Math Journals pt. 2

Since posting about my rudimentary math journals the first time- I've had quite a few visitors to this little blog.  It has helped me to be more reflective about my adventure into math journaling this year and start planning for next year!

Here are few pictures of what is included in our journals:

We incorporate our math vocabulary

We store our multiplication table and our flash cards

We make foldables to enhance our understanding

We paste our wordle creations

We copy our anchor charts

We create graphic organizers

We solve problems!

Basically, we do all of our concept work in these journals.  It has been so much fun diving into math journaling.  In the years past I have stuck to the Everyday Math curriculum and haven't deviated from it.  This year I have seen a big difference in my students.  First of all, their understanding of math vocabulary is amazing!  Even with third graders we usually struggle with reading and understanding the connection between certain math words.  I am so proud of how my group this year has taken responsibility for the vocabulary themselves.  When there is a word they don't understand- they are so ready to stop and figure it out instead of just attempting a problem (like I usually saw).  I also see that their number sense has improved.  I'll never forget my first year of teaching third grade- I went through the whole unit on fractions and then we looked at fractions on the number line in our classroom- and I had a student ask me if fractions were like real numbers? As in, fractions belong in the same group as the numbers I have seen all year on the number line? I was shocked.  This year I am continually amazed at their ability to work through new concepts on their own.  We were working on fractions on a number line and I had my trusty lesson ready to go- when I showed them the number line and asked if they could find any fractions on it, they had a million!  There went my lesson-but I had them journal about it instead!

Next year I will teach 2nd grade and I want to start my littles on math journaling right away.  I can only imagine the quality of their journals when I loop with them to third grade! I am sure that they will rise to the occasion but I keep wondering about what exactly second graders are capable of in the beginning of the school year.  So, all my first and second grade teachers, what can I expect from them? How do you use journals?

Order of Operations

Phew* This week has been crazy!  I survived- only to gear up for another exciting week at school.  I don't know how you are feeling but- report cards are due, I volunteered to write a playground grant that is also due, we are MAPS testing on Monday/Tuesday, and I will be gone Thursday and Friday for the NAESP conference in Seattle.  Expect some fun updates on the conference, I get to play "principal" for a couple of days!

I wanted to share a math game that my kiddos played on Friday.  I just LOVE math games.  My group this year are super active and because of our schedule- they really need to be up and moving in order to concentrate in math.  We have been working on order of operations and introducing the concept of parenthesis in math.  They are solid on the fact that parenthesis means "do this first" but, are struggling to integrate parenthesis into problem solving number sentences.  So, we played a little game where they needed to use parenthesis to determine how many points they earned!

The students tossed ten bean bags into the different shaped openings.  Each one was worth a different value- the top circle was worth one point, the left square was worth two, and the right diamond was worth three.  We kept a tally chart to record how many bean bags went into the goal and then the students used their white boards to create a number sentence and figure out the number of points that each student earned.  The student tossing- created their number sentence on the board so that we could compare our answers.

It was a very simple game but the students really seemed to pick up on the application of parenthesis.  On Monday they will be working on a problem solving activity so I will let you know how it translates!

 ----------------

I decided that I couldn't let St. Patrick's Day slide without doing *SOMETHING* so we just did a quick shamrock/rainbow art project.  The kids had a blast and we managed to squeeze it in at the end of the day without feeling rushed!

 This little guy just HAD to have his picture taken- they are so funny sometimes!

I hope everyone out in blogworld had a great weekend.  I was busy, busy, busy with a friends 30th birthday celebration on Friday,  a St. Patrick's day spent at the Seattle Sounders MLS opening game and another friends birthday party on Sunday!

Math journals

 **Edited to note that I am linking up to Fantastic Foldables Freebie Link Up **


I am brand new to using math journals.   In fact, I am treating this year as a "learn as we go along" approach to math journals.  I have done some research by reading articles online and whenever I see that someone has written a blog post about it I read it, but really our math journal is a catch all for a bunch of different things.  I kind of like it this way though- we do math vocabulary in it, we work on problem solving in it, we write journal entries in it and sometime we make flip books and paste those in there too!  It has become a great resource for the kids and a wonderful assessment tool for me.

We are looking at different shapes and made a great flip book on the different types of triangles that I wanted to share.

There was a page for each of the 4 types of triangles that they can identify and an extra page to record new triangle vocabulary.

The students used their rulers to draw at least three examples of each type of triangle.

 

The vocabulary page included attributes of a triangle and a labeled diagram.

These books were then pasted into their math journals for future reference.

Does anyone else use math journals?  How do you incorporate the journals into your curriculum (we use Every Day Math)?  Do you have any resources/suggestions for me?

Happy weekend!