Category Archives: number routines

True or False Equations: Kindergarten

1 Reply

Yesterday, the Kindergarten math routine videos I recorded were posted. This set of routines were so incredibly fascinating to me and completely out of my comfort zone – such an incredible learning experience. In addition to the 6 videos that are posted, there are about 12 more in my Google Drive that I had to chose between, each with its own unique student responses that would be so interesting to discuss.

With all of the videos and associated student work, I am just finding some of the work I thought I forgot to collect after the routine. This particular set of work is from the True or False Equation routine.  This is probably my favorite routine in the set because it really pushes me to think about the language, recording, and understandings students have around the meaning of the equal sign.

The final equation, as anticipated, caused a bit of a controversy. Since the class was split on whether 2+3 equaled 1+4, I asked the students to explain their reasoning in their journal.

This response is reflective of the student’s experience with equations. How much do we record, or ask students to record, equations that only have three numbers? I would guess many students only see equations with two addends the majority of the time.

IMG_4335

I liked the “same thing” and “I used my fingers” here. This is the language piece I find so interesting. What does it mean to be the same? In this case it could mean the same amount or looks the same. She could find the amount on her fingers or the two ways of showing the expressions on each hand would look the same in the end. A small, but important distinction I think.

IMG_4336

This student appears to have related this to the first problem in the string, seeing both as the same since 5=5.

IMG_4339

I really like this one because of the arrangement of dots. This student seems to think of exactly the same as the same amount since the dots look different in the way they are drawn. The dots are great because they look the way a student would easily subitize an arrangement.

IMG_4338 (1)

This student broke the equation apart and set each side equal to 5 and showed with circles that each side was 5.

IMG_4340

I was inspired by this number talk to dive even further into what it means to the be the same. I brainstormed some thoughts here and then tried an activity about what it means to be the same that ended in this work: (I haven’t gotten around to a blog on this one, but will soon!)

IMG_4359.jpg

 

Today’s Number: Making Connections

1 Reply

The Investigations curriculum and Jessica Shumway’s book, Number Sense Routines contain so many wonderful math routines. Routines designed to give students access to the mathematics and elicit many ways of thinking about the same problem. One of the more open routines, is Today’s Number. In Today’s Number, a number is posed to the class and the teacher can ask students for questions about that number, expressions that equal that number, or anything they know about that number. I love this routine, and while it is more commonly used in the primary grades, I used it often in my 5th grade classroom. While I would capture so much amazing student thinking, I always felt like all of that great thinking was left hanging out there. I could see some students were using what they knew about operations and properties to generate new expressions for the given number, however I wondered how many saw each expression as individual, unconnected ideas.

After I read Connecting Arithmetic to Algebra, I had a different ending to Today’s Number, an ending that pushed students to look explicitly at relationships between expressions. I tried it out the other day in a 3rd grade classroom.

I asked students for expressions that equaled Today’s Number, 48. I was getting a lot of addition, subtraction and multiplication expressions with two numbers, so I asked students if they could think of some that involved division or more than two numbers. I ran out of room so I moved to a new page and recorded their ideas.

After their thinking was recorded, I asked the students which expressions they saw a connection between. This is where my recording could improve tremendously, but I drew arrows between the two expressions as students explained the connection.

IMG_4399

In case the mess is hard to see, these are some connecting ideas that arose:

Commutative Property: 3 x 16 and 16 x 3, 6 x 8 and 8 x 6, 12 x 4 and 4 x 12

Fraction and Fraction addition: 48/1 and 24/1 + 24/1 and 24 + 24

Subtracting from 100 and 1000: 100-52 and 1000-952

Multiplication and Repeated Addition: 4 x 12 and 12+12+12+12

Adjusting Addends in similar ways: 38+10 and 18 + 30, 40 + 8 and 48+0

Other ideas that I don’t particularly know how to categorize:

10 x 4 + 8 = 10 x 4 + 4 x 2

58 x 1 – 10 = 58 – 10

The second page got even more interesting:

IMG_4398

“Groups of” and Decomposition: 7 x 4 + 2 + 18 = 14 + 14 + 2 + 10 + 8 . This student saw the two 14s as two groups of 7 and then the 18 decomposed into 10 + 8.

