AboutStoreFavorite LinksHomeFavorite Blogs

Monday, September 12, 2016

Back in the Swing of Things--(or Sometimes Last Minute Interventions)

I have finally assessed all first and second graders with a DRA, helped with AIMSweb, helped with Sight word checks, helped with Star Data----do you see the trend here?  I have been assessing out the hiney for our starting data points for intervention groups....so today, when my classes finally started, I was so shocked at how quickly the day went.  My little intervention groups are about 20-30 minutes.

So today, I'm feeling all good about classes starting. Lessons plans done on Friday before I left school... I have all my things ready to go in my basket on my guided reading table--books laid out--things organized for most of the week......and it dawned on me.  I am teaching MATH this year too.  Oh no! 

So, I do just like any teacher would do, and I "wing it."  I knew that our 2nd graders were struggling with fact fluency, so we went back to the basics. 

We talked about adding 0 and adding 1 to numbers.  We talked about turn-around facts.  The page has the numbers listed in order from 0+0 to 10+0 and 0+1 to 10+1, with the 2nd column flipped.  There are a total of 44 math problems, I believe on the page. 

My students have always liked time tests.  I don't make them as a way to "beat" other people--just that it's always a competition with yourself.  They have always loved racing with their last time to see if they can go farther.  Today, we did the same thing...I gave them 2 minutes to see how far they could get.  I then boxed the portion they missed after their 2 minutes and had them complete it, untimed, and then checked their paper.   

We followed up with a spinner fact game of adding 0 and 1.  Having the answers at the top helped some of my students look back at the answer ,but they were reading their math problems as they were doing it. I thought surely it is going to stick.  I think as one of my students finished up, he had finally got the hang of adding one and 0, and was moving much faster than he did when he started out.  The fact that when the students spun a math problem and the sum wasn't on the paper, helped constantly reinforce math facts as well. 

They enjoyed this activity.  I try to model a lot of my classroom activities like this where they practice a skill, it's checked, and then there is a game to play.  It seems to follow the "I do, we do, you do" that we often do as educators. 

The activity is nothing fancy, but if you'd like to grab your own copy, simply click HERE.  


I have also finished and uploaded a new Sight word activity. It is called Fun Phonics.
Fun Phonics-First Grade and Fabulous

Students will practice beginning sounds, sight words, handwriting, and simple comprehension all on one page.  I am all kinds of excited for my students to begin practicing their Fry words with this activity.  You can check out this pack by clicking on the image above. 

Happy Monday! :)

Total Pageviews