Pinterest drives my instruction: Math games

Some of the newest math games in my classroom. Inspired by this user and this user (and upon further inspection from that nutty and amazing Teacher Tipster.)



I altered a Guess Who? game. I replaced all of the heads with 3 or 4 or 5 digit numbers. The rules are the same, as kiddos are trying to guess their opponent's number. Is it s 3-digit number? Is it greater than ___? Does it have a 5 in it's tens column? Is it an odd number?



I altered a Jenga game with multiplication facts. The tower gets set up (like in normal Jenga), and as kids take out a Jenga block (and it doesn't fall) they have to answer the multiplication fact. If they get it right, they are safe. If not, they have to pull another block.



DOMO. (So the game is really called SNAKE, but I teach French Immersion and our class pet is my stuffed DOMO-kun, so we renamed the game DOMO.) This is a whole-class game. Each kid draws a tableau on some scrap paper with each column a letter in the word you are spelling (DOMO). Round 1 is round D. All students stand up and I roll two dice. Once I roll I ask if they want to stay in the game. If they stay, they write down the total of the dice on their table and I move on. I roll the dice again, and before i tell them the total, I ask if they are in or out. If they are out, they keep all the points that they've accumulated so far. If they stay in, they are facing risky business. You see, if I roll  a 1, they lose all the points. If I roll a double 1 (snake eyes) they lose all points from the current round and any round before. Once I roll a 1, students add all the points from column D and we move on to Round 2:Round O and all kids stand up again. They love it. We also have a (first to 100) bébé DOMO version that kids play in pairs.

**More games to come soon. Also I want to share the crazy-ness that is my triple-grade numeracy block! Until then - try some of these games.

*Note: Pinterest doesn't really drive my instruction. The data (is the roadmap that) drives my instruction and student interests, but there are so many amazing resources for teachers waiting to be pinned. And since I have over 200 pins on my schooled board (that I am actually doing!) I thought I should share them with the world.

mathy valentines.

Today we wrote some math (thomas) valentines. Here are some of my favourites translated. These kids are hilarious.

"Dear Area - You fill my heart with love and make me feel all warm and cozy inside. Love, Rectangle"
"Dear Mode - You are beautiful and smart. You'll always be my favourite. Love, a data set."
"Dear 536 - Things are not working out. We need to break up and go our own ways. I've found someone new. From, Division"
"Dear numbers, I love you in my life. Our love keeps growing and growing. Love, ascending pattern."
"Dear addition - We belong together and will be together forever. You are my match. Love, subtraction."



These valentines were part of some voice trait learning. We've been talking about adding voice to our writing with some quick-write mini lessons. One of the ways we can add voice is to change the point of view of the author.  Above is a picture of my hallway bulletin board devoted to the voice trait. Included with the valentines are some "Show, don't tell" paragraphs and some voice-embedded opinion grocery lists. I also put some self-portrait collages - because if they aren't full of voice, I don't know what is.

Pinterest Drives my Instruction: Twitter Board

Someone somewhere (on Pinterest) made a twitter board. Then someone else copied. Then I thought it was cool - being an "on-and-off" tweeter myself, so I copied too.

It's been up since September. Each kid has a username (mine is @madammie) and I usually write something like "What is your favourite genre of book? Why?" or "What is your opinion about finding the perimeter of polygons?" or "How are you feeling today?" under my name, and throughout the day (or week) students add their tweets. I'm a bit too nerdy for my own good.



You might also recognize the kids flying with the balloons which have their "hopes and dreams" for the year from Pinterest. Come on in... let's learn about things!