A Few Math Ideas!

My super-sweet teammate sent me a link to a great even and odd intro lesson by Teacher Tipster.  Needless to say, I had to raid my box of trinkets to find a plastic bumble bee!  She also shared the even and odd street bulletin boards she found on The Teacher Wife and Step Into 2nd Grade With Mrs. Lemons.  Look at how cute her odd street looks!!  She had the students use fancy stickers and scrapbook paper to make odd looking haunted houses!!

Click the bulletin board sign below to print it from Google Docs:

I also found the idea for these Even and Odd shoes from Teacher Tipster. 

I got them at Walmart for $5!  They are a men's size 12 so the kids can slip them on over their shoes when they want to use them. 

To start the lesson, I wear the shoes and gave each child a star sticker to put on their right shoe. I call out a number and we all take a step with our starred odd foot and say, "1," then we take a step with our left foot, "2,"... Then, when we get to the number I originally called out, we said "odd" or "even". The kids have fun using the Even and Odd shoes with parent volunteers or with partners to review skills. Thanks, Teacher Tipster!

Line plots, mean, median, mode, and range....NOT exciting topics to teach. This year, I tried to incorporate at least one interactive lesson on creating a line plot and analyzing data.

I began by asking the students to write down the number of pencils that they had in their desk. We gathered on the carpet and left a large space in the middle of us.

One at a time, each student reported the amount of pencils they had. The students picked the starred number that represented their amount of pencils and placed in on the carpet. (I made several copies each digit so there would be enough.) Once all the students put their number on the carpet, we lined them up in order from least to greatest.

As the digits were lined up, the students could easily pick out the MODE, or the number of pencils that occured the MOST. The students could also easily see the range and the median. (Hint: If you are teaching median with this lesson, use an EVEN number for a bigger challenge!)

Do you teach guided math groups? If so, you can also print these digits (listed below) and have the students make up their own questions, role play the responses, organize the data from least to greatest, and find the mode, range, and median. My students did this when they were at their math work station rotation. They LOVE to play teacher! :) This could also be a great alternative assessment. Let them show you what they know!

Then we learned about line plots in an interactive way.

I placed the amount of the pencils, in order from least to greatest, on the butcher paper. The students each had an "X" which represented their "plot." One at a time, they plotted their point for the amount of pencils they had in their desk.

Again, students can easily find the mode and range when the data is represented in this manner. (Check out Christie's awesome blog if you want to print the zebra print alphabet in the picture! Thanks, Christie- your printables are all over my room!!)

I then asked several different questions, such as "How many letters are in your first and last name?" and plotted those responses.

Below are the resources I used for this lesson, including an assessment. Download the pages from Google Documents.

Line Plot Quick Assessment

Hope you are having a great Halloween and won't have too much of a sugar crash tomorrow morning!!