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?

Remember When We Celebrated Leap Day?

Did you know that 2020 was a leap year?  At the end of last month, we celebrated leap day in K/1 math by building collections of 366 objects! 

Counting collections of all types is a great at home learning activity for all ages!  I bet you have a lot of great things you could count.  I wonder if you have 366 of anything!

Here are some of the collections the students built.

One group used Digi Blocks to build 366

These kids used base 10 blocks!

That is a lot of number racks!  If you need a number rack to do math at home, you can use this one on your computer, tablet or phone.  It's free!

Unifix cubes were a fun way to build 366

These kiddos used straws.  Rubber bands and hair ties helped them bundle groups of 10 and groups of 100.

These students used dice.  They used the green bins to hold groups of 100 and the orange cups to hold groups of 10.  Don't forget to count the 6 dice all the way to the right!

Is there something at home that you can count 366 of?  If there is, take a picture and send it to me so I can share it on the blog!

FLASH games not working on the blog

I have had a few emails about games not working on the blog.  Some of the games use FLASH player and this video shows you how to make sure it is on when you are on a Chromebook.  FLASH games do not work on tablets or phones.  There should be plenty of games that do work on all devices but all games should work on your Chromebook.  Here is a quick tutorial to show you how to make sure FLASH player is turned on. 

Arrays in Real Life

How are you doing with learning from home?  To help you out with some real life math fun, I wanted to share with you some pictures that were taken at school over the last few months of real life arrays.  Arrays are objects arranged in equal groups and we can use counting, addition or multiplication to figure out how many. 

Here are some real life arrays that I found this year at school and in the real world.  Can you figure out how many in each picture?  I have turned comments on for the blog for now so feel free to submit your answers!  Comments will not appear right away, I have to approve them first!

How many eggs can fit in this carton? 

How many number cards does this student have on the floor?  (Who got number cards in their math box for at home learning?  Have you showed your parents all the things you can do with them?)

How many slits in this ACS heater? 

How many tiles on this section of the ACS kitchen floor? 

I took this picture at Castleton State University.  How many window panes? 

Kids in grades 3-6 figured out how many window panes in this skylight in Union Station, Chicago back in December.  (You can't see the entire thing in this shot!) 

If you want to share your answers, you can in the comment box below!

Can you find a real life array at your house?  If you want to share it with your classmates, I will post your real life arrays to the blog.  Send them to me in an email! (ttrudo)

Learning From Home

As we transition to learning from home, please feel free to keep using our school wide math blog to practice math.  Pages for each grade level have been recently updated.  All grade level pages include songs, stories and games to review concepts we have taught this year.

Many of our students are in multi-age math classes and have permission to check out games on both grade's pages.  Kids can find the pages that work for them by clicking on the grade level at the top of this page.

Additionally, there is a page labeled F this is full of fraction practice.  This is is great for kids in grades 4-6.

The G page is also available.  This page is full of geometry practice for grades 3-6.  It is a great time of  year to review important geometry concepts!

We will continue to keep you informed about other learn from home activities.