A Book to Teach Math, Reading, and Social Skills All at Once

This summer I have one of my adorable kids from my old school that I just couldn't give up! I've been tutoring him twice a week for an hour at a time, and our main focus is math. As in ALL things math! He's a kid that can easily forget things he's learned, so it's been an intensive spiral review along with new concepts slowly sneaking in.

It's summer and it's just the two of us in an amazing library! It's beautiful, has tons of rooms where we can find a table where it's quiet, but not too quiet so people aren't mad when I'm talking to him a bunch. We've come to love the teen section since the teenagers are just there gossiping together anyway and couldn't care less about studying in summer.

My favorite part is that I can bribe reward him all I want! Every time I bring his favorite fruit snacks and smelly stickers for completing his tasks. Plus he "earns" book time if he uses his time wisely and I go read him any story he wants in the children's section...Little does he know this is my time to work on comprehension and social stuff with him!

Today he randomly picked this book and it was AMAZING!!

It's a math story about counting money, which was PERFECT timing because money was part of our work today. The book teaches how to use different coins to count the total amount it all. It reinforces the concept of "counting on" to make change and the phrase "exact change."

There are sooo many things you can do with inference skills as well. There are things that happen in the illustrations, but are not in the words. My favorite was a little girl who was muddy but it didn't say how exactly. I asked my kiddo how it happen if she is sitting on the grass. He said "maybe it was poop" completely seriously! I worked with his inferences in baby steps explaining how they are washing cars with water near the grass. Then talked about how wet grass gets muddy and he concluded she slipped in the mud. It was a very funny process!

We worked on the social skills based on the behaviors of the kids in the story. We talked about how a little girl squirted her friend with the hose, but he wasn't mad. Then how he "accidentally" squeezed a sponge on her head. We talked about how it was really on purpose, but she didn't mind since they were playing.

This lesson was completely random and I made it up as I went, but it was filled with sooo many concepts! I just may need to buy a copy to keep for my class! Now I'm curious about the rest of the series!

Do you have any favorite books that cover several concepts at once?

Teaching Number Partners and Fact Families

I have a new version of our curriculum, but the kids' books came long before my teacher's manual. I was given the option of starting the kids on the old book, but I decided I'd rather let the kids stay on the same learning path and I'll make do with what I have.

The first chapter is all about "Number Partners" which are often called "Fact Families." Since all I have are the kids' workbooks to go off of, I decided to create my own supplementary materials using the same vocabulary, but my own materials and homework since the homework book is back ordered too.

First, I taught the number partners by giving the kids rainbow counters. I have had these for YEARS and my students always love them! They are a nice break from the boring base-10 blocks! Not to mention how cheap they are! We started with 4 each and I had the kids practice putting them in groups. They learned the groups are called "partners" and they work together to make a larger number. Since we aren't adding or taking any away, they always equal the same amount. Then I added one counter for each kid and they tried making the groups again learning the number partners for 5. Each day we've added 2 new numbers and learned the different partners that make those groups.

I like showing the kids that the groups can change places and still equal the same amount by having them put a hand on each pile and swapping them around by crossing their arms. They also think it's kind of funny to have spaghetti arms!

This kid was learning his "7 partners" and I snapped this pic as he was about to cover them with his hand and swap places for 6 and 1.

I didn't have any visuals to go with this, so I made my own! I made anchor charts for numbers 1-10 and 5 pages of simple homework to go with our lessons. I know I'm not the only one who has to teach fact families and number partners, so you might as well benefit from me making these! You can now find them in my TPT store! Also, I drew the clip art specifically for this set, but let me know if you're interested in it, and I can put that in my store too. I made both boys and girls with numbers 1-9 on their shirts.

Have I mentioned how much I love teaching math?!

Genius Students and a Traveling Teacher

So I should be in California in my classroom getting ready for the day right now. But I'm not! I'm sitting at Starbucks in Colorado next to my best friend as she gets some work done before our fun day/night! Awesomeness!

There were multiple rough moments this week and I am grateful for the extra day off. Plus, I have the best sub our school uses and I have no concerns about what's going on. Although, I did leave the number of the school counselor in case the kids go crazy...again.

Have any of you ever taught a genius student?? I don't mean, just a little gifted, but exceptionally so! I have one little guy in kindergarten that I legitimately have no clue how I'm going to teach him for the next 2 years! His maturity is right there with your typical 5 year old (or perhaps younger), but his brain is light-years ahead!

Yesterday Genius Boy was staring at another kid's paper (distracted as usual) and saw that the kid wrote 90-100=70. Don't ask how that kid got that answer, he clearly was not paying attention because this kid can do math. Anyway... Genius Boy says to him "You did it wrong! The answer to that would be negative 10." I was mesmerized by this, and asked "How did you come up with that?" and his response was "Well I know 90-90=0 and 10 less than zero is -10." SERIOUSLY?! What the hell am I going to do with this kid for 3 years?! I'm going on 6 months and I'm already teaching him from the 2nd grade material in KINDERGARTEN! And he's zipping through it!

The rest of the boys in kindergarten are trying to count to 100 and working on some skip counting, and Genius Boy is doing 2 digit subtraction with regrouping in his head and correctly explaining negative numbers.
Oh, if you haven't already seen this, it's the best subtraction poem ever for remembering to regroup or not. I know it's on my Pinterest page. This is me doing it from memory, I think there may be an extra line or two I left off.
More on top,
no need to stop!

More on the floor,
go next door
get 10 more!

Numbers the same,
zero's the game!

Ok, time for pictures! My little guys loved the Addition Valentine Puzzles I made. Here is a pic of them putting them together on the floor.

Next up is a pic of how I was teaching skip counting. I had the kids color the 100 chart, then use counting bears to hop over numbers as they said them.