suggested first 5 days of school
Choose your own maths adventure with our interactive tools that allow you to build a custom playlist of inspirational maths activities and messages! To build your WIM week, select one video, one resource for creating a positive maths community, and one task per day and add to your playlist. Then click “See Summary” to play videos, download materials and save/share your WIM week! Check out these pre-made playlists curated by the youcubed team for first grade, middle school and high school and share your playlist on social media with #myWIM!
Share the “Why” with Students: Give the students the rationale behind the Math Talk. Let them know that they have great thinking that we can't see and this gives them a chance to share what's going on in their brains. This also gives everyone a chance to learn from each other lots of different ways we can think about a problem.
Initial Implementation : As you begin to implement Math Talks in your classroom, you will want to keep them simple. Your goal might be to have 2 or 3 students share their thinking, which you capture and record without much comment or questioning.
● Provide a safe environment. ● Start with easier problems so that students can learn the routine and to encourage wide participation.
● Present calculation problems horizontally. ● Provide quiet think time and a silent signal. ● Accept, respect, and consider all answers.
● Capture student thinking as faithfully as you can. ● Write the student’s name so that you can refer to _______’s strategy.
● Develop your poker face. Respond neutrally to students’ comments.
More information: Number Talk "Look fors" Math Talk Process Tips for Number Talks
Objective: Students work with images that lead to instantly recognizing small quantities (subitize).
Description: To build concepts of number, one-to-one correspondence, composition and decomposition, and future addition and subtraction concepts, students should have lots of practice subitizing small groups