Halving and Halving the Dividend and Divisor: 192÷4 = 96÷2. This student actually used the 192 to get the expression with 96.

Another variation of the one above was 200 ÷ 4 – 2 = 100 ÷ 2 – 2.

Other cool connection: 

96 ÷2 = (48 + 48) ÷ 2; This student saw the 96 in both expressions since they were both dividing by 2.

I think asking students to look for these connections pushes them to think about mathematical relationships so expressions don’t feel like such individual ideas. I can imagine the more this is done routinely with students, the more creative they get with their expressions and connections. I saw a difference in the ways students were using one expression to get another after just pushing them try to think of some with more than 2 numbers and some division.

Number Talk: Which Numbers Are Helpful?

Leave a reply

I think Number Talks are such a powerful routine in developing students’ fluency and flexibility with operations, but maybe not for the reason most think. One of the most highlighted purposes of a Number Talk is the ability to elicit multiple strategies for the same problem, however, an even more important goal for me during a Number Talk is for students to think about the numbers they are working with before they begin solving. And then, as they go through their solution path, think about what numbers are helpful in that process and why.

The struggle with trying to dig deeper into that thinking is simply, time. If the opportunity arises, I ask students about their number choices during the Talk but often students just end up re-explaining their entire strategy without really touching on number choices. Not to mention the other 20ish students start losing interest if they take too long. I do think it is a particularly tough question if students are not used to thinking about it and when the thinking happens so quickly in their head, they don’t realize why they made particular choices.

Last week in 2nd grade I did a Number Talk with two problems, one addition and one subtraction. During the addition talk, I noticed students using a lot of great decomposition to make friendly numbers (the term they use to describe 10’s and 100’s).

IMG_4374

During the subtraction problem, I saw the same use of friendly numbers, however in this one I actually got 100 as an answer. My assumption was because the student knew he was using 100 instead of 98, but got stuck there so went with 100 as the answer. I was really impressed to see so many strategies for this problem since subtraction is usually the operation teachers and I talk endlessly about in terms of where students struggle. I find myself blogging on and on about subtraction all of the time!

IMG_4373

When the Number Talk ended, I looked at the board and thought if my goal was to elicit a lot of strategies, then I was done – goal met. However, I chose the numbers in each problem for a particular reason  and wanted students to dig more into their number choices.

This is where I find math journals to be so amazing. They allow me to continue the conversation with students even after the Number Talk is finished.

I went back to the 100, circled it and told the class that I noticed this number came up a lot in both of our problems today. I asked them to think about why and then go back to their journal to write some other problems where 100 would be helpful.

Some used 100 as a number they were trying to get to, like in this example below. I really liked the number line and the equations that both show getting to the 100, but in two different ways.

IMG_4434

This student got to 100 in two different ways also. I thought this was such a clear explanation of how he decomposed the numbers to also use 10’s toward the end of their process as well.

IMG_4435

This student used the 100 in so many ways it was awesome! She got to 100, subtracted by 100 and adjusted the answer, and then added up to get to 100.

IMG_4428

While the majority of the students chose to subtract a number in the 90’s, this student did not which I find so incredibly interesting. I would love to talk to him more about his number choices!

IMG_4432

I didn’t give a clear direction on which operation I wanted them to use, so while most students chose subtraction because that was the problem we ended on, this one played around with both, with the same numbers. I would love to ask this student if 100 was helpful in the same or different way for the two problems.

IMG_4433

As I said earlier, this is a really tough thing for students to think about because it is looking deeper into their choices and in this case apply it to a new set of numbers. This group was definitely up for the challenge and while I love all of the work above, these two samples are so amazing in showing the perseverance of this group.

In this one, you can see the student started solving the problem and got stuck so she drew lines around it and went on to subtract 10’s until she ran out of time. I love this so much.

FullSizeRender 7

This student has so much interesting work. It looks as if he started with an addition problem involving 84, started adding, then changed it to subtraction and got stuck.

IMG_4436

This is what I call continuing the conversation. They wrote me notes to let me know Hey, I am not done here yet and I am trying super hard even though there are mistakes here. That is so powerful for our learners. So while there was no “right” answer to my prompt, I got a glimpse into what each student was thinking after the Number Talk which is often hard to do during the whole-group discussion.

