Dancing in Math?!?!

The past few days students have been working hard at building their number sense

by comparing numbers deciding if a number is less than, greater than or equal

to another number. Sounds easy right? But you should see the problems

these second graders are comparing. We started out with some simple

comparing in standard form( 320 ___245). We worked our way through

hard and complex comparing that was out of order, in all different

forms (standard, expanded, unit and mixed) ( 70 +300 ___ 2 hundreds + 3 tens).

We even had to think about numbers that had greater than a 9 in the ones and tens

( 23 tens + 19 ones ___ 23 ones + two hundreds)!

How do I know if they really grasp the concept? Well as Albert Einstein

said, “ If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”  

So I get them talking about how to solve the problems.

Students were given problems on the Smart-board to solve.

They had a few minutes to work out the problem.

To get students energized we got up to dance! When they heard the music

that was their clue to get  up and dance around. Once the music stopped

they had to find and greet a partner.

With their partner they had to explain how they solved the problem.

Their partner then had to agree, disagree or add on to what they said.

Here students have a chance to really show what they know or get help from

a partner. I walk around listening to check in for understanding.

I heard students saying things like:

"I used my place value chart to help me make sure I had the correct number."

"I started in the hundreds place because it has the greatest value! "

" I know that 18 tens equal 180 because 10 tens makes 100

and 8 tens makes 80 so I add them together to get 180!"

After students had some time to share, I called a few students up to the

Smart-board to have them explain what steps they took and why to

solve that problem.