Making Sense of Rounding

Has anyone else witnessed this look after they have taught their students a lesson on  how to round?

Rounding can be a confusing concept!  There are some cute chants we can teach our students to sing, but is that really teaching them the number sense necessary to master this skill?  I'm not sure...

Here are some simple techniques you can use in your classroom to help teach your students the number sense necessary for rounding.  These ideas are concrete methods that will not only help build number fluency while also teach them how to round.

Using a Number Line to Round

This strategy builds on the the idea that when rounding, if a number is 5 or greater, you round the number to the next ten, hundred, thousand, etc. and if the number is less than 5, the place value stays the same.

For example, lets say we are rounding the number 67 to the nearest 10. Students would create the number line as shown below.

Since 67 is past our halfway point, students know that we round to the next 10 which is 70.

Here is another example for you- Let's say we want to round 543 to the nearest hundred.  Students would create the number line as shown below:

Since 543 comes before our halfway number, we would leave the hundreds place the same, which is 500.

I know, I know, this is a different approach, BUT, try it a few times with your students and you will see they will actually "get" it. 

 Download this  number line template by clicking HERE.  

I also really like to break out our graduated cylinders (also known to my 3rd graders as measuring cylinders).  I set up a few stations by filling the cylinders with different amounts of water.  Students list the amount of water in each cylinder and then round the amount to the nearest 10.  What is the benefit of this? 

1. Students are getting practice in reading liquid measurement.

2.  The visuals on the cylinders are perfect for rounding.  The units on the cylinders count by 10- reinforcing the concept of finding the nearest 10.  Also students can see the halfway point- reinforcing the concept that if the liquid measurement is past the halfway point, we will round to the next 10 and if it is less, we keep the current 10.

And last but not least, how do we keep learning fun? By games of course!  We play Alien Abduction, where students have to find the halfway number (abducted by aliens).  When checking for understanding, students use the "Round to the Next 10 or 100" and "Keep the 10 or 100" the same signs.  I give students a number to round and they show me how they would round the number by showing me the correct side of the sign.  And, to get students up and moving we also do a "'Round the Room" activity where students match numbers placed around the room to rounding clues.

And there you have it!  I hope these strategies help make teaching rounding more understandable and fun for your students.  

Download these FREEBIE activities by clicking HERE.

 

Clip art from Rebecca B Designs

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Hello there! We are proud to announce we finally hopped on board with BlogLovin'. If you have enjoyed our content and fabulous hops and giveaways so far, please give our new little blog a follow. We have many exciting hops and giveaways planned and wouldn't want you to miss out!

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Classroom Management & Organization Ideas From Karen & Kelie

We are excited to join in with other awesome teacher-author-bloggers on this Back to School Blog Hop. Today we will be sharing some of our favorite management and organization ideas with you as you prepare to head back into the trenches.

Our first idea comes from Karen... Don't be afraid to try new things when it comes to classroom management! What works for one teacher may not work for you. When I started teaching at my last school, Beech, I had never heard of Whole Brain Teaching Techniques. My principal, Michele Mower, was a big supporter of it. I decided to read up about it online and watch videos online to educate myself. One year I had kind of a chatty class so, after Christmas break, I decided I was ready to dive in. And I did! Just like a diet... who says you have to start on a Monday or on the first day of the new school year!? Hog wash! :) I never put all my eggs in one basket though, so to speak, so I combined my new LOVE for WBT with my LOVE for Class Dojo, a clip chart, and GoNoodle Brain Breaks! In true WBT fashion, we had a scoreboard and after every activity, no matter how short and sweet or how long, we visited the scoreboard. The kids loved giving a "Mighty OH YEAH!" or a "Mighty GROAN!" My district was against using happy/sad faces so instead our scoreboard was "Teacher vs. Students." I hit it hard that they were a TEAM and that teams only work if EVERYONE is helping and engaged. I had my best and highest classroom engagement EVER. For every five points they earned I let them have a short, quick Brain Break via GoNoodle. I used my Class Dojo "randomizer" (said in my best iCarly voice, haha) to choose the student who would pick our Brain Break. The catch here was that their clip had to be on green or better. Now, here's the kicker... I kept points on Dojo, but started only documenting negative points if it was something severe that I needed parents to know about and discuss with their child. I found kindergarten students couldn't keep track of their points or how they were doing without visual clues... enter the clip chart. They knew at all times where they stood. Again, this management tip may not work for you, but it was MAGICAL in my classroom. :)

** The above Dr. Seuss Clip Chart was a custom request by my friend Ena Picon and is available in my TpT store along with a Bono the Monkey themed clip chart and a Cute Kids themed clip chart. Check out some great Classroom Management Resources, including the clip charts and some FREE Class Dojo award certificates by CLICKING HERE.

