My First Five for Friday!

I'm so excited to be participating for the first time in Doodle Bugs Teaching's Five for Friday! Here are my five things from this week:

1. At 4:10pm today, I officially went on Spring Break! Thank goodness! I think everyone at this point in the year needs a break. I absolutely can't wait to spend time with my little guy all week. Isn't he just adorable?

My little Grady

I'm planning on taking him to the library for storytime, to Buckeye Bounce (a bounce place for kids), and maybe to a pottery place to make something with his little handprints. I don't get to do all of these fun things with him during the week due to work so I can't wait to spend all my time with him!

2. Today my little sweetie pies surprised me with a birthday celebration! My birthday isn't until next Tuesday, but since it's over Spring Break they wanted to celebrate today. One of my students brought me beautiful flowers and a handmade little turtle- so cute!

We also had Birthday Cake Oreos- I'd never heard of these before and it's probably a good thing. They are delicious!

3. Today, we had our "Around the World" day in 2nd grade. It was so much fun! The kids rotate classrooms (there are 4 teachers) and each teacher teaches about a different country. The kids get a passport where they answer questions and color a picture of the country's flag. We also play music and try foods from that country. I taught about Italy so we enjoyed some homemade bruschetta!

You can check out the Around the World passport at my TpT store if you're interested!

4. On Wednesday of this week, we had a staff meeting about "rich math problems." A rich math problem is engaging, open-ended, and authentic. Kids can work in groups or with partners with any math tools that they'd like. The teacher's job is to facilitate thinking and conversation among the groups- not to lead them to the answer but to help them find their own way. I decided to do a rich math problem at the end of the day and it was FABULOUS! The question that I posed was:

"There are 52 cookies on 3 plates. When I take 14 cookies away from the first plate, there are still 7 left on the plate. The second plate has 12 cookies. How many cookies were on each of the 3 plates to begin with?"

I placed several different math tools and materials on the reading table and told my kids that they could use whatever they'd like. They worked in groups of 3 and 4 to try to figure out the answer. It was so interesting to see their problem solving strategies!

I put counters, unifix cubes, plates, cups, napkins, and scrap paper out for the kids to use

This group chose to use plates, cups, and counters to figure out the answer

This group used only cups and counters

This was such a great experience for the kids! I really tried to let the kids work amongst themselves and only help guide their thinking when necessary. The problem was pretty tricky but all 6 groups were able to come up with the correct answer. I will definitely be doing more rich math problems this year!



5. Yesterday in math, we went on our graphing scavenger hunt around the school. This was the first year we've done this and it was a huge success! You can learn more about it at my post {here}.

Okay, that's it! Whew... what a week =)