Multiplying by Nine's Trick

I was teaching the classic Multiplying by 9's trick and decided to punch it up a notch. 

My students were in need of a more concrete way to use this trick {many of them kept mixing up the hands, counting fingers in the wrong direction...etc}. 

So we buddied up and wrote on our hands! They were freaking out!

If you are not familiar with the nines trick this is how it works:

I found these great posters:

1. Number your fingers from left hand pinky to right hand pinky 1-10.
2. Then take your problem like 9x8.
3. Starting on the left {pinky labeled 1}, count until you get to the 8th finger {should be right hand middle finger}.
4. Put that finger under. This is the division between the tens and the ones now.
5. Count how many are on the left in the tens, and how many are on the right of the down finger and these are the ones. 
6. In the picture below, there are 7 fingers in all to the left and 2 to the right, therefore the number is 72

 I had some not understanding the role that the "down" finger played so I made this into a "fence". The fingers/numbers could no cross the fence. Then I had them make a T chart on their board to show the tens side and the ones side. Whatever finger they put down had to line up to the T chart and see what finger were in the "Ones Zone" and which were in the "Tens Zone"

Personal Narratives

Mrs. Wade, Mrs. Wade...Look! I lost a tooth! 

If I had a dollar for every time one of my second graders said this...you better believe I would be a millionaire! I once had 3 students lose a tooth in ONE DAY!! 

Our school nurse is so cute {or maybe they all are}...she gives them a little necklace the shape of a tooth with a compartment to keep their tooth in until they get home!

So with this being such a real moment in their lives right now, I decided to incorporate this into our learning of how to write a personal narrative. 

This was the final product! 

 Here is a copy of the writing paper we used. 

Some of the tongues look more like the Uvula {dangling thing in the back of your throat}

I love this closing sentence "This was the best time of my life"...hilarious!

When they were presenting their writing pieces on the Author's Chair, they of course wanted to keep showing off the real missing spot :)

Multiplication Booklet

As you can tell from my last couple of posts that ALL pertain to multiplication...we are finishing up our units on learning how to multiply. I popped this sucker into a center that the students had to use multiple strategies and record them. 
Click on the picture of the booklet to download a copy :) 

I took out my bin of dominoes. They pulled a domino and that gave them their problem. 

Lets take the top orange domino in the picture above for example. It has 3 on one side and 5 on the other side...this would be 3x5!

 Then they go to town using that problem in their booklet. They simply follow the directions on the outside of their booklet for every problem. 

1. Write the problem at the top.
2. Draw a picture showing equal groups.
3. Show a number sentence "__ groups of ___."
4. Write a repeated number sentence "3+3+3+3+3=15"

Types of Sentences Foldable!

Types of Sentences Foldable! 

Of course anytime there is a Brain Pop Jr. video...I am on it!! My kids love them :) 

I threw this into a reading center for Grammar this week. 

They watched the Brain Pop Jr. Video on "Types of Sentences" and then completed a foldable. 

I gave them each a foldable (pre-folded...only because it is the beginning of the year and they are not capable of folding it yet).

 They took this sheet and had to sort them into the correct type of sentence. 
Then they added the punctuation at the end of each sentence. 
Click on the picture to get a copy of the sheet. 

Graphing Twister

We just wrapped up our Graphing Unit and I am always trying to incorporate games into my centers. Since I have this awesome Twister rug that I got for free, I was thinking how can I use this?  

Then I had a revelation! 

I had my students spin the spinner and follow the directions. They recorded what color they landed on in their frequency table recording sheet. They did this ten times (could do MORE or LESS to differentiate). 

Click on each page to get your copy. 

Direction Sheet:

Graphing Sheet:

Frequency Table Recording Sheet:

After they were done they used color coding labels in the same colors as Twister to make a bar graph on their sheet provided. 

 Then they graphed the colors.

Multiplication Dice with Equal Groups

Multiplication, Multiplication, Multiplication!

One center I had this past multiplication unit was using the strategy of making equal groups. I have these ReALly CoOl double dice...check them out: 

                                                                                     

   

They are so neat because you can roll the dice and get 2 numbers at once. I have my students roll the dice once and then they have their multiplication sentence. 

For example: The blue dice in the picture above has a 4 on the outside and a 5 on the inside...this make 4x5! 

Then I have these really cool hoops that fold up (normally used for Venn Diagrams)...they use those as the groups...and then the counters make how many go in each group. 
For this problem, there would be 4 hoops and 5 counters in each group. 

This is a picture showing 2x5=10

Alternatives: Many people can't find these hoops...so you could use paper plates, stitching hoops (super cheap), hula hoops (super fun), anything that can distinguish groups.

Hula Hoops and Equal Groups

Calling all different kinds of learning modalities!! I wanted an exciting way to teach equal groups {mainly because Math is after lunch and they were all falling asleep}. 

We first practiced how to make equal groups together. I had them all stand up, and then I said something like "make equal groups of 2"...they had to quickly get into pairs scattered around the room. Then "make equal groups of 4"..."5"..."6"..etc.

Then I broke out the hula hoops :) I projected a multiplication problem. We first made the groups {hula hoops} then we put how many in each group {students}. 

For example: 4x2

I had a "Teacher assistant" make four hula hoops for the four groups on the floor. 

 I put 2 students in each group. 

We counted how many students "in all"...4x2=8

Next we did 5x2= 10

3x3=9

Three hoops with 3 students in each group.