Bunk Beds and Apple Boxes

My Students

Please help me motivate and accelerate my second graders! Too many of my second graders have yet to develop the necessary number sense to be successful in the years to come. I need to motivate and accelerate their understanding of numbers as quickly as possible!

The faces of the children I teach reflect the diversity found in many urban classrooms today.

My students represent many cultures, races and religions. English is not the primary language spoken in most of their homes. Poverty is prevalent as is a strong sense of family. Some have roots that keep them in one classroom for a year, others have wings that keep them moving from one school to another. The students that are able to attend our school are privy to a rigorous data-driven learning environment focused on meeting the needs of every child. As educators committed to excellence, the challenges we face are no excuse for failure. Often we must analyze, reflect and think outside of the box especially for motivating overwhelmed and disengaged learners. Familiar real-life situations and contexts for learning offer the most comprehensible settings for problem-solving and developing critical number sense especially for children who are inundated with unfamiliar concepts throughout everyday.

My Project

The resources I am requesting will provide a rich familiar context for learning that will motivate and engage the most reluctant learners. Pajama parties with bunk beds promote making combinations of 10. Sparkly beads and shoes will help us think in groups of two. Apple boxes in a grocery store, double decker buses with red and white seats and too many games to mention will nurture the development of early number sense.

Each mini lesson is crafted as a tightly structured series, or string of computation problems designed to encourage children to look to the numbers first, before they decide on a computation strategy.

The strings are likely to generate discussion of certain strategies or big ideas underlying an understanding of early number sense, addition, and subtraction. Every child needs to be given the opportunity to become flexible, fluent, accurate thinkers and problem solvers.