Math Exploration

I love the first week of school for so many reasons, but up near the top of the list has to be free exploration with the math materials. Each day, I fill tubs with a different tool, and the students get to go to town for the math period. After they've had a chance to 'play' with the pattern blocks, base ten blocks, square tiles, multilink cubes, even the yellow and red counters and the bin of play money, I'm ready to teach them about self selecting and transitioning. After the first week, they get a couple of days of bins filled with different math tools, and we practice transitioning between them and cleaning up as we go along.

The rules are simple: Don't chew, throw, or break any tools. Don't disassemble or touch somebody else's work. If you drop it, pick it up. Share.

It's so lovely and interesting to watch them make sense of the tools in ways I never could have imagined. You really find out so much about your students, and they learn so much about the attributes of the different tools.

 you find out who your sorters are

 who your artists are

 your pattern seekers

 your hard core playahs

 your spatial geniuses

 your mopers

 your future engineers

and your flat out super stars

It never fails to make me giggle...at first, they don't see much value in a box of flat, square chips...but within 30 seconds, they are fully engaged, completely creative, and dying to tell me how fascinating this is! {LOVE}