Solving Word Problems Part 2

This week in math we finished up our unit on the 4 operations. Again, we focused on word problems. We looked at some specific types of word problems that they will encounter.

We had a short week this week in math because we spent a couple of days on benchmark testing for the district.

Day 1
Monday we looked at interpreting remainders. This was a skill I noticed they needed from our work last week with different word problems. I used an anchor chart that I found on Pinterest to help me create one with my kids. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the source of the chart.

Here's what mine looked like:

We talked about 3 different types of remainder problems. Times when we ignore the remainder, times when we have to round up our answer to account for the remainder and times when the remainder is our answer.

Once we'd looked at these types of problems. We worked out some problems together, using the CUBES problem solving strategy, and discussed which type of problem it was.

Then I had the students work in pairs on some remainder word problems from our textbook. They were pretty challenging problems. Once they'd had time to work them out together, we went over them as a class.

Day 2
Tuesday, I explained to the kids that so far we'd been looking at a lot of 1-step problems where the main focus was on deciding the correct operation. However, in 4th grade, they're not going to see too many 1-step problems. So for today we were going to sort problems into 3 different categories: problems with extra information, one-step problems, and multi-step problems.

Together we looked at 6 different word problems and sorted them. We talked through how to solve each problem, but the main emphasis was on deciding which category the problem would fit in. (I tried to pick problems that clearly fit into one of the categories)

Then the kids got in pairs and had their own 6 problems to sort (You can see their directions in my picture above). Once most groups were done sorting, I had them choose 1 problem from each category to work through our problem solving paper on. They had to use the CUBES strategy, solve the problem, write their answer in a complete sentence, and justify their answer.

I had several groups who realized they had sorted a problem incorrectly once they began solving it. This just further reinforced the idea that using a problem solving strategy helps the kids read more critically.

Day 3
Wednesday was our last day of lessons for the week since we were benchmark testing Thursday & Friday. I was also out half the day for curriculum meetings so I needed something that could easily be taught by a substitute.

We completed a frayer model on estimation. I forgot to take a picture of mine at work, but you can find a great example at Math Workshop Adventures' blog.

Then the kids worked in pairs to complete some word problem task cards. I tried to choose a variety of word problems (1-step, multi-step, extra info, different operations, remainders, estimation, etc). I also did a mix of problems that gave answer choices & problems that didn't.


I used a lot of partner work and group work during our lessons on problem solving. I think that it is critical for kids to talk out the problems.

I haven't gotten the results of our benchmark yet, but I loved seeing their strategies on their papers. I even had a couple of students raise their hand to share with me that they noticed some important key words in the problems. Yay! : )

Solving Word Problems

This year we changed the pacing of our instruction a little bit. We spent a chunk of time teaching the 4 operations, with heavy emphasis on the skills. Once the students had learned all 4 of the operations, we set aside 2 weeks to focus on problem solving using all of the operations.

In the past we would teach a skill and then look at word problems using that skill. I noticed that I wasn't spending a lot of time explicitly teaching kids how to determine which operation to use. I also realized a lot of kids would catch on to the fact that the word problems were over the skill we were practicing. They didn't have to do a lot of analysis to figure that out.

So this week we spent all week looking at simple word problems. I wanted to spend time explicitly teaching kids strategies to help them solve different types of word problems.

Day 1:
On Monday we looked at example word problems for each operation. We did the same activity 3 different times. First I modeled it whole group, then they worked in small groups of 4, and finally they did it again on their own.

We took 4 problems (1 for each operation) and looked for key words that helped us decide on the operation. We highlighted those words. Then we wrote a sentence explaining how we knew which operation to use. Finally, we wrote a number sentence showing the solution to the problem.

Day 2:

On Tuesday, I wanted the kids to really focus on some of the big concepts for each operation. Looking back, I think it would have been better to flip the activities for Day 1 & Day 2. 

I wrote some simple 1-step word problems for each operation. I passed out different math manipulatives to each table. I displayed one problem at a time and had the students "act out" the problem with the manipulatives. Then we worked together to write a number sentence and discuss what words in the problem helped us know what to do. 

After about 15-20 minutes of acting out different word problems, I collected the manipulatives and passed out a recording sheet. The sheet had 4 sections with an operation symbol at the top of each section. We had a class discussion about the things we noticed for the different operations and recording these observations on the sheet. Some of the big things we talked about were that addition and multiplication give us a larger number and subtraction and division give us a smaller number. We also talked about the fact that multiplication and division have equal groups, while addition and subtraction don't need equal groups. 

