Second day at the conference- what I learned from Reagan Tunstall!!

Hello Again Friends,

{So I started this post on Tuesday night right after the conference and then this thing called SCHOOL happened and I haven't been able to sit with my computer since then!  Now that it's Friday, I can finish all my random thoughts about what all I learned!}

I just finished up the last day of the conference and wow, did I learn a lot!!  I attended 4 sessions today by 2 great presenters and I can't wait to implement some new things in my classroom!  I really am excited and hope that I can keep my enthusiasm going for the last months of school!

I started the day with a math center session given by Reagan Tunstall.  If you don't know Reagan's blog, you MUST visit it today!  She always has the greatest math ideas!  Definitely a must-read!

   

One idea she shared I would totally use for counting on and making addition sentences.  You take a pipe cleaner and wrap an address label around it.  On that label, you can write any number you'd like.  Then you have task cards that say "Add 3" or "+5" and the students add that number of beads onto the pipe cleaner to get the sum.  So if they take the pipe cleaner that is labeled with a 6 and then pull the card that says "Add 3", then they put on the beads to get 6+3=9.  Throw in a recording sheet and you've got your self a math center!  She also has this great post about using pipe cleaners to make number bracelets. 

She went through the organization of her math time and, even though I do mine a little differently, I still really liked seeing hers! You should definitely check out this post about the way she does Guided Math in her classroom.

 She had a great game idea for these cute little rubber duckies, where the kids pull two, read the facts and see if they have matching sums.  So cute and I know my kiddos would LOVE it!

Another great idea was to take large foam dice and cover them with whatever concept you are learning at that time.  I can think of lots of ways to use these in a center- students could roll one cube with the regular dots and then roll another one with +2 or +3 or +6 and write addition sentences...they could roll a cube with shapes on it and graph the number of times they rolled each shape...they could roll the digital times and then make those on an analog clock...the list goes on and on!!

She had so many great ideas and has so many on her blog (including this post about her Math Sticks) and her presentation was just awesome!

The rest of my day was spent stalking listening to Rachelle Smith and I came away with even more awesome ideas!  I went to three of her sessions (Guided Reading, Classroom Management and Journal Writing) so I think I'm just going to have to dedicate a whole 'nother blog post to everything I learned!

Happy Friday!