If you want to check out how I use journals with other Number Routines, they are in the side panel of all of my videos on Teaching Channel. 

The Equal Sign

15 Replies

True or False?

5 = 5

5 = 4 + 2

2 + 3 = 1 + 4

After reading so much about the meaning of the equal sign and equality in books such as Thinking Mathematically and About Teaching Mathematics , I anticipated students may think each was false for different reasons…..

5 = 5: There is no operation on the left side.

5 = 4 + 2: The sum comes first or 4+2 is not 5.

2 + 3 = 1 + 4: there is an operation on both sides or because 2+3 =5 (and ignore the 4) or because 2+3+1 ≠ 4.

While I anticipated how students may respond, I was so intrigued by the number of students (probably about 75%) that said false for 5=5. They were about split on the second one, but for many reasons – not many of them being that 5 ≠ 6. The final one left many confused, in fact one student said, “Well now you are just trying to confuse people by putting two plus signs.” So cute.

As they explained their reasoning, my mind was reeling….

  • What questions do I ask to get them to:
    • Think about what the symbols mean?
    • Talk about what is the same?
    • Realize the equal sign in the first one is not a plus sign, so there is no answer of 10?
    • See the equal sign to not mean “the answer is next”?
    • What wording do I use for the equal sign?
      • “The same as” felt wrong because the sides do not look the same in both cases….so, is “Is the same amount” a helpful way for them to think about it?

I got back to my room and starting thinking about what learning experiences would be helpful for students in building their understanding of the equal sign? I talked through it with some colleagues at school and reached out to those outside of school, I needed some serious help!

I started playing around with some cubes and realized how interestingly my thinking changed with each one. I didn’t take a pic of those cubes so I recreated them virtually to talk thru my thinking here.

The first set represents 5 = 5. I can see here where “the same as” works for the equal sign because there are 5 and they are all yellow. But what if I put 5 yellows on the left and 5 red on the right? Then they are the same quantity, but do not look the same.

The second set represents 2+3=5 and is definitely the one students are most comfortable seeing and representing as an equation. It looks and feels like composition to me so I can definitely see why student think the equal sign means “makes” or “the total is.” It looks like 2 and 3 more combine to make 5.

Something interesting happened with the green set. I made two sets of 5 and then broke one set to make the right side – felt like decomposition. I can see why it would feel differently to students. I also realized that when I look at them, I look left to right and much of that lends itself to the way I was thinking about what was happening.

The last set I made by taking my 2 sets of 5 connected cubes and breaking each set differently. Again, “the same as” doesn’t work for me here really well either because they don’t look the same.

Screen Shot 2017-04-26 at 6.27.05 PM.png

Still thinking of next steps because I always like to put context into play with these types of things, but I am finding that very difficult without forcing the way students represent their thinking which I don’t want to do.

Right now, things I am left thinking about before planning forward:

  • What do students attend to when we ask if things are the same?
  • Our language and recording is SO incredibly important.
  • How can these ideas build in K-1 to be helpful in later grades?
  • If I am thinking of moving students from a concrete to more abstract understanding, how does that happen? Is it already a bit abstract in the way the numbers are represented?
  • Do we take enough time with teachers digging into these ideas? [rhetorical]

I look forward to any thoughts! So much learning to do!

 

1st Gr Number String: Missing Number

1 Reply

Yesterday, I wrote a quick post as I was trying to decide which of two number talks I should do with a 1st grade class. I got some great feedback and went with the first one in the post! It was amazing and completely evident that the teacher, Ms. Williams, does a great job asking students to share their thinking regularly. The students were so clear in explaining their reasoning and asking questions of one another.

The first problem drew out exactly what I was hoping and more. One student shared counting on and a few students shared how they decomposed the 4 and added 2 and then 2 more. I was not expecting the use of a double, but two students used 8+8 in their reasoning. The use of their “double fact” reminded me of the solving equations conversations I have with Michael Pershan but in a much more sense-making way than I personally think about it. The students said they “knew 4 and 4 made 8 so they took 4 away and that changed the answer.” I tried to get out of them that they subtracted the 4 from the 16 as well, but it just made sense to them the 16 changed to 12 because he subtracted 4 from the 8. I am so glad I videoed this talk because I want to talk more about it after I re-watch it!

