Welcome!

 Welcome to the math page!  If you click on your grade level across the top of the page, you will find songs, stories and games to help you practice the skills you are learning in math right now!

ACS Class of 2020

Friday Joke of the Day!

Pizza Pizzazz!

We continue story week with a fun story about pizza fractions!

Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday

Enjoy this fun money story!  Have you counted the money in your piggy bank?

Out for the Count

Here is a fun math filled bedtime story!

Amanda Bean's Amazing Dream

The Chocolate Milk Problem

Who can solve the chocolate milk problem? Watch this video and let me know what you think the answer is and how you know you are right. 

This problem was meant for fifth and sixth graders but I bet some younger students might be able to figure it out as well.

Send me an email with your guess or post it in your Google Classroom

Math at Home

Which one doesn't belong?  The third and fourth graders came up with reasons for each one of these pictures on our zoom call this week!

Looking for some fun math activities to do at home?  Check out these math at home challenges from the Math Learning Center! 

5 MORE Games to play with 10 Frame Cards

Missed the first 5 games?  You can see them here!

Mystery Card

Pyramid 10 

Odd and Even Sort

Less and More

Adding Up and Down the River

Measuring in Centimeters, Inches and Filling out Plant Project Data Sheets

I made this video for you to help you with your plant project!  We will be talking more about measuring and filling in data sheets for the plant project on math zooms this week but this is here to help you as well.  My computer went to sleep after 10 minutes so the last part got cut off!

Plant Project Updates and Storytime!

Hi 3rd-6th graders!  A quick update on how my plant is doing and a check on the water table.  Then i read a great story about a class that grows sunflowers. 

How are your plants doing?  Tomorrow I will post a video about measuring your plant in centimeters or inches! 

Problem of the Day!

What would you do?  Share your response in an email to me or post it in your Google Classroom or on your Dojo portfolio!

Seed Project This Week!

Hi 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th graders!

Hope you planted your seeds and are waiting for them to sprout!

I watered mine again this morning but still no plants poking out!

I had to give it a little extra water since it was so warm and sunny over the weekend.

Playing with Shapes

Good Morning ACSers!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Has anyone been playing with shapes lately?

This weekend I made a jet out of magnet shapes

I needed 4 different types of blocks

Isosceles triangles are the ones that have 2 sides the same length

Equilateral triangles are the ones whose sides are all the same length.

Right triangles are the ones that have a right angle (90 degrees).  They also happen to be isosceles because two of the sides are the same length.  

I used this video to help me build it. 

How have you been building with shapes? 

Virtual Visit to VUES

Ready for May?

Daily math challenges you can do at home!

Grades 3-6, Planting Our Seeds

Students in grades 3-6 will be participating in the plant project over the next 3 weeks.  This is a great opportunity to review measurement and help us collect some data to learn about graphs and statistics.

A throw back to last year's plant project where the then 3rd and 4th graders created a line plot out of their plant data. 

You can read the directions for the at home version here AND they are also in your plant measuring book you got at packet pick up.

Here is a quick video I made to show you the directions for the first day which is today, Wednesday April 29th!  Don't worry if you are starting a few days late!

5 Games to Play with 10 Frame Playing Cards!

Hi K/1 kiddos!

Hope you got your 10 frame playing cards.

Here are some videos that I made to show you and your families how to play different games with the cards.  These are the same games that are in the booklet, but sometimes it is easier to understand in a video.

Here are 5 of the games, I will work on making more videos with the other 5 games and will post them here next week!

Order Up!

Flip and Write Combinations of 10

Make 10 Go Fish

War!

Close to 15

Cram's Class: The Gardener's Friend

Today I tried something new!  On this morning's Cram math Zoom call, we learned a new game that is coming home with kids in Mrs. Cram's class this week in the next round of packet pick-ups.  After we got out of the call, I tried something new and made a recording of myself demonstrating the game.  If this is helpful, let me know!

How To Make Spinners

Here is a fun project to work on that can give you a great spinner to use as you learn math at home!  A fun way to use things from your recycling bin!

Math Games with a Regular Deck of Cards

Today I wanted to share with you this quick video that demonstrates 2 different card games you can use to practice math at home!

These games are great for K-4.  

Highlighting your Bingo Boards in Google Classroom!

Happy Wednesday boys and girls!  Kids in grades 3-6 who are using Google classroom, this video is for you!

Here are a few options to show your teacher what you have been working on with your math, literacy and social skill bingo boards!

Love seeing what choices you have been making, keep up the good work! 

Sharing a Photo on Google Classroom

Kids in grades 3-6 are using Google Classroom for much of their school work these days.  On their math bingo boards they have the option of sharing a real life math picture with their classmates.  These pictures can be emailed to myself or your teacher.  You can also upload them to Google Classroom so all your classmates can see and comment on them.  I made this quick video to show you how!






Can't wait to see your pictures!

Make Your Own Dice

Hope you all had a good weekend! I plan on posting a bunch of videos this week showing games you can play at home with dice and cards. I know we sent home many dice in math boxes for K-4 and with our dice games booklet in 5&6 but wanted to show you this simple way to make dice if you want to add to what you have available at home!

 

If you need more dice from school please let me know and I will do my best to send them next time we do schoolwork distribution!

Math Boxes- Drop It Sticks

What have you been working on in your math box?  Did you see the video I shared with new games for your number cards?

Ready to level up on Drop It Sticks?

Check out these ideas to make your drop it sticks more challenging!

Easter Math Story Problems

Here are some math story problems you can try out today.  Teachers are busy learning new things today so we won't be having our usual school day schedule. 

They start out easy and then get harder! 

Which one is just right for you?

Can you write an Easter story problem and send it to me?

1.  All the people that live in your house each found 3 Easter eggs.  How many did you have altogether?

2. You found 17 eggs and your sibling found 8 eggs.  How many more eggs did you find than them?

3. I found 24 eggs and put them into equal rows.  How many rows did I make?  How many eggs were in each row?  How many solutions can you think of?

4. The Easter bunny left 64 eggs.  How many children could he share these with equally?  How many different combinations can you think of?

5. My Mom has many Easter eggs in her attic.  The number of eggs she has is a 3 digit number.  There is a 7 in the tens place.  The digits add up to 15.  What are the possible numbers of eggs my Mom has in her attic?

6. Six people found 134 eggs.  Nobody found the same number of eggs.  How many eggs could each person could have found?

7. I have a box of Easter Eggs.  I took two-thirds of the eggs out and there were 68.  How many eggs are still in the box?  If I give one-third of the eggs in the box to Mrs. Simmons, how many eggs will I give her?

Which ones could you solve?  Can you write your own?  Send me an email and let me know what you learned!

Math Boxes-Number Cards

Who has been working in their math box?

Ready to learn some new games for your number cards? Ready to level up?

Check out this video I made showing a bunch of different games you can play with your cards! 

Math With Easter Eggs for Kids!

Combinations of numbers! 

We have a bunch of jelly beans left from our counting and estimating routine so I put together this quick and easy activity with my fourth grader.  He is going to play it a few times this week with his sister who is in Kindergarten.  You pick a number of jelly beans, starting between 5 and 10 is a good choice. You hide some of the jelly beans under a plastic Easter egg and they have to guess how many are hiding.  

When kids are ready you can make a record sheet like the one shown in the picture.  The number in the box is the missing number of jelly beans that are hidden under the egg. 

This would be a great game for siblings to play together! 

Tally Marks, Numerals and Dice dots

While I had the plastic eggs out I also wanted to share another low prep activity that kids could do several times this week.  You need a carton and 12 plastic eggs.  If you have multiple eggs the same color, you can match the eggs up, if all your eggs are different colors, you should mix them together so no top and bottom are the same color. 

I chose to use the numbers 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 which are great numbers for kids in Kindergarten to practice matching up.  

In the bottom of the carton, I used tally marks. I had to cut a scrap piece of paper up to place in the bottom because the bottom was bumpy and was not working out well for the tally marks

On each egg, I wrote the number on the top and represented the number using dots on the bottom.  I organized the dots like you would see on dice. 

To start the activity, take all the eggs apart.  The game is to match the number and the dot pattern together and then put it in the egg carton in the correct spot. 

Fill Them With Change

Many of you loved the coin counting game we shared last week, this would be a great way to involve all your kids in an activity.  Write different coin amounts on eggs and have them fill them with that much money.  Then they can hide the eggs for each other and see who can find the most.  

Equivalent Fraction Game

Kids or adults can think of equivalent fractions and write them on each side of the split in the egg.  Then take them apart and have them match them back up. 

You can do lots of things with plastic eggs!  Here are some more ideas! 

Lots of folks are decorating their mailbox or the windows in the front their houses with Easter eggs this year too!  You can read more about it and print some great Easter egg coloring pages at the Burlington VT City Mom's Blog.

Counting and Estimating

We do a lot of counting and estimating at school across the grades.  This is a fun thing to do at home and works great with kids of different ages.  My kids are in K, 2 and 4 and we did a little counting, estimating and dividing task yesterday that I thought would be fun to share.  We used a bag of jellybeans and started by estimating how many were in the bag without opening it.  

Then we dumped the bag on the table and I asked them how many we could each take.  My second grader thought there was enough for us each to take 20 so we did.  We organized them into groups of 10's.  My Kindergartner counted them by 10. We then adjusted our estimates based on what we knew so far.  (this number is SUPER hard for K/1 kids to estimate) 

Then it was decided that we could each take 20 more.  I asked them to figure out how many had been taken so far.  They all could do it but their strategies were very different depending on their age! 

Then my fourth grader suggested we each take 10 more and then we would each have 50 which we could arrange into groups of 100.  

We put 100 in each little cup

We made our final estimates based on the above picture. 

We thought there was enough for us each to take 25 so we did and it gave us a chance to practice counting by 25's (an important skill for grades 2 and up to count money with!) 

We now have 3 groups of 100 and a small pile left over. 

Our total was 333!  We dumped them back on the table and my fourth grader divided them up between the 4 of us.  

We call this type of division partial quotients.  It is a super helpful way for kids to make sense of division with a sharing model.  If you want to know more about this division strategy check out the Quotient Cafe game on the grade 4 page! 

We stashed out jelly beans in the small containers so we can use them for more little activities this week! 

If your family tries out a counting and estimating routine, take some pictures and email them to me so I can share them on our weekly Math at Home roundup!

Math at Home Challenges

More Pictures to share from our math at home challenges!

Number Building Challenge (salt or sugar on a tray, great idea!) 

Real Life Array Challenge
Can you figure out how many windows, books, dots, etc are in each picture?

Mrs. Cram's class was challenges to build a store at home!  Great math practice and super fun!

10 Equations to get 10 challenge! 

Playing our new money game (Penny, Nickel, Dime, Quarter) 

Have you tried any math at home challenges?  If you want to share a picture of your own math at home challenge, send me an email and let me know what you have been working on! 

Penny, Nickel, Dime, Quarter (Rock Paper Scissors Game)

Here is a great at home learning activity for a variety of grades!

Here is a little video I made to show you how to play this game.  You need some coins, a piece of paper and something to write with.

Below the video, I will share how to make the game easier and how to make it harder.  This is a great game for siblings to play together!

Make It Easier

-Don't use a record sheet!  For our youngest learners who are just starting to identify coins, you don't need to worry about counting up the total amount you have.

-Record on your record sheet using cent notation rather than the dollar sign and decimal point 

Make it Harder

-Use more coins!  Have each player start with 2 of each coin.  We have noticed that after we play this game a bit, we seem to get $0.41 a lot.  Changing how many coins are in play helps us level up and stops us from getting the same thing over and over

-Put 2 coins in your hand each time.  Start with 3 coins of each type and when it is your turn, put 2 coins in your hand.  The person with the most wins EXCEPT $0.02 beats $0.50.

Let us know if you try this game by sending a picture in email, posting in the comments below or sharing on the Parents and Friends of ACS Facebook group!

10 Equations to get 10

I am working on some videos to help you all learn from home but without my students who usually edit videos for me, I am having to learn that in addition to how to use Zoom and do all the other new things we are trying these days.

In the meantime, I found this great game using cards or dice that is great for kids in grades 2-6 and might even work well for a first grader looking for a challenge!  

If you try this, let me know how it goes in the comments below or by sending me an email!

April Daily Math Challenge!

I found this fun Daily Math Challenge for April and wanted to share it here!  We will be doing some of these in my house this month, maybe not every day but will definitely be picking and choosing our favorites! 

Today is April Fool's Day and the challenge for today is to include your favorite number in every sentence you say.  I think my family will catch on pretty quick!  

The blog has been updated with all new songs, stories and games so click on your grade level above and check it out!

Climbing Out of the Dip!

At ACS, we talk a lot about having a growth mindset and developing perseverance.  When we are struggling with doing something challenging, we like to think about the dip.  Here are a few short video clips to help you learn about getting out of something challenging.  You may have seen some of these before! Make sure you go to the end of this post to see some of our own ACS kids explain how to get out of the dip!






How do you get out of the dip?  Leave a comment below!

Challenge Photos From Home!

Hope everyone had a chance to relax this weekend!  I am so happy to share with you another round of photos from last week's Math at Home challenges.  These challenges are ongoing and you can submit a photo anytime.  Email (ttrudo) or sharing in the Parents & Friends Facebook page both work well. 

New pictures from Real Life Array Challenge (you can check out the first batch of submissions here) 

Our First Photos from the Number Building Challenge! 

This one represents a decimal number and is made entirely out of school supplies!  Submitted by one of our former students who might now be in middle school but still checks in on the math blog! 

Other challenges going on right now:

Leap Year 366 object count

Design your own math game

The ultimate challenge for BIG KIDS: Design your own concentration problem! 

Number Building Fun!

One day one of our students had a great idea!  They thought we could build numbers out of our straws and connectors and they were right

We had a great time taking on the challenge to build the numbers from 1-20

Then we built lots of other fun numbers too!

Today's learn from home challenge is to build some numbers out of something you have at home!  Take a picture and email it to me so I can share it on the blog!

Big kids.... can you build fractions or decimals or ratios? 

Math for Big Kids: Concentration Problems

One type of math our fifth and sixth graders have to do that our younger students don't is called proportional reasoning.  They get to solve problems like this tea problem we did a few months ago.

If you are not in fifth or sixth grade, you still might be able to figure this one out!


Put the cups in order from "Strongest tea" to "weakest tea"
All of the cups are the same size
Cup A is filled to the top and has 3 tea bags
Cup B is filled 1/8 of the way and has 1 tea bag
Cup C is filled 1/2 way and has 2 tea bags
Cup D is filled 1/3 of the way and has 1 tea bag

Can you make up a concentration problem?  You can use tea bags, lemonade or anything else that requires a mixture!

You can put your answer to the tea problem in the comment section below or send it to me in an email!  If you make up a concentration problem, take a picture and email it to me so I can post it on the blog!

Math Special Projects: Design a Game!

Students in grades 3-6 at our school have had the opportunity to do math special projects!  One of our favorite math special projects is to design a math game for our class or a different class to use. 

Some kids were working on special projects when we had our last day of school.  Other kids might want to start a special project while they are learning from home. 

These ladies designed this game "the Slide of Minus" to help the math explorers practice subtraction.  They designed two decks of cards, one with easier facts and one with more challenging ones so that kids could level up when they were ready.  

If you are working on a math special project from home, please tell us about it in the comments below or send me an email and let me know how it is going!

Real Life Arrays: Part 1

Thanks to all who have sent a picture of a real life array around their house and yard!  Here are the first bunch!  Submissions are still being excepted for batch #2.  Post them to the Parents and Friends of ACS Facebook page or email them to me, ttrudo@anwsd.org

How many?  How do you know?  What equations can your write to go with the picture?