More Math Discovery

Now that we're back into the swing of things with math discovery, I'm wondering why I ever stopped providing discovery learning opportunities for my students.  (I seem to have fallen off the discovery learning wagon from about June 2014-December 2014 as I transitioned to teaching Grade 2 for the first time, after looping up with my Grade 1s).  Now that math discovery has made a comeback in our classroom, it's exciting to watch and listen as my grade 2s tackle new and more challenging math tasks.  When comparing to our math discovery in grade 1, I'm noticing some changes.  For example, students are more confident exploring math ideas with larger numbers and they are tackling more challenging operations (such as multiple addend addition).  It's fun to see them try new things and there have been some great teaching moments when a student goes beyond what they know they can do and tries something really tricky that I can support them with!

If you're ready to try out discovery learning, check out the blog posts I mention here and visit my  Pinterest board for inspiration to develop your own discovery tubs!

Here are our tubs from this week: 

Discovery Tub Contents:

numeral cards for 0-20

numeral cards for 21-50

numeral cards for 50-100 (at a student's request!)

number word cards for 0-20

These were all classroom materials that I already have made in my classroom.  We use them regularly, so I have each set organized in mini baggies from the dollar store.  I make my sets in as many different colours as possible so that they are easier to sort again when students are done with them.  

Students can: sequence numbers, identify odd and even, sort numbers by attributes, compare numbers, match numbers to number words

Discovery Tub Contents:
Power of 10 cards
small blank booklets (made from scrap papers stapled together)

Students can: practice making ten, write addition and subtraction sentences, experiment with multiple addend addition

Discovery Tub Contents:

whiteboards

whiteboard markers

whiteboard erasers

counters,chips or buttons

Students can: show and record addition (and subtraction), practice strategies for addition and subtraction

Math Discovery Makes a Comeback!

After some successful science discovery time last week, I was encouraged and motivated to reintroduce math discovery in my classroom.  Discovery learning was an effective approach for me last year and I developed/sourced a number of discovery tub ideas (which I've pinned here).  Many of last year's discovery tubs focused on math learning and I knew that discovery time was valuable for developing students' numeracy skills. So, when students asked me about "putting numbers on the learning carpet", I decided it was time to get back to math discovery in our classroom. 

 I've included our most recent math discovery tubs and a list of contents for each below:

Discovery Tub Contents:

Various dice - I included 6 sided, 9 sided and 20 sided dice to meet the needs of a variety of learners.

Dominoes

White Board Markers

Laminated Roll the Dice and Domino Addition cards - These are basically "fill in the blank" addition and subtraction number sentence templates.  I already had them made and laminated from math games, so I used them but you could easily substitute any sort of blank number sentence templates.

 

    

Discovery Tub Contents:

Number cards for 0-100

Squares and triangles in different colours

Learning Carpet or other 100 grid

It was awesome to watch the students at this discovery tub work as a team to correctly "fill in" the hundred chart and develop colour patterns for odd and even.  They also had to decide on whether to create a zero-based 100 chart or to start at 1!  Some students asked each other to name the hidden number under a coloured card.

 

Discovery Tub Contents:

Playing card mats (printed from First Grade School Box blog)
Decks of cards (I included some with numerals only/no "dots" to count)

This was a returning tub from last year and it was neat to see students tackle more challenging number sentences and fact families! 

We're Back!

We all had really good Christmas holidays.  Now we're back to school and having fun!  Today, we did 11 for number of the day.  Here is our work: