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The second grade students have been practicing counting coin values! One skill that is especially difficult for younger learners is counting money when there is a combination of coins, because it requires you to change your counting patterns with each coin depending on its value!
First you're counting by 10s with the dimes, then you have to shift gears when you get to the pennies! And then we add in nickels and quarters???!?!? Count by 25s. STOP! ADD 10s! STOP! Now add 1s!!!
This can be a challenge, but SO IMPORTANT for young learners to grasp early. It's the kind of mental and conceptual mathematics that will be so much more useful to students than passing any set of timed math sets ever will!
What the Standard Says:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.MD.C.8
Solve word problems involving dollar bills, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, using $ and ¢ symbols appropriately. Example: If you have 2 dimes and 3 pennies, how many cents do you have?
The 30-Minute Lesson:
In this activity, second grade students practiced counting combinations of coins with values under $1.00.
In a short guided lesson, students worked on a set of Google Slides shared in their Google Classroom. One example was modeled by the teacher, and a second example was done as a whole class. Students worked on more examples, pausing to discuss their solution with a partner. They were to describe the coins they used, and then tell how they counted it aloud. Then, they were to compare their solution to the one their partner offered. Did they use the same combination of coins to show the money amount in the same way?
Students selected ONE slide from their activity to download as a .JPG. This saved a copy of that page to their Chromebook. This could also be done on an iPad or PC as well. If students know how to take a screenshot, that would be be an alternative way to get an image of their work. These might seem like complicated tasks, but once you show them how, even very young students CAN do this. Show them the steps and practice together a few times!
Make Math Thinking Visible AND Audible!
Once the students downloaded their picture, we headed over to Seesaw.me! Students added their image to a Seesaw post and used the voice recording tool to describe their coins and how they counted them. Once they had shared their learning to Seesaw, students could review the work created by all of their peers in the classroom and leave feedback for each other! This allowed students an opportunity to compare their solution to the solutions that other students came up with!
Also, because parents are connected to the students' Seesaw accounts, they too were able to view and leave feedback for the classroom math activity. This powerful home-school connection gives parents a view into the classroom and shows them how to appropriately reinforce the math concepts at home.
Standards of Mathematical Practice
This short lesson allowed students to engage with many of the standards of mathematical practice:
- Standard 3: Construct Viable Arguments
- Standard 4: Model with Mathematics
- Standard 5: Use Appropriate Tools Strategically
- Standard 6: Attend to Precision
Tips for Little Learners:
- Learn one technology skill at a time. This App Smash was possible because these students were already very familiar with Google Classroom, Google Slides, and Seesaw. They have used each of the digital tools in isolation a number of times. This activity is definitely NOT a starting place. Keep it simple, especially in the beginning!
- In Seesaw, it takes practice and modeling to show students how to give specific feedback to peers. Explicitly demonstrate how to move beyond comments such as, "I like it!" and "Good Job!" Offer sentence prompts such as, "I agree with you because..." or "Another example might be..."
Get your own copy of the Google Slides templates!
Money counting practice pages for Google Slides. Please feel free to duplicate, change, and pass along to others!
Dimes and Pennies - Counting 10s and 1s
Money Practice: Counting On! (All coins, values under $1.00)
I have been teaching kids how to read for years, and it never gets any less exciting to witness the moment when a child realizes that they have the reins to the world because they can make meaning of these shapes and symbols that make up our language.
They can READ!
Recently during one of our commutes home from school, my 7-year-old daughter, Kansas, looked out of the car window and read a Denny’s sign aloud:
ALWAYS OPEN.
She pondered for a minute and then the questions started to pour out.
“Wait, Denny’s is always open!?! They never close? Do the waiters stay awake all night? Don’t they get tired?!?! Do they take naps!?!”
This lead to a lengthy conversation about how some humans are nocturnal like bats and sleep during the day so they can work at night. I do believe a midnight pancake run may be happening some day soon because she was so blown away by this concept.
This also led to further discussion and research about other jobs that might have you stay up all night, such as medical professionals and law enforcement/public safety workers. She drew pictures and made a book with facts about different jobs. Ultimately, Kansas decided that while those jobs are very important, she would like to have a job where she works in the day time.
She looked up, saw a sign, and made meaning. And then she started asking questions because she wanted to know more.
I hope she never stops asking questions!
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Young students come to us with an innate sense of wonder. They are naturally curious about the world around them and constantly seek to make meaning and find relevance. And oh, how they LOVE to ask questions!
There's no doubt that teaching is a challenging profession. Teachers have amazing hearts and a true desire to make a lasting impact on their students. It can be so tough, though! Pacing calendars and boxed curriculum tend to drive our days and it’s easy to fall into the habit of telling kids to be quiet and follow directions so you can get through your lesson plan.
Your plan.
Do you have a place in your schedule for students to explore their passions? Do they have opportunities to research their curiosities?
I recently read the book Dive in to Inquiry by Trevor McKenzie. The author walks readers through the concept of inquiry-based learning. He includes a process to start with structured inquiry to help develop this way of thinking and learning in our students that gradually shifts and releases the inquiry into the hands of students in a free-inquiry model. While most of the examples in this particular book are for older students, it really got me thinking about passion projects with little learners.
I wondered:
How can we empower young students to engage in inquiry-based learning and take learning into their own hands?
Getting Started in Inquiry with Little Learners
Read a relevant children's book on problem solving or making a difference. Some current samples include: The Most Magnificent Thing, What Do You Do with an Idea, or Rosie Revere, Engineer or one of the many others by Andrea Beaty.
Keep it Simple
Ask a questions such as "What do you wonder?" or "What problem do you want to solve?" Young children are full of questions. Their natural curiosities can easily be nourished! As teachers, we always want to help our students. We also need to develop an understanding of when to resist the urge to feed them answers and instead help them find questions to ask. So often, students develop a fear of not knowing the answers, and this could inhibit them from questioning bravely.
Once the students have their question, give them access to the tools to discover answers!
1. Research
Take a trip to the library to find books. Also, explore developmentally appropriate online resources such as Kiddle, Pebble GO, Wonderopolis, and the Tinybop apps.
2. Create!
Time for creative play and free discovery is the most important opportunity during this learning process. Play-based learning helps young students make meaning through manipulating materials, engaging with peers, using all of their senses, and considering their feelings.
Be sure to have students document their process as they go!
3. Reflect
Young students don’t always have a natural inclination to do this. Guide them, scaffold them through the concept. Model think-alouds and provide reflective questions for them to ask themselves.
“Did I discover my answer?”
“Did I solve my problem?”
“Did it work?”
And also have them explore their failures along the way! “What could I do differently next time? How can I make this better?”
4. Iterate:
Set the foundations for perseverance! Young students building with blocks will inevitably rebuild towers that topple. They don't see this as a failure, but rather, an opportunity to build again! Maybe this next one will be taller, or stand for longer. Young students at play embody the adage of, "If at first you don't succeed, try and try again!" We need to make sure this resilience transfers to academic contexts as well.
5. Share!
Even our youngest scholars thrive when they have an audience to shine for. Seesaw, Buncee, Flipgrid, and many tools in the Google Suite all have user-friendly interfaces that allow young students to quickly become independent. With modeling, scaffolding, and opportunities to practice, exploring their curiosities can lead these little learners to become creators and publishers of content, teaching the world!
Our youngest students can do so much when we put the tools in their hands and give them meaningful opportunities to inquire, investigate, create, and SHOW us what they know. As their teachers, we have the amazing gift to share this learning journey alongside their beautiful, growing minds.
Trevor MacKenzie has written a new book, this time partnered with Kindergarten Teacher Rebecca Bathurst-Hunt. This follow-up book titled, Inquiry Mindset: Nurturing the Dreams, Wonders, and Curiosities of Our Youngest Learners is available for on Amazon and will be released on March 21st, 2018.
