2nd Grade.....Day Terrific 2!!

Today was AMAZING!!! I am so in love with teaching math and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, that math is how we start our days. The students quickly got to work on a word problem upon taking their seats. For some it was a struggle, but not because of the math, some said they couldn't read it. Yikes! Monitor and adjust, monitor and adjust....we read the problem through a couple times together. It was all good after that. I surveyed the room for answers...which I should add were a slew of different ones. No worries, we worked it out. I can for sure tell that these kiddos were holding on to the 'key words' in word problems and that is such a NO NO in my book. We started talking about part-part-whole and got the problem all filled in to discover that they were NOT supposed to add the two numbers! Ah....grasshoppers! We did another one and I eased them in on a few steps of model drawing. First and foremost find out what you are trying to solve and writing that in a sentence form. Organization is the key for my little grasshoppers!

After that was all said and done we transitioned into taking notes for the first time (sooooo cool) in our math notebooks. First up.....The Break Apart Strategy.... Here are a few samples of their work and mine too.

This is my notebook sample. I completed it at their pace while projecting is for their guidance.

You can see this little thinker drew TEN hearts to remind her that TEN is our friend and the broken cookie to break apart and share the numbers to make them easier to work with. LOVE!

This little guy came up with the GREAT idea of drawing a ninja slicing the numbers to make them easier to work with! This is AWESOME!!

Here we have SUPER ten our friend! See the YAH.....YAY! Ten is even saying 'Hi' looking to make some friends.

All in all they did a FANTASTIC job in their math notebooks today. I also introduced them to Kakooma...this was so fun! They ended up getting their time to 17 secs to complete a math puzzle! We shall see what they can do with it tomorrow.Later in the day we worked on collective nouns.....I totally had to research this....remember, it is my second day! Tomorrow I have an awesome addition for their reading notebooks that will help with collective nouns.It has only been two days and I am head over heels for this class. They are a GREAT group of kids. One of the things that I was given upon getting this class was the cards from the year before with the levels and all that jazz on them. I vowed not to read them BEFORE I met the kids and taught them the procedures. I did peak for health issues and what not. I took a closer look after school today. Based on what I read, this class is not what was expected, but you know what, I am glad. I am glad that they are EVEN BETTER! It all comes down to keeping them challenged, keeping them engaged, and them knowing that I totally believe in all of them and won't let them fail or give up! So I have heard that some interviews are in the works for the position I am filling in for. I have to admit, it only took me 48 hours to fall in love with these kids. I don't know how I will ever say goodbye! With that said, chin up...going back tomorrow to do the best that I can to make sure that I give them the best of me. It is what the kids deserve. All kids deserve a teacher who gives them their best.