Ideas for Collaboration/Problem Solving and Alternatives to Traditional Paper Pencil Activities

 Building 21st Century Skills

   See previous posts on Building Thinking Classrooms - Peter Liljedahl and Number talk activities.

Alternatives to Traditional Paper Pencil  Activities

1. Self-checking task cards, placed around the room. Students can start anywhere, solve, and then look for the answer on top of another task card. Pros - students are moving, teachers can provide assistance, students know immediately if they make an error and work on finding their mistake. 

2. Partner whiteboard work - both partners solve the question on their whiteboard and then compare their work and answers.

3. Technology - lumio lessons, desmos activities, and quiz type games(Kahoot, Blooket, Gimkit, Quizizz)

4. Puzzles and games. Ideas Tarsia puzzles, matching puzzles, card type games

More to come.....

 Number Rocks - math videos 

Grades K-8!

https://numberock.com/video-library/

Number Talks

Number talks are one of those things that I think every math teacher should be doing from K-12. In short number talks are a  a 5-10 minute daily routine that focuses on student talk. Teachers provide thoughtful chosen questions based on strategies or topics being taught and then students share the ways they solve them. There are a couple of awesome resources available for teachers to use when thinking of starting the number talk routine in their classroom.

There are also a variety of videos on youtube that show how a number talk works and how it looks in a variety of classrooms. Here is one example below:

Some valuable information I have found is that you need to set up a safe classroom climate in your classroom and ensure students feel that accepting safety so they will share the variety of their ideas. You also need to do them everyday and you see improvement in number sense and their mental math abilities. I suggest to teachers to do 4-5 days of number talks and then ask students to share in writing rather than out loud so you can assess what students are doing for mental math strategies. You can use whiteboards or as an exit slip.

Here is another youtube video from the author Sherry Parrish - it's just over an hour but I think very powerful!

Good Luck with your number talks - please feel free to comment below with your successes, questions or comments.

Check out this blog post from Anthony at Mashup Math 

http://mashupmath.com/blog/2017/10/24/looking-for-number-talk-strategies-we-got-you

 Who is the spy?

https://games.thinksquare.com.au/tools/spy/daily

Check back to the website for daily puzzle to get your students talking and using math vocabulary. 

NEW - More Number Talk Ideas

I came across another couple of amazing web sites for ideas to build number sense. So I am calling them Number Talks as well - the best use of the first 10 minutes of your math class to get students talking mathematically. Here are the links to the web sites where I found all the awesome ideas:
 http://teachers.wrdsb.ca/some7and8mathresources/resource-dashboard/number-talks/

 https://visiblethinking.weebly.com/daily-routines.html

Here is some more information about some of the ideas from the above posts:

1. Estimation 180 - http://www.estimation180.com/

On this web site Andrew Stadel has created visual images to help with building estimation skills. Students are asked to make an estimate that is too low and too high then an estimate and here is where the discussion can take place..why? I think this activity would work with students in Grade 3+. I used it in my grade 5/6 classroom and found it very engaging! Here is an option for the K-2 classrooms: https://visiblethinking.weebly.com/daily-routines.html

2. Number Strings - very similar to the number talks I shared in my last post. Here is a great post and a video of using these in grade 4. https://numberstrings.com/2016/01/06/a-multiplication-number-string-for-fourth-grade/
There are also a number of books from Cathy Fosnot's Context for Learning series. https://www.heinemann.com/contextsforlearning/
Number strings can be used in grades K+ (K-1 can used dot images, ten frames and rekenrek's)
Dot patterns for K-2 https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3RT0ngxX4Q-WUh4UVBWdnc0a3c/view

Number talks/strings for K-7 https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3RT0ngxX4Q-R2ZHU1JnTWFJdzA/view

3. Which One Doesn't Belong - there is a web site as well as a book for younger students. In this activity, the teacher shows 4 images and asks for a reason why each one of them do not belong. Great discussions using mathematical vocabulary happen! Check out the web site - http://wodb.ca/
Also have a look at the book by Christopher Daniels - it comes with a teacher guide as well!

4. Visual Patterns http://www.visualpatterns.org/

We know patterning, extending and coming up with an equation based on a pattern is something kids need a lot of practice with. On this web site Fawn Nguyen, has gathered a number of patterns for you to use as a quick beginning of class number talk. 
Here is a link where Fawn describes how she does her pattern talks.
http://www.mathtalks.net/teachers.html


5. Would You Rather http://www.wyrmath.com/
Another way to start your math class is with a would you rather picture. Most of the ones I have seen are for older students. Grades 5+ An example of a would you rather is below:

6. Fraction Talks - http://www.fractiontalks.com/

https://mathforlove.com/lesson/fraction-talks/
I found two different web sites that you could use in grade 5+ for fraction talks. Very similar to a number talk - but you are using fractions!

7. Same or Different - https://samedifferentimages.wordpress.com/
Encouraging math talk during your math class.

For all students even our youngest students to learn how to talk about various features of mathematical objects – quantity, shape, color, orientation, and arrangement, to name a few.

8. Splat - http://www.stevewyborney.com/?p=893 This web site has an incredible amount of pre-made power points for you to use as a warm up activity in your math class. The video below explains what a splat is and the link above takes you to Steve's web site.

Building Thinking Classrooms

Just recently I made my first attempt at building a thinking classroom in math. I had heard of non-permanent vertical surfaces before and I experimented with using whiteboards on the wall in groups. What I didn't realize was that it's not just about working together on a non-permanent vertical space...so when I read more of Perter Liljedahl's work, I realized I needed to have random groupings, only one pen for each group and start them with problems that they can practice with. So being brave and optimistic I used period 8 (the last period of the day) to do my first attempt. The students arrived back from music and I was waiting outside the door, I handed each person a playing card and told them to find the spot on the whiteboard with the same number. Then I verbally told them the problem - Using the three numbers on the dice that I roll, make as many different equations using order of operations that get a different answer. IT WAS AMAZING! They only could write down their partners ideas and needed to swap pens every once in a while. I also yelled out swap periodically. Check out this web site for great info as well as twitter and the hash tag #buildingthinkingclassrooms #nvps

Math Mystery

A colleague shared this free resource with me and I used it on the last day before the Christmas break. The work that was going on in the room for more than an hour was mind boggling! (Thanks for sharing Jennifer Workman!)
Students must solve math questions for clues to figure out who the super bad superhero is.

This resource is available in a variety of grade levels so you can differentiate for your class.
Check out the link below to access this free resource.

Teachers Pay Teachers Link to Math Mystery