Teaching With Style: place value

I recently had a DonorsChoose.org project funded that I'm really excited about - Legos to teach place value! I got the idea from my friend Jen who blogged about it over on Hawaii's HSTA HYPE blog. Basically, instead of using base ten blocks for place value, you use Legos. Here's why Legos are better:

Many students have Legos at home and can use them while doing homework
Students have background knowledge of Legos and already love using them
Legos create a novelty and bring some fun into your math class

I was intrigued by the idea, so I wrote up a project. Here is what I requested:

Akro-Mils 24 Drawer Hardware and Craft Cabinet

2 sets of Drawer Separators

2 sets of Multi-colored 10"x10" Base Plates

Brick Separators

1000 1x1 Lego-Compatible Bricks

Did you know that The Lego Store is now an approved vendor for DonorsChoose? So excited about that! Unfortunately, I had to write a special request because it was a few months ago.

I went into the Pick-a-Brick section of their website and ordered 240 white 2x10 plates (part # 383201) and 200 gray 1x10 bricks (part # 4211521). Using five 2x10 plates lined up on top and 3 spread out on the bottom to secure together, I was able to create 10x10 pieces to use as the hundreds pieces. I got this great idea from Jen, too.

In our math curriculum, we are currently working on standard 1.NBT.C.4: Add within 100, including adding a two-digit number and a one-digit number, and adding a two-digit number and a multiple of 10. Understand that in adding two-digit numbers, one adds tens and tens, ones and ones; and sometimes it is necessary to compose a ten.

It's a long standard and it's a hard one for kids who are still very literal. We've been counting the days in school using base ten blocks every day, but they still don't understand that 7 tens and 4 ones is the same as 6 tens and 14 ones. Using Legos is absolutely helping. Here are some photos from class as we were adding two 2-digit numbers and regrouping.

You might be wondering about storage and management. I got the drawer organizer so the kids have easy access to the materials and can grab them when they need them. We have to practice with them whole group so they will know how to use them independently. I have 16 sets of tens and ones, but 20 students. So some of the students share. We call that "making a strong choice to share" and I praise the ones who choose to share so that others can have their own. We like making strong choices in my room and doing something that's best for everyone even if you don't want to :)

I put the brick separators in a little container on the top. I put the base plates

in that green scrapbook paper container at the bottom of this pic.

I made these labels, laminated them, and stuck them on to the drawers with double sided tape. You are welcome to grab this as a freebie!

Let me know if you end up making a Lego cabinet by tagging me in a pic on IG and using the hashtag #learningwithlegos. I bet your students will love it!

As a part of Hawaii's new educator evaluation system, each teacher has to write a Student Learning Objective. We choose a standard to work on almost all year. We pre-test to set a baseline and then predict how much progress each child will make throughout the year. We teach, review, formatively assess, review some more, and then we give the final assessment. The percentage of students who met the benchmark we predicted at the beginning of the year is part of how we are evaluated as successful educators.

My grade level chose place value, specifically Common Core standard 1.NBT.2, to focus on for our Student Learning Objective. Many of my kids were confused as to how to decompose two digit numbers and are clueless about expanded form.

To help practice each day, I added some place value routines to our calendar time.

Check out my Calendar Sets on TpT!

Here is our routine, all lead by the weekly calendar helper.

Sing the Days of the Week song (helper gets to choose either the Addams' Family tune or She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain)
Practice saying the date as the calendar helper points to it's components. For example, on March 23rd we said "Today is Monday (helper pointed to the Monday card across the top of the calendar) March (pointed to the March month card at the top) 23rd (pointed to today's card that says 23) 2015 (points to the year card next to the month card at the top). This helps kids practice saying the date as a complete sentence and also the grammar of saying March 23rd instead of March 23.
I then change the day's number at the top (3-23-15) so they learn how we write the date. Now we've practiced how to say it in words and how to write it in numbers. That's why I have a 3 card next to the month at the top of the calendar pocket chart, to correspond with the 3 in our written date.
I then have the kids tell me how many tens and how many ones are in today's date number. I wrote this in the same format as our math curriculum, Origo's Stepping Stones. They call that little 2-box graph an "expander". Kids start by making expanders so they can see how 2 tens and 3 ones can be put together to make 23.
Kids bring their whiteboards, markers, and erasers with them to calendar each day. Once we are done with all the calendar business, they then write number sentences that equal the day's number. So for the day I took this picture, they all equaled 23. After they have each written a few, they share out. The calendar helper calls on 2 girls and 2 boys to share and write's then on a large whiteboard for everyone to see. There needs to be 2 addition and 2 subtraction sentences. When all 4 are written on the board, the help uses a pointer to lead the class in reading all 4 number sentences together.
We then move to the Hundred's Chart and the kids practice skip counting. It's always by 5's but sometimes we start at 5 and count up and sometimes we start at 100 and count down. Counting down was SUPER hard for then at the beginning of the year. Now they are pros!
We then move to the place value chart and add a number to keep track of how many days we've been in school. They add a number card and also add a place value cube. Then there are 10 ones cubes, they trade them out for a rod. When there are 10 rods, they trade them out for a flat.
We then sing the Doubles Rap to help us memorize the doubles facts. We sing it every.single.day. They even made up their own motions to the lyrics. So stinkin' cute!

From First Grade Fresh
Lastly, we count to ten in Hawaiian. I use the posters from Surfin' Through Second. I love this part of our routine because even though my school has a Hawaiian Immersion program, the regular classes don't get much Hawaiian instruction, it's up to the individual teacher. This helps me (non-Hawaiian haole lady) connect the language to math.

This routine takes 10-15 minutes and the kids are seriously sad if we skip it! They love knowing what comes next and the calendar helper LOVES being the leader for the day!

You can see a few of the activities incorporate place value practice. That's how I sneak it it EVERYDAY! :)

Another thing I do pretty much every day is math centers. I do four different centers: Math with the teacher (small group lesson), Math by Myself (Math journal work), Math with Technology (X-tra Math and then SumDog), and Math with a Buddy (math center games).

Click on the picture to check out these posters on TpT!

Of course it's easy to differentiate and provide practice and instruction for place value in the teacher group, because I get to pick what the kids do that week. That's when I would introduce skills, such as expanded form, that are not necessarily covered in our whole group math curriculum. But it's also easy to do all that during Math with a Buddy, AKA center games.

I used this wooden stand and containers from Lakeshore Learning for my math centers. The green buckets contained activities for Operations and Algebraic Thinking standards. The blue containers had activities for Numbers in Base Ten standards. The orange buckets are for Geometry and Measurement activities. When at Math with a Buddy, students can choose which activity to do, but they must work with a partner and they must turn in the recording sheet for me to look at later. This helps tell me if they got the concept, or if we need to do more practice in the Meet with the Teacher group.

Get the labels here on TpT!

As to which activities I would put in these boxes, I would always choose skills that we were currently working on and then fill the rest of the boxes with review. Since Place Value was the focus for my Student Learning Objective, I ALWAYS had a place value option.

Here are a few of the activities that worked well for my class. Just click on any of the pictures to see them on TpT!