Check out Whole Brain Teaching by Clicking HERE.
Click HERE to check out GoNoodle Brain Breaks.
And finally, click HERE to visit Class Dojo.

Kelie here to share 2 quick tips for managing your first days back at school.  First of all ladies and gentlemen, set some realistic expectations.  Your classroom does not have to be "Pinterest"ready to have a successful school year.  Get organized in a way that works for YOU.  Your students will appreciate and respond to routine and order, whereas the perfectly decorated classroom will run it's course very quickly.  Now don't get me wrong, I have my fair share of cute bulletin board display's in my classroom, but I also have "stuff" shoved under a table because it simply wont fit in a cupboard.
Here is an example of what I'm taking about.  My guided reading books are organized by AR levels and are easy for me to use.  Could I have put a cute label on them instead of the sticky note? Yes.  Would it have made it anymore functional? No.  Don't sweat the small stuff guys!

My second tip I have to share with you today is the convenience of these "sticks". Each student gets their name written on a stick,  and the sticks get placed in a container.  Anytime I need to call on a student, I pull a stick instead of calling on a volunteer.  This solves the problem of the same students repeatedly getting the opportunity to answer questions or to volunteer.  Everyone is held accountable because you just never know whose stick will get pulled next. As an added bonus, these are also wonderful those first few days of school, when you are still learning your student's names.

** I teach 3 rotations of math throughout the day and thus need three different sets of sticks.

After entering the Rafflecopter giveaway, click the apple to hop to the next Back-to-School blog post.

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A Week of "JAWSOME" Steals, Deals, and Giveaways

Kelie and I have teamed up with over 80 amazing teacher-authors for our last round of "Oceans of Steals, Deals, and Giveaways." We are excited to be a part of such a great network! We love teamwork. ;)

Here is a breakdown of the week:

* Monday = search #ManicMonday for DOLLAR DEALS

* Tuesday = search #Two4Tuesday for HALF PRICED DEALS

* Wednesday = search #WildWednesday for FLASH FREEBIES

*  Thursday = search #ThankfulThursday for DISCOUNTED BUNDLES

Here are the dollar deals  Kelie and I have in store for you on Monday, August 9th:

We hope you take a minute to CLICK TO ENTER the Rafflecopter BELOW for the $50 gift card give away, too! This time their will be SIXTEEN WINNERS!! Yes, 16! Enter by the evening of Friday, August 12th. Good luck!!

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Winner Wednesday- Vocabulary Poster Bundle

Did you have a chance to score some great deals at the Back to School sale through Teachers Pay Teachers? I know we filled our carts up with some goodies!  If you didn't stock up on as much as you wanted to, today we are going to give you the chance to WIN one of our Math Vocabulary Bundles.

At one time, I used to believe that math was just about learning how to manipulate numbers to get the correct answer. Was I right? Not so much...

Math has its own unique language, and teaching that language is so important to students' success in math.

Here are the top reasons why we think teaching math vocabulary is so important:

1. Students need to understand the math problems they encounter before they can solve them. What will help your students to understand the problems? Knowing the key terms for the skills they are learning will certainly help them.

2. At some point we will all have the experience of teaching students who are learning English as a second language.  Each year I have 1/3 to 1/2 of my class that fit into this category.  These students especially need access to quality vocabulary instruction because many of these terms will be completely new to them.

3. By teaching our students the meaning of math terms, we are giving them the opportunity to be able to discuss math in a meaningful way. You will be amazed at the types of conversations you will hear coming from your kiddos once they know how to use math vocabulary.

And now on to the fun part!  What can you win from us today?  You can win your choice of a years worth of vocabulary posters to help with your vocabulary instruction.  These posters are made with your students in mind- kid friendly definitions and bright fun graphics to help explain the terms.  As an added bonus they make a beautiful bulletin board display.

Enter the Rafflecopter below to win one of these fabulous vocabulary poster bundles (Kindergarten, 1st Grade, 3rd Grade, or 4th Grade available):

A closer look....

Click below to visit other Winner Wednesday teacher blog  posts and enter to win their giveaways, too! Good luck!

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An InLinkz Link-up

Our Favorite Book Characters

Hello there! We are excited to team up with Katie at Minute Mommy and other amazing bloggers to bring you Summer Reading Stash #4: Our Favorite Book Characters. I hope you enjoy our post and I hope you hop along to read all of the blog posts in this link up. Kelie and I have sure been enjoying them! :) 

Please tell me you have read Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner!? I absolutely LOVE this book. This is the first book, and in my humble opinion, the best book, in a series of books about a Chihuahua. I mean, a Siamese Cat. Hehe. Ok, so Skippyjon has quite the imagination and one day he zooms past a mirror and sees his big ol' ears. In his best Spanish accent he says, "Holy Guacaomole! I am a Chihuahua!" I REALLY get into character when I read this book and love using my Spanish accent. Haha. The kids love it, too! We all laugh so hard we have tears streaming down our faces. And, usually by the time I finish I have to guzzle down some water... using my best Spanish accent really makes my voice hoarse and my throat itchy. But it's SO worth it. Haha. Skippyjon goes on an adventure in his bedroom closet after being grounded by Mama Junebug. In his closet Skippyjon meets a group of Chihuahuas and he ends up defeating the Great Bandito. The first time I read this to my kindergarteners I worried they wouldn't be able to sit through it because it is kind of long. But, it engaged them from the front to the end and they begged me to read it often. If you haven't read this book....run....now.....you won't be sorry. :)

Bunny Cakes by Rosemary Wells was a required read aloud in my Kindergarten classroom when we used SRA Open Court Language Arts curriculum and were on the "Stick To It" unit. My students LOVE Ruby and Max. Who doesn't? They are just too cute. Ruby is the older sister and Max is the little brother. Max is always causing trouble for Ruby. In Bunny Cakes, Ruby just wants to bake a special, fancy cake for her grandmother, but Max has other ideas. Max wants to decorate the cake with "red hot" candies so he keeps causing Ruby to lose the ingredients needed for baking a cake. Ruby then sends him to the store and each time Max attempts to get his candies but he doesn't know how to write yet. Each time Max tries a different way to get his request on paper for the grocer. If you haven't read this book yet, I won't tell you how it ends but instead encourage you to read it. Max and Ruby is also a cartoon and my students loved watching this episode after reading the book. And... Max and Ruby happen to be the names of my sister's kids! True story. :)

Next up on our list of favorite characters are those created by Judy Blume. I love how she uses humor and reality when writing books about everyday family life, because it really allows students to relate to what they are reading.  All students can relate at some level as they read about events such as: moving to a new town, making new friends, or mom having a new baby.
Judy Blume does an amazing job of turning these real life events into a page turning novel.  I mean, what child doesn't want to find out if the main character's little brother ate their pet turtle?  Your students will love reading this whole series just to see what crazy things little brother Fudge has up his sleeves, and see how big brother Peter deals with it all.

Need a novel study to get you started? Check out this resource found in my store (*on sale through the weekend!):

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing Novel Unit

Last on our list of favorites this week are the wonderful books by author Roald Dahl. 

I love his magical way of using storytelling when writing books such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG.  He is able to turn everyday things into something extraordinary- peaches the size of houses with talking insects or a finger with the power to turn people into other things. Readers beware- these books are really geared towards a more mature audience (3rd grade on up), as there is a bit of a fear factor built into his novels.  However, in every book, the kids triumph over the evil and  really, you can't ask for more than that!

Hop on over to Ashley's Brainy Centers to read about her favorite book characters.

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Non Fiction Books We Love

Non Fiction Books We Love

Thank you for joining us again this week as we link up with some fabulous teacher-bloggers, hosted by Minute Mommy, to discuss non fiction books we love.

Lets face it, with so many distractions competing for our children's time, often, it can seem like a small miracle to simply watch them open any old book.  However, research is showing us that this alone may not be enough.  WHAT children are reading is just as equally as important as how much they are reading.  It is becoming clear that children need to be reading informational (non fiction) texts, from the earliest grades on up, which makes this week's post even more exciting to talk about.

  Why is non fiction reading so important for children?

*Non Fiction text requires the reader to really focus on what is being read.  

*Non fiction text can not be read by simply skimming a paragraph without understanding what was previously read.  

*Non fiction text can not be read without understanding the vocabulary being used.

Do we have you convinced on just how important it is for children to be reading Non-Fiction text?
I thought so. :) 

Though it may come off initially sounding like a boring genre of reading, there are so many fun and engaging texts available for children.  Let's start with one of my favorite non fiction series, the ever so popular:

Who Would Win? series by Jerry Pallotta

If you have a child in 2-4th grade, and have not seen them reading these books, now is the time to check these science based books out!  These books are really appealing to the boys in my classroom & I LOVE seeing boys excited about reading!  In each book, children learn about 2 dangerous animals who would most likely never meet in the wild, and what makes each a fierce predator.  The books are loaded with tons of colored pictures and easy to read facts, building on the question- "Who would win?"  Readers can use these facts to come to a conclusion on which animal they think would be the winner. 

The Truth about Bats by Eva Moore

Another one of my favorite non fiction series is the Magic School Bus Books.  This series can be found in easy to read books as well as more challenging chapter books.  I enjoy using the chapter books with my students.  Though these books are not 100% non fiction (the main characters are fictional as well as parts of the plot) there is still a TON of non fiction text for children to devour.  I love the variety of non fiction text features used throughout the book.

 I use this book around Halloween time as a whole class read.  My students really enjoy learning about bats and all the additional informational text activities from this novel study I created to go with the novel- The Truth About Bats.

You can find everything you need to keep your kiddos busy and learning really any time of the year.

Click Here to find the Truth About Bats Novel Study

My turn, my turn! Haha. Karen here. Let me first say that non fiction has never been a favorite of mine, however I jumped on the bandwagon and made it work for me and my kindergarten students a few years ago when I came to the realization that it's what kids NEED, as Kelie stated above. :) To make it work for my little learners short attention spans, we used Closed Reading techniques and visited the text in small chunks throughout the week. We enhanced our knowledge (and kept our interest and thus engagement high) by tossing in some short YouTube videos relating to our topics which had been previewed and carefully selected beforehand if you know what I'm sayin'. My team asked me to create PowerPoint presentations using a lot of sight words and with a word bank at the end and surprisingly because those were short and sweet, the kids really liked them so we didn't always use actual books but our kids were still getting real, factual information. Anyhow... here goes...

National Geographic Kids: Bats! by Elizabeth Carney

Great minds think alike! I think my favorite non-fiction read aloud was Bats! a National Geographic Reader, Level 2 by Elizabeth Carney. Like Kelie, my kindergarten class would read this book every October. I used closed reading techniques and we visited the text daily throughout the week. There were a lot of "Ohhhhs" and "Ahhhhs" during this read aloud. Bats are simply fascinating creatures. They loved learning about what types of food they eat, where they live, and how they actually feel the vibration of insects and can pinpoint their exact location. We would also tie this into our writing and for the first three days of the week we would do a step-by-step directed drawing (pencils up, eyes on me!) and then write about bats. For our "Fun Friday" time we wrapped up our week long study on bats by making bat hats! Some of my students wrote -at word family rhyming words on their sentence strips. They had so much fun!

National Geographic Kids: Penguins! by Anne Schreiber

Who doesn't love penguins!? They're just too adorable. Before we dove into Penguins!, a National Geographic Kids, Level 2 Reader by Anne Schreiber, I asked my students what they knew about penguins. Surprisingly they knew quite a bit already thanks to some great kids' flicks about them. :) Penguins was always a favorite January topic. Again, we used Close Reading techniques to share this book with our students throughout the week. They really loved all the pictures; National Geographic for Kids are GREAT for pictures! My students found it both interesting and disgusting how the baby penguins were fed regurgitated food.  They also found it really sad that penguins had so many natural predators. This led to discussions about nature taking its course which I'm sure was above many of their heads. Ha-ha. Again we did a directed drawing for the first 3 days of the week, brainstormed a word list, and wrote stories about penguins. For our "Fun Friday" activity, to wrap up our week long study, we made penguins by tearing and gluing construction paper. They all came out so unique.

Thank you for reading, we love your comments!

Please click the picture below to go to the next non-fiction blog post we're sure you will love.

An InLinkz Link-up