This Week’s Math: Resources and Freebies!

More than ever we teachers are feeling the time crunch!!!  (or am I all alone here?)  Because of this, I hope to share some easy helpful freebies that you can use in your class too.

First off, we will be working on the commutative property.  Say what?  Yes!  With the new rigor and high standards we have in the classroom, it’s time we say it like it is!  Teaching the math vocabulary while introducing it to our youngest students gives them every opportunity to hear it over and over until it is no biggie at all!   I just learned that our struggling students need to hear the same thing 60 times before it truly is learned!  I am not sure how they measure that, but regardless that is a HUGE amount of repetition!

Once students are solid in their ability to turn the addends around with ease we will take on the inverse operation.  This is where we can introduce how addition and subtraction are related.

We will use A Teacher’s Resource Unit 3 this week! {You can get each unit individually or all 6 in a discounted bundle that’s a full semester!}  The visuals and vocabulary help in framing the lesson and anchoring our learning to a visual at the same time.  It’s mostly for the students but I am not going to deny that it does it keep me on track at the same time!

 Every week I search for independent activities my firsties can do after our lessons in their math journals.  It’s the independent practice of our current lesson or our spiraled skills.  I have some freebies I created for next week which I am happy to share below.  Just click the picture to download and once it is downloaded it will view and print correctly. 

We will drill home the commutative property concept as we “become the addends” wearing math necklaces. Just write the numbers right on the sheet protector and then erase and use a new set of related facts.   These can also be called turn around facts and that is just what we will do wearing these necklaces!  To see these in action check out Mrs. Wheeler’s post here!  Teaching in high heels has a fab unit all about it too HERE!

My students will be working on concepts from my October Math Centers this week as well.

This week we will begin our introduction to story problems.   Sharing the pen, we will draw them, label them with the number sentence, and then show our work on a number line to truly understand what is happening when we add and subtract.  The students will do two prompts in their journals this week as well. (included in the freebie above)

And another little unrelated freebie is now in my TpT store!  If you like to use the voice level system in your room, I made some posters!

 I just met up with Kristen  and Tessa in Austin for Brunch!  Great way to spend a morning! What are you up to?