Day 3:

 Wednesday, I introduced the kids to a problem solving strategy that I have used in the past. The acronym is CUBES:

Circle the numbers

Underline key words

[Bracket the question]

Eliminate extra info.

Solve the problem 

I explained that this strategy helps them focus in on the important parts of a problem. This will become more important when we start looking at more complex problems. 

Like Monday, we did the same activity 3 different times. I modeled the steps, they worked it out in pairs, and then did it individually. 

I had copied different word problems on a recording sheet. Their first step was to do CUBES to the problem. Then they had to write a number sentence showing how to solve the problem. Once they had the answer, they had to write the answer in a complete sentence (this was harder than you would think!). Finally, they had to justify their answer. We referred back to our chart from Tuesday to help us explain why our answer was reasonable. 

Day 4:

This year our math curriculum specifies that students need to be able to use strip diagrams to represent problems involving the 4 operations. I wanted to spend a day looking at different strip diagrams. The kids had seen these diagrams on our spiral review warm-ups and a lot of them had a difficult time with strip diagrams modeling multiplication or division.

There's a great website and app called Thinking Blocks. We used this to help the kids practice with different diagrams. I don't have a smart board in my room, but we have a "smart pen" that turns the regular board into an interactive board. We used that to practice some different diagrams together.

Then I let the kids spend time in pairs, or independently, playing on the app. We used the addition/subtraction and multiplication/division apps. They were begging for more!

Day 5:

Friday is our assessment day. I gave the kids 8 one-step word problems. They had to use the CUBES problem solving strategy and show their work for each problem. They did a great job! While, I still have some kids who are struggling with the skills, every student knew which operation to do on the different problems. Woohoo!!

Next week we are looking at interpreting remainders and multi-step problems (including problems with extra info.)

Engaging Your Students

5 Ways to Keep Your Students Engaged

Sometimes during the year my kids start to get into a rut with their work. It can be a struggle to keep them engaged. Here are my top 5 ways to keep students engaged with their work. 

#1 Provide choices

Kids love choosing what to do. I like to mix up the types of choices I give students. Sometimes I give them a choice in which activities to do. Other times I give them a choice in assessments. The variation keeps it from getting old and they love choosing what to do!

Check out this blog post on a geometry activity where the kids had choice in their activities:
Lines Task Cards

#2 Differentiate the work
My kids are currently working on a large unit over the 4 operations. I used a pre-test to determine what skills the kids already knew how to do. I found a huge range in ability. Some kids still struggled with 3rd grade skills while others (very few) had already mastered 5th grade skills. Yikes! So I went out of my comfort zone and have had kids working on different skills - focusing only on what they don't know how to do. It was a bit of a planning nightmare up front, but the rewards have been worth it. I love hearing from a student "this is what I've been wanting to learn how to do!". My high kids are able to be challenged while my low babies don't get quite as frustrated.

I'll be writing a post later about how I put this all together. 

#3 Make your delivery exciting

Sometimes I find our curriculum boring. I just have a hard time getting excited about certain topics. When this shows to the kids, they naturally have a hard time engaging in the work. When I present a lesson or a skill in a manner that shows the kids I love the topic - guess what - they love it too! (This probably only works in elementary school when they still think I'm cool...)

So when I'm planning a unit that I know can be extra challenging or boring, I try to plan fun activities or, at the very least, I act like I absolutely love that topic. My excitement typically rubs off on many of my students.

#4 Incorporate pop culture/students' interests

I read a blog post recently where a teacher had her kids "grade" a celebrity's work. I loved this idea and copied it in my classroom. My girls are all huge Taylor Swift fans (who isn't??). So during our unit on multiplication one of their assignments was to grade "Taylor Swift's multiplication page". They were all so excited to check her work. Not only did this get them multiplying, but they also had to apply some higher level thinking to find the mistakes.

#5 Use social media as a motivating factor
I recently heard a statement at a workshop that social media is the new refrigerator. Posting good work on the fridge at home is no longer enough - they want feedback from a global audience. I use this to my advantage by selecting high quality work to post on twitter or share online. This can be a great motivator for some students.

How do you keep your kids engaged as the year goes on?

Math Workshop

I am LOVING math workshop this year! I'm doing something totally different than past years and it's been fantastic. We are 1:1 this year with iPads so we're using technology a lot in all of the content areas. I decided to try an in-class flip model for math workshop. We are using the website Blendspace to house all of the workshop activities.

