Math Talk: A Recordable Moment

Today in math I wasn't planning on teaching addition with regrouping because I wasn't sure that my students were there yet.  We have been working on mastering our facts to 10 so that we have solid foundation.

It has been touch and go and I've been trying to make it as interactive as possible.  My students are always up for anything that I present to them and today was just the same.  I went into today's lesson thinking that I was going to start subtraction (without regrouping), but once I wrote the header on the board, I came to me that I needed to do more addition, but with regrouping this time.

We warmed up with a card game (similar to "war") where students work in pairs with a deck of cards and they each flip a card over and add the faces together.  Whomever adds up the faces correctly first gets the cards.  It has been a major hit with my students (because they are uber competitive and sponges for learning), so I figured it would be a good lead in to the addition with regrouping.

I reconvened everyone and presented a problem where they had to regroup.  We discussed the need to remember the place value columns and what the digits in a two-digit number meant.  We spent a few minutes composing and decomposing numbers to get the idea of what numbers were really made of.

We were then off to the races to try and add with regrouping.  In trying to keep it simple, I stuck with a simple algorithm that they could follow the steps/pattern to.  With everyone engaged and wanting to share what they thought was the "right way", I turned the floor over to them and asked for a turn & talk.  They needed to talk to the person beside them how they were going to solve 38+96.  This is where I went scrambling for my ipad to record a conversation between two students (grade 2s) about what they immediately saw about the numbers and the steps that they were going to take to solve the problem.

This left me so proud of where they have some from since September when they wouldn't even talk about what they saw or what they wondered.  It was an unintentional moment, yet perfect.  I was ecstatic that could capture it on video.  Next time I would stop questioning them and hope that they would continue to talk about what they saw and hopefully get up and demonstrate their ideas on the board to solidify their understanding.

Until tomorrow, I hope that there's sunshine & happiness in your day similar to what I had today with my math talks.

Stephanei :)

Hockey. Is. OVER!

Hockey. Is. OVER.  Yes, you heard it right...hockey is over. Over. Over. Over!  Yesterday marked the end of DH's hockey school for the season.  We DH has been in full hockey mode since about November and to put this in perspective, #TeamA & #TeamO are just learning how to skate so he is running a hockey school for other people's children.  DH spent much of his paternity leave organizing the behind the scenes aspects of the school in between parenting our two amigos.

This was the first time that balancing home and work life has really been a challenge as now we were both back to our full time jobs and we had two amigos.  There were many days that although I was putting up a brave & positive face, I was crumbling and melting down on the inside because I just could do it anymore.  I couldn't parent and I couldn't teach; both were demanding so much more of me than I was able to offer.

Throughout all this, our home looked much like a sports store with equipment & apparel strewn all over.  Throw in a curious little monkey in #TeamO and you've got yourself a part-time job trying to keep a lid on things.

It was 4 months of single parenting on nights and weekends when DH was out running practices, convening tournaments and coaching games when he had a chance.  I will admit that on more than one occasion I hit up the McD's drive-thru just so that my children would actually eat the meal I put in front of them without coaxing and bribes.

All in all, I hope that the players and parents that participated in some and any capacity this year understand the sacrifice and dedication that not only DH puts into the hockey school but as well as our entire family.  While he was out coaching other people's children he was missing many "firsts" of his own children, quirky comments around the dinner table and the endless cuddles on weekend mornings while we all watched cartoons in the big bed.

Over the next 5 months we will all settle in and enjoy being a family of 4 again so that come November, we will be prepared to lose DH again for another hockey season.

Until then, it will be sunshine & happiness in our house!

Stephanie :)