Becoming the Greater or Less Than Symbol!

Hi friends! Happy Presidents' Day Weekend!
For those of you who are new to this blog, I love integrating the Arts into my curriculum. I have been so fortunate to have had many trainings in integrating Dance, Drama, Visual Arts and Music with content. Using the Arts is so engaging for the students and helps learning "stick".

Last week, I gave a math test to assess my students before conferences.  Here's a look at the test. I included  the many different word problems we have been learning that are included in the Common Core.

 If you're interested in the test, let me know. It gave me great information about my students. However, I was shocked that my firsties had forgotten how to use the greater or less than symbols. :(

 Last weekend I came up with an idea to help them.Don't you love a teacher's brain?All of a sudden, this idea just popped into my head? I wanted to come up with a lesson that would be engaging and allow them to be up and moving so why not make them be the symbols!
I decided to give 2/3 of my class a number card between 20-100 and the other third became the greater or less than symbol.
I played music and the students danced around the room to the music. Once the music stopped, the students had to get into groups of three - 2 numbers and a symbol. After each group assembled, I called out " compare". At this cue, students put themselves into a number sentence and the greater or less than symbol would have to figure out which way to point. We then read the number sentences around the room.

The kids then switched jobs and we did it all over again!!!! So fun!

 The next day we played this dice roll game with 20 sided dice in partners to practice.

Howdy Neighbor! Doubles + 1 dance!

Hi everyone!!!
 I have something so fun to share with you. I wanted a better video but this will have to do. I've tried to get someone in to video this lesson and it isn't working out. Due to the fact I'm videoing myself, it's hard to see the whole room and I had to use my CD player that skips rather than my iphone. I was bummed you can't play music and video. I need to write Apple...
Anyway...

Here's the fun, super simple dance to teach your students!

Warning: you will want to try this immediately!

I have been teaching the Doubles + 1 strategy for a few years now but noticed many students could use the strategy in isolation but wouldn't apply it on a worksheet of mixed facts. I thought the reason could be that students weren't able to find the "neighbor" ( numbers next to each other in sequence: 2and 3,3 and 4,4 and 5,etc.) So, my arts team and I created this quick dance to help with this concept.

1. Students get a number necklace to wear ( 1-9).
2. They dance to the square dancing music while its on.
3. When the music stops, they get back to back with a "neighbor" to their number.
4. The teacher says, " Howdy, Neighbor!" The students bow to their neighbor and repeat, " Howdy, Neighbor!"
5. Do-si-do for 8 counts
6. Solve their answer using the doubles +1 strategy.
7. Stand silent back to back when they have their answer.
8. The teacher calls on each partnership to make sure the problem has been solved correctly.
9. Switch numbers with the partners next to them and dance again!


Watch the video to see it in action. Sorry again that the music is skipping because I couldn't play it on my iphone and that I didn't get the whole dance because my phone died! If I get a better video, I'll replace this one!

Dont't forget to enter my big giveaway! You still have one more day!

Dancin' the frog life cycle!

A few days  ago I asked whether or not teachers felt comfortable using dance in their classroom. The two comments I received asked for an example. So I posted two videos from my classroom today.

I will say that I have been so lucky to attend workshops about movement in the classroom as well as work with the dance teacher at my school. I have loved learning how to incoporate dance into my instruction. I have modeled quite a bit with other concepts and we have created a few whole group movements so they have had practice.

Let me give you a few details before you watch...

We have been using my Frog and Toad Unit from TPT and reading all about the frog life cycle as a science connection. Today I asked my students to use a count of 8 to show the stages of the frog life cycle after a book about the subject. They had a little less than 10 minutes to do this. They have gotten to the point where they can work well together because they know they don't have much time. Also, I did not model at all. This is all their knowledge coming out. I added captions to the video so you could spot the little details they added that show learning.

One more thing...If I were going to perform this for an actual audience, I would have had them practice more. The beauty about dance in a lesson is that you don't always need to make it performance ready. It's really all about putting the learning into the body and using higher level thinking skills to create movements that represent concepts.

Sorry it's sideways! Apparently I hold my iphone wrong!

Let me know what you think or any questions you have about dance in the classroom. Seems doable, right?

Here is another project we just finished from the Frog and Toad Unit. These are our multimedia comparison word problems. We have been working on the different types of addition and subtraction word problems and this has been our focus for about two weeks.

The students watercolored the pond water, added a yellow sun with construction paper, and flowers with tissue paper squares.

Happy Monday!