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Kids are always intrigued by the measuring tape, but this
group took it a bit further, stretching them all out to see
how many TOTAL CMs. It was easier counting than some
of the groups, but stretched out further. |
Our current focus in math is place value; actually reading, writing and representing numbers to 1,000. Yep that's right out of the CORE. Over the years, I've discovered that kids learn to put numbers into the right "places" and read these numbers quite easily. The tricky part comes with understanding what these number REALLY represent. How much is 1,000?
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| How much is 1,000? |
Naturally our class had an EXPLORATION of the number 1,000. I started the ball rolling by setting out our money bin and a recording sheet with different currency (bill) amounts. I DIDN'T include 100 dollar bills. Kids took some time with the money and figured out a way to make $1,000. Some industrious kiddos took on the task of figuring this out for each currency. They did lots of counting, sorting and discussing related to 1,000…hee, hee, her!! Don't you love it when they're doing great math thinking and don't even know it?
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All of our meter sticks, plus the discovery
of a RARE yard stick that threw off the
easy counting!!!! |
The day before we LOOKED for and CREATED a chart of things that we had MORE THAN 1,000 of in the classroom. I taught some quick estimation strategies, but it was hard to know if they really knew what 1,000 was…so...of course, we dug even deeper.
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This partnership did some awesome counting, sorting
and even recorded their data on sticky notes so they
wouldn't forget. Just so you know, these are a couple
boys who tend to get off task and have been know to
cause a bit of trouble. Nice to know that ACADEMIC
ENGAGEMENT works better than BEHAVIOR CHARTS! |
Small groups or pairs of kids started to explore different areas in the room. Each group was given or chose a set of objects to count; so they could prove it was more than 1,000. I must admit that THE TEACHER was even surprised that some of these collections weren't even 1,000.
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Cooperative counting, putting together large numbers;
yet it is still not 1,000 Rainbow Tiles:0) |
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We had MORE than 1,000 words, of course my groups of
words are no longer organized for word work…sigh. |
Once again digging into the numbers helps to build a solid conceptual base. Next we'll look at the number line and how these big numbers fit together.
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Good to know that we have MORE than 1,000 books in our
classroom library. |