The second problem was as tricky, as I anticipated, and split the class between the answers 1 and 9. The students seemed very used to having the difference on the lefthand side of the equal sign which is great, but some still wanted to add 1 to the 4 instead of subtract the 4 from the missing number. I moved on to the final question because we were at a bit of a standstill at this point. Hindsight, I wish I did that problem last, but I had them journal about it after the talk.

IMG_4191

The final problem, which I wish was my first problem – what was I thinking in this order? – was great! They decomposed the 5, made 10 and talked their way through the two incorrect responses.

IMG_4192

I asked them to journal about the second problem when we finished. The prompt was to explain which answer, 9 or 1, they thought it was and why. Here are few examples:

IMG_0133.jpgIMG_0121.jpgIMG_0122IMG_0128IMG_0120IMG_0123.jpg

I think I would love to post the following string (all at once) on the board to start tomorrow’s lesson:

? – 4 = 5

5 = ? – 4

? + 4 = 5

5 = ? + 4

Ask what the question mark is in each one and which equations seem most similar.

Such a great day in 1st grade!

 

1st Grade Number Talk

8 Replies

I am planning for a number talk tomorrow with a 1st grade class. I have been playing around with two different problem strings that I would love feedback on, because I can’t make a decision!

I would particularly like feedback on:

  • What could we learn about student thinking?
  • What would you be curious to find our about their thinking at the end?
  • Do you think one would be better before the other or doesn’t it matter?

Here are the two I am playing around with (sorry, I had them written on Post-its):

FullSizeRender.jpg

My thoughts:

  • 1st problem – Do they add to 10 and then add on? For example, 8+2=10 and since 12 is 2 more the answer is 4 or do they subtract 8 from 12?
  • 2nd problem – How do they do with the missing number on the right side of the equation? Do they visualize a 10 frame, taking 4 off of the bottom row to leave 5? Do they add 5 and 4?
  • 3rd problem – Do they decompose the 5 into 4+1 to use the 1 with the 9? Do they count on from 9?

Prompt at the end – How are these problems different? Which was your favorite to do? Why?

Second option:

FullSizeRender.jpg

My thoughts:

  • 1st problem: Set the stage for expressions on both sides of equal sign. Notice you can’t add more to the same number and stay equal. Did we need to solve both sides to know that?
  • 2nd problem: Both equal 10 but did we need to solve both sides to know it is equal? Take one from one addend and add it to the other and still remain equal.
  • 3rd problem: Commutative property.
  • 4th problem: Now that I just wrote the commutative for problem 3, I want to switch the 8+5 on this one to 5+8 so that they might also think about taking 2 from one addend and adding it to the other.

Prompt at the end: Write two of your own equations that would fit something you noticed in our problems today. (wording is rough on that one).

Chances are I will have the opportunity to do both of them and I think they both hit on different, interesting things. I would love feedback on both and know if you think one is better before the other or if it doesn’t matter?

 

 

Number Talks vs Number Strings

1 Reply

CHvklLzUEAA3JsZ

When I first saw this image, I have to admit, it didn’t match what I had been calling a Number Talk in my classroom. Having started my journey with Number Talks with Parrish’s book, I saw it as a string of problems with a specific strategy as the focus of the string that got progressively more difficult (which sounds more like a string in reading this slide). As I started creating my own and making variations to them over the past couple of years, I have simply started calling them Math Routines….it was just easier than trying to make things fit into a certain framework in my brain. After going back and forth about terminology, I started looking at these structures more in the sense of purpose than the name and I am finding it very interesting. Please keep in mind as you read, this is completely from my experience with Math Routines in the classroom and I find all of these talks so incredibly valuable!

First comparison: Single problem vs string of problems. In my experience, I think these two designs have a substantial difference in purpose. When I give one problem, I am going for one of two things: a variety of strategies to see where students are in their thinking OR connections/comparisons of multiple strategies. Personally, I like the variety of strategies before and after we have investigated different ideas that could impact their thinking. For both the students and myself, it shows growth and I can use what I find to help me in planning future routines. Connecting and comparing takes a bit longer and, for me, I don’t get as many strategies out because we focus on connecting and comparing only a few for time’s sake.