Here's a breakdown of what my math block looks like. I have 60 minutes a day for math.

Challenge Problem

We start off each block with a challenge problem. These are rigorous/multi-step word problems. The kids have 5 minutes to work out the problem with a partner on their white boards. Then we spend about 5 minutes talking about the problem and sharing different strategies for solving it. The kids love doing the challenge problems and it's a great chance to mix in lots of different skills.

Warm-Up

Each week they get a spiral-review sheet to work on. I break the problems down by day. There are 5 problems for each day. Monday is always vocabulary, Tuesday and Wednesday are skill review and Thursday is problem solving. They don't have any problems on Fridays. As we move on throughout the year, Wednesday will become more problem solving practice. I have an extra block of time for math on Tuesdays when my G/T kids are pulled out. I plan on using this time to go over the previous week's warm-up. My G/T kids typically don't need reteaching on these problems, but I can pull them in a small group during workshop for any reteaching they need.

Workshop

Once the kids finish their warm-up problems for the day, they start their workshop activities. We are using Edmodo at our school this year. I post the link to the blendspace in their Edmodo group. They get a new Blendspace on Mondays and Wednesdays and have 2 days to work on the activities.

What's in a Blendspace?

Every Blendspace starts with a video and an anchor chart. I'm a bit of a control freak (aren't all teachers??) so I make the videos myself because I want the kids to hear it the way I'd explain it. I've been using a screen capturing app (Doceri) on my ipad to record the videos. They're pretty basic - it's what I used to do whole class. For each video there's an anchor chart for the kids to fill out. They glue these into their journals. After the video, the kids have different activities to work on. I'm really trying to follow the concrete - pictorial - abstract model. A lot of times the activities are independent, but there are also partner activities mixed in. The kids also know they can help each other during math workshop.

Small Groups

I have 2 groups of kids that I pull every day. These are kids that I know need some extra hands-on practice with me. I pull them as soon as everyone starts working on their warm-up. This way they get a mini-lesson in with me before they watch the video and work on the activities. After I've worked with those 2 groups, I pull kids for reteaching, work on corrections with kids, and help with their workshop activities. I've been amazed at how much more time I have to work with small groups.

Accountability

After kids finish their anchor charts and glue them into their journals, they bring their journals to me to get checked. This helps me check-in with each student before they start the independent activities. It also helps me make sure they're putting their charts into their journals correctly. Before I did this, I discovered a lot of kids weren't gluing their charts into their journals or were leaving the examples blank.

I give the kids a grade for math workshop based on the activities that they complete. Not every kid will complete all of the activities and that is okay! I always put the activities that I consider the most important towards the beginning. If students are working with me, they won't have as much time to work independently. However, they're still getting practice. I give them a check, check plus or check minus on the different activities they complete during workshop. Then I take an average for the week.

Fridays

Friday is my assessment and reteaching day. We still start off with a challenge problem. Then they have a "quick check" to do. It's 5-10 questions over the skills we've been working on that week. I'm able to check these right away and re-teach that day. Friday is also a day for them to finish their warm-up and any unfinished work from the week.

Wow that was a long post!! Now for some pictures : )

Celebrating Multiple Intelligences

This summer when I was looking for back to school ideas, I came across this blog from Two Nutty Teachers on the 8 kinds of smart.

I loved the idea of teaching kids about the different kinds of smart. Last year I had some students who really struggled with self-confidence because their strengths were in areas not focused on in school. I downloaded the 8 kinds of smart posters from Two Nutty Teachers and displayed them in my classroom. You can find them on TPT here.

During the first week of school, I showed the posters to the kids and told them they would be taking a questionnaire to find out their kinds of smart. I had all the kids take this questionnaire that I found on Scholastic's website.

Before the kids started, I modeled completing the questionnaire myself. I tried to be completely honest. Fortunately, I am genuinely NOT picture smart. So I was able to honestly leave all of them blank. Once I had modeled completing the questionnaire, I sent the kids off to do their own. This was a great chance to practice working independently. The kids were very serious about completing the questionnaire.

Hard at work

Once they had finished the questionnaire, I guided the kids through scoring them. Then I had them select ONE of their areas of strength. We compiled the different areas into a class dot plot.

