Math Fun

Lori commented on my blog about math olympics wondering if we do math olympics every day and what exactly it entails. 

I have my math block right after lunch and it lasts about an hour.  We have a routine we follow during the first 10 minutes.  When the kids come in from recess they do their "calendar job" right away.  Each kid has a job on our calendar wall.  These jobs rotate every day. 

Here are two jobs: the Today is, tomorrow will be, yesterday was chart and the calendar which we add to with patterned numbers.
  More jobs: calendar application questions, problem of the day, writing the date, day tallies, and time
  Adding and counting straws, temperature, weather graphing, counting chart, money, and graphing question of the day.

The students all do their jobs and then head back to their seats before the counting chart person and the graphing question of the day person lead the class in skip counting and a graphing excersize. 

After calendar, every day we have math olympics.  The kids make their way through addition and subtraction facts.  I use Easy Timed Math Drills by REMEDIA Publications.  The pictures below are linked to a TpT site where they can be bought.
     

I give students 3 minutes to get as many facts as they can.  If they get 34 out of the 36 problems they move forward the following day.  From +0 to +1 to +2 all the way to +9 and then it begins to mix the problems together.  +1 and +2, +2 and +3 and so on to +8 and +9.  Then mixed up even more +1, 2, and 3.  and following and then finally +0-9.  When they have moved through all of these facts.  They are awarded a medal.  I print out medals in black and white and give the child a medal to decorate with paint and glitter.  I then use red, white, and blue ribbon to finish the medal.  The kids are so proud of themselves when they finally get the medal.  They have to work really hard to get there.



Here's my kids today working hard at math olympics!





After math olympics students rotate through independent math work, practice sheets, and time with me to learn the new lesson.

Here's a couple of pictures of my kids today experimenting with cups, pints, and quarts.

Word a Day sentences & Math Olympics

Each week I introduce four new vocabulary words to the kids.  I use Word a Day published by Evans Moor.  The kids really enjoy trying to find times to use their new words, and jump when they hear me using them.  At some points in the year we have our words written on a poster and when the kids use the word in class they put their name up on a post it next to the word they used.  I hope to build this component of our vocabulary study next year.
When I told my kids today that it was time for our word of the day test, they got incredibly excited and said "That's the fun test."  I guess they don't like spelling all too much.
Their sentences today were quite fun to read so I thought I'd share them ... (I'll type them the way they spelled them)  The instructions were to write about someone who is daring.  And to use daring in their sentence.

DaD is daring because he wunid to by chase by a Dino.
My uncle Mark is daring because he climbs Mt. St. Helens.
I daring mysealf to steft a hamburger? (I'm daring myself to stuf a hamburger ... in my mouth all at once)
I'm daring because I'm sping on my mom and dad. (spying)
My uncle is daring because he is a paramedic.
I daring you to jump DaN hir (I'm daring you to jump down here.)
my Dad is baring beekas he gos hunting. (My dad is daring beccause he goes hunting.)
it's daring when I go to girl scout's
I clighed a daring montin. (I climbed a daring mountain.)
wen you are daring wen you clim a miantin (You are daring when you climb a mountain.)


As a teacher, there is always so much to do and most of the time not all of it gets done.  I have no idea how some of the teachers of the blogs I'm beginning to follow keep everything going.  Sometimes I think of teaching as spinning plates and I look at some teachers and think they're very similar to these Chinese plate spinners.

I'm not.  I'll get a few plates spinning and invariably one of them will fall.  Or I'll have to stop spinning a plate for a minute in order to get another started.  During the summer I can have plans in my head of how to spin all those plates at the same time ... outdoor education, technology integrated in the classroom, a class blog and webpage, integrated units, daily 5 and strategy groups with CAFE and so much more ... but actually pulling it all off without a plate dropping seems to be fairly impossible.  So ... last night I failed to check my class' math olympic sheets from yesterday and I ran out of time while our Friday volunteer readers were in my class so I thought I'd just give my kids a day of a break from this intense 3 minutes of focus and disapointment for those who get to the end and don't quite make it to the end of the page.  But my kids had other plans.  Upon telling them that we were taking a break from math olympics today I heard a room full of groans.  Since their groaning wasn't due to the fact they didn't want to be pushed to do work but was because were disappointed they wouldn't be able to work, I succombed to their insesstant pleas for more math.  One of my students got angry he wasn't going to be able to do math olympics and told me his dad was going to be angry too.  He was so serious it was cute.  And it's funny because his dad teaches down the hall from me and although his dad is really supportive of my little guy's fact practice right now, he wouldn't be angry that we took a days break.