to our place value flip chart...  More Place Value I'm not sure where I got this place value flip chart, but it was one of the greatest purchases (for teaching place value) I ever made! We've used this flip chart during calendar each day to discuss what each number represents in various columns up to the millions! The 'calendar helper' creates a number and asks various questions for the class to answer. Once most of my kids had a good grasp of this concept, I taught them this game (I'm not sure if I've ever come up with a name for it, but hopefully you'll get the idea when you see the pics below). |
Using the base-10 blocks, students will break up into small groups. Each group is given a handful of cubes and longs, one flat, two dice, and a game board. Students roll the dice, add the numbers together, and take that number of cubes. If the sum is larger than 9, the cubes move to the left (tens column) and are replaced by a long. This process continues until one student moves their ten longs into the hundreds column and replaces it with the flat!
Of course there are some skills that warrant paper and pencil. Adding with regrouping is one of them! So to try to jazz things up a little, I created a Bingo Addition activity has really helped my kiddos. (Click on the link to snatch a free copy!) We first used this template to practice lining up the numbers for adding.
At the same time, I found these websites to be helpful...I used them on the SmartBoard and we would practice writing over top of the problems. Check out Cool Math 4 Kids and Harcourt School!
Once we got to problems where there'd be a two digit number in a column, I'd purposely write the two digits under the line in the same column. Hopefully in the background I'd hear, "No! You can't do that! Nine is the biggest number!" We'd discuss what would we should do next...If my kids ever got stuck, we'd revert back to our base-10 blocks and game board! I still have a few kids who are still grasping the concept of regrouping, the base-10 blocks almost always do the trick!
I forgot to take a pic before break of my kids practicing regrouping with shaving cream and rice trays...just various tactile items that we like to practice with from time to time! It definitely beats paper and pencil!
TELLING TIME
Hour/Minute Hand
When I first started teaching time, my students had difficulty distinguishing between the hour hand and the minute hand. After a few weeks went by of me pulling my hair out trying to help them, I decided to label the hands. Since our good pal Mr. Griffin is significantly taller than most humans, we gave him the minute hand...which left me with the hour hand. I taught my students to look at the "Miss Appel Hand" first and then to move onto the "Mr. Griffin Hand". It really helped!
Counting by Fives
Once we got past hand recognition we moved onto counting by fives. I have a few songs that I use at the beginning of the year, but the favorite is typically a $0.99 download from Have Fun Teaching. You'll also probably notice my classroom clock looks very similar to pics on Pinterst...that's because I borrowed this idea from Step Into Second Grade with Mrs. Lemons. If you head over to her blog you can print this template out for yourself!
Activities for Learning Centers
Again, you'll probably recognize the hola hoop clock from Pinterest. I saw this idea from AMSTI-Athens Blog and created one for myself. A couple students hold the hoop and move the hands of the person standing behind it to create the time.
Favorite SmartBoard Links
Once I introduced "Stop the Clock" to my first graders, all of our problems with telling time seemed to dissipate! Miraculously, my kids weren't confusing the hands on the clock and telling time became the only activity they wanted to do on the SmartBoard.
There are a few different versions. {My kids are working on telling time to the minute because of this game!}
- Stop the Clock (Half Hour)
- Stop the Clock (Quarter Hour)
- Stop the Clock (Five Minutes)
- Stop the Clock (Minute)
Another fun game to play on the SmartBoard is Clock Shoot!
Sorry for the long-winded post, thanks for staying with me! If you have any other ideas for teaching adding with regrouping or telling time, please head over and share them with me! I'm always on the look out for new, inventive ways to teach!