Kinds of Smart Dot Plot

The next day, we looked back over our dot plot and reviewed the different kinds of smart. Then I told the kids I was going to read them a story. As I read, I wanted them to think about the main character and what her areas of strength and weakness would be if she took the questionnaire. Then I read Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco. If you're not familiar with this book, I encourage you to click on the link and read more about it. It's a classic!

After I read the story, we had a brief discussion about the main character's types of smart. We also discussed how her original area of weakness grew into a strength. Then I let the kids know we would be setting goals connected to their different areas of smart.

I modeled this activity first with my completed questionnaire. They would choose 3 areas of smart: one that was a strength, one a weakness, and one of their choosing. For each area that they chose, they would create a goal. For example, for word smart their goal could be to complete our school-wide 25 book challenge.

Once they had written their goals down on paper, we used the app "Popplet" to create a thinking map displaying their goals. In the center of their Popplet was a selfie (they loved that!). Coming out from their selfie, they had their 3 goals.

I loved this activity and it gave me a lot of great insight into the differences of my kids. It has already been something we've been referring back to. One day we were working on a math challenge problem, and I heard a student say "I'm not math smart. I'm a lot of the other kinds of smart, but math smart is not my thing." How awesome that they could identify their kinds of smart! I also loved that it gave us the opportunity to discuss that just because you're not math smart or word smart, it doesn't mean you aren't smart.

Saving Fred

Saving Fred is one of my favorite activities for the first week of school. You can find tons of ideas online (especially Pinterest) of how different teachers are using Saving Fred in their classrooms. I use this as an opportunity to practice working cooperatively and to teach the kids how to use their science journals.

Before we start the activity, we make an anchor chart on how to work cooperatively. The kids brainstorm what it should look like and sound like in our classroom when they are working in pairs or teams. We also brainstorm some possible solutions to different conflicts that could arrive. My class this year had some great ideas on dealing with conflict. They were all about compromising, taking turns or letting your partner get their way. (Wow!)

This year I found a couple of free powerpoints on Teachers Pay Teachers to introduce "Saving Fred". My teammate and I tweaked the resources to fit what we needed for our kids. The kids were so excited about saving Fred and then their excitement grew when they realized Fred was a gummy worm and *gasp* "Can we eat him?!?"

I loved seeing how well the kids worked together. They really followed all of the norms on our anchor chart.

Great teamwork & determination!

A successfully saved Fred!

As the kids were working, I was taking pictures with my iPad. When they were all finished, I showed the pictures up on the screen and they LOVED seeing themselves!

I let them eat a gummy worm/ gummy life saver and then we got to work in our science journals. Working with their partner, they drew a flow map to show the steps they took in saving Fred. Their flow map needed pictures with labels. I did an example first in my journal, and it was a great reminder that we all have different kinds of smart. I reminded the kids I was NOT picture smart and to be nice about my illustrations. : )

In addition to their flow map, they also responded to some journal prompts about the activity. Once everyone had finished, they self-assessed their journal entry with our science journal guidelines. I loved seeing some students make changes in their journal as we reviewed the journal guidelines.

The activity was such a hit, they asked if we could save Fred again the next day!

iPad Set Up

This year my campus is 1:1 with iPads. That means that every student in grades K-5 got their own iPad. For this first year of implementation, their iPads will be staying at school. I am so excited about all of the wonderful things that we will be able to do this year using the technology!

Having the iPads added another layer to my first week of school routines. We had to get our iPads set up! Fortunately, our campus had parents come for trainings in the spring and got all of the students' iTunes accounts set up.

On the first day of school, we spent time as a class looking at our campus iPad trust card. The trust card has a set of rules that the students have to agree to. This includes things like only downloading approved apps, not touching other students' iPads without permission, using the iPad as a learning tool not a toy, etc. The students did think-pair-share with the trust cards and we went over the expectations together. Many of my students were in digital classrooms last year, so the iPads are not new to them.

The second day of school we had a team of IT employees who came into the classrooms to help the students actually set up the iPads. I was impressed with how patient the kids were during this process. It was a lot of sitting, listening and waiting!

Finally we had the iPads set up and ready to go! Before we really started using them, the kids had to pass an iPad skills test. They quizzed their partners over the different skills. The skills started basic - how to turn on the iPad, how to take a picture - and moved to more advanced troubleshooting.

The rest of the week we spent a little bit of time each day downloading apps and saving sites to the home screen. I'm sure it will be an ongoing process. The kids are so excited to get their iPad out each morning!

Here's a picture of my kids scanning QR codes to save important websites to their home screen: