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Math Minutes

The teacher uses various assessments in math including Fast Flashes and worksheets. During Fast Flashes, the teacher mentally notes which students have grasped concepts and which are still struggling. Worksheets in math centers allow the teacher to check for understanding and provide scaffolding for students making mistakes. Overall, assessments help the teacher identify student comprehension and determine who may need additional support.

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104 views6 pages

Math Minutes

The teacher uses various assessments in math including Fast Flashes and worksheets. During Fast Flashes, the teacher mentally notes which students have grasped concepts and which are still struggling. Worksheets in math centers allow the teacher to check for understanding and provide scaffolding for students making mistakes. Overall, assessments help the teacher identify student comprehension and determine who may need additional support.

Uploaded by

api-273403380
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Math Minutes

1. Using the Standards for Mathematical Practice from the Common Core State Standards
(p. 6- math book), make a chart and include observed examples from your classroom of
each.
Standard:
Make sense of
problems and
persevere in
solving them.

Reason
abstractly and
quantitatively.

Construct
viable
arguments and
critique the
reasoning of
others.

Model with
mathematics.

Use appropriate
tools
strategically.

Observation:
I have seen students explain the meaning of a problem
multiple times when they are working at their math center
named Pigs in the Mud. They have to see how many pigs
land in the mud and how many land outside of the mud. The
number of pigs varies from student to student. I frequently
hear little voices say One, two pigs are in the mud. I had
five pigs, three pigs are out of the mud. One, two, three. Or
some variation of that kind of thinking.
I have seen students make sense of quantities and their
relationships through different math centers that require them
to use tens strips to tell them what to color or how many
blocks to include in a strip of blocks. I have also seen the
students create mathematical representations of problems
when they added candy strips containing one to five pieces
of candy together to represent the quantity five and then
transferring that representation to paper.
I have seen the class use stated results in explanations of
their reasoning. The class was reading the results of their
scarecrow glyphs. They were observing the amount of
people in the class who were five or six years old and the
amount of people in the class who had been to a farm before
and who had not. There were five year olds and six six year
olds. There were ten people who had not been to the farm
before and the class realized without counting that there
would be six people who had been to a farm because the
numbers were the same for the farm as they were for the
ages.
I have seen students model with mathematics when they
were working on a problem that the math coach brought
them. There were five pumpkins and each pumpkin had two
triangle eyes and one triangle nose. The students were asked
to sketch the pumpkins and determine how many triangles
that there were all together.
The students use different manipulatives for their math work.
Being in kindergarten, they are still dependent on
manipulatives. The teacher provides them with the different

Attend to
precision

Look for and


make use of
structure.

Look for and


express
regularity in
repeated
reasoning.

manipulatives and the games but the students are given


freedom within the games to make their own math problems.
They are allowed to explore whatever strategies they can
think up when they are working at their centers as long as
they still get the right answer. They can pose one problem
several different ways until they understand it deeply and
then they can move on to a more challenging problem.
I have seen one student in particular who is especially
precise with her peers. English is her second language and
she specifies everything. I have three pigs in the mud. Or
I have a nine on my card, you have a three on your card, I
get to keep both cards. All of the students are precise when
they are reminded by the teacher, but she is precise about
everything.
I have seen this when the class was studying patterns. They
were asked to identify different types of patterns when using
pattern blocks, regular block, and even colored farm animals.
Once they mastered identifying patterns, they were
challenged to create different patterns of their own. Some of
the students took off with pattern making, some took a little
while to create their own patterns.
I have seen student look for short cuts when they are using
ten strips in their math centers. If they are uncertain of a ten
strip or are having to add two ten strips together, they will
look for the nearest familiar number and add on from there
or they will see two familiar numbers and add them together.

2. Would you say that your classroom teacher is a constructivist? Why or why not? Give
examples to support your answer.

According to the textbook, constructivism is based on the premise that knowledge


is actively constructed by the individual, not passively received by an outside
source. With this definition of constructivism, I would say that my teacher is a
constructivist. She is the facilitator of learning in the classroom. She guides
students to the understanding that they need rather than telling the students the
correct answer. An example of how my teacher is a constructivist in general is
through the amount of emphasis she places on student responsibility. Her

classroom learning mainly takes place through centers. The students are engaged
in their center and are responsible for keeping busy and staying on task. If the
students have an issue with another student, then she makes the two students talk
out the issue and see if they can resolve it themselves before she gets involved. I
really like this strategy because it is teaching the kindergartners vital
communication skills that they sometimes lack. One specific example of how my
teacher is a constructivist is during the students math centers. They were working
with different ways to make the number five with number strips. One boy in
particular was having trouble making five because the number strip that he was
working with contained five items. He kept trying to add another number strip
even though he already had five. He was becoming frustrated because he did
could not find what he was supposed to add to five. The teacher guided him
through the thinking that he needed to figure out that he needed to add zero to five
to complete the problem. She did not merely tell him that he needed to add zero.
He figured out what he needed to do with help. He will remember the lesson now
that he has struggled with it and was not merely instructed on what to put.
5. Choose a math lesson from your class and make a list of 3 possible childrens books to
enhance/enrich the lesson.

One of the new concepts that my students are learning is skip counting. They are
skip counting every morning in calendar. One book that could enhance the lesson
is Artic Fives Arrive by Elinor J. Pinczes. This book counts by fives. Another
book that could enhance the lesson is Leaping Lizards by Stuart J. Murphy. This
book counts by tens. A third book that could enhance the lesson is The Leg Count

by Nora Gaydos. This book counts by twos. These books would be good books to
not only read with the class but also to leave on the bookshelf for the students to
read in their free time.
7. What kinds of assessments have you observed being used in math? How are they being
utilized by the teacher?

I have mainly observed assessments in math through Fast Flashes and worksheets.
In Fast Flashes, the teacher takes mental notes about which students seem to have
the concept, which are havent quite grasped it but are almost there, and which
students have not grasped the concept at all. The other way that I have observed
assessments in math is through worksheets. The students typically have
worksheets in their math centers that they complete while working there. The
teacher looks over their worksheets to ensure that they are doing them correctly
and then the students put them in their take home folders. If the students have
completed the worksheet incorrectly, the teacher will scaffold the student through
the worksheet.

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