Second comparison: Difference in having a representation and context. I don’t give a representation or context unless a student brings one up in a explanation. If it comes from them, I go with it, if it doesn’t, I don’t write it up there. If there is a specific representation I am hoping comes up because we have been doing work with it during our math class, but doesn’t, I do have them do a quick journal response. I will ask them something such as, “How was our number talk similar to or different from our work in math class this week?” Then I can read their journals and have some students share the next day about the representation connection they made. I also have had students create contexts after we finish a number talk with a prompt such as, “Write a context that you think fits one of the problems in the string. How does the context change for another problem in the string?” For example if the string has “16 x 4” followed by “16 x 8” I am hoping to see connections between the two problems in the context.

Nothing to compare in the final piece, multiple strategies discussed in both!

In the end, students are talking math with a mathematical purpose so they are win/wins in my book, but I am curious to hear what others think around the purposes of different formats of these routines! Would love to hear other ideas so comment away!

-Kristin

Growth Patterns…the Beginning

7 Replies

It is finally here, our last unit of the year and I have to say I am so excited to make it to Growth Patterns! Before we did some reorganization of units due to CCSS shifts, I could never get to this unit, however now having fewer units, I finally make it to the end!

If you have never looked at this Investigations unit before, here is a brief description:

1This unit is really a beautiful culmination of all of the pattern noticings my student do all year long.

Being the end of the year, I know I am going to miss constantly having a class to try out my ideas on during the course of the summer, so I am making the most of the time I have left to test some different number routines.  After reading through this unit, two things jumped out at me that could potentially be incorporated into our number routine work before the lesson: predicting nth terms and relationships between two sets of numbers. So, I thought it may be interesting to do some counting and then think about relationships between our sets we make.

I first had a student count by 3’s four times: 3,6,9,12…. I asked the 10th term and everyone looked at me like I was crazy because this seemed too simple and said “30.” I asked how they knew and immediately thumbs went up and they all agreed that 3 x 10 = 30.I asked for another way you could get there? Next I got, “If you add one more 3 and get 15, you can just double it because it is doing the same thing all the way.” I wrote (12 + 3) x 2 = 30. Another student said, “You can double/half and do 5 x 6 = 30.” Me, “How does double/halving look here?” Silence for a minute, so I asked them to chat with a neighbor and then they came to thinking about jumps on a number line and explained that you were doing jumps twice as big so you need half as many.

Next I did the same process with 4’s: 4, 8, 12, 16 and I got much of the same as above. I asked if we could make any connections to the first set. I had an idea this one may be tough (but I had a plan for it in the next set), however I did have two students who noticed it was one more every time you counted by 4’s, so by the time you counted 10 times, you would have to add 10 to your total, 30+10=40.

The third problem, I wanted to give them the chance to make some connections to the 3 and 4 counts, so I did 12’s: 12, 24, 36, 48… Again, I got many of the above strategies, but then they made some connections to doing “3 times as many jumps of 4 in 12” and “4 times as many jumps of 3 in 12” and adjusting their 10th terms.

Because some students were really comfortable moving between the sets of numbers, others were still staying within one set of numbers in describing the 10th term, I gave them two sets to go back to their journal to reflect on: 2’s: 2, 4, 6, 8…. and 2/3’s:  2/3, 4/3, 6/3, 10/3….

I asked them to either talk about how they could arrive at the 10th term or make a connection to one of the previous sets of numbers…

IMG_0724IMG_0728IMG_0729IMG_0730

It was interesting to see their connections between the sets, but I think for next time I need to think more about either the predictions of future terms or comparing two sets, this was a bit too much at once. Next time I may have them look at sets with constant change but not starting at a multiple of that number….and then as I was typing that, I think it would be cool to come up with a set with a missing number at the end that could be varying numbers depending on how they see the pattern, then give a term after the missing number and narrow it down to which pattern it actually is….hmmmm…have to think more about this one…

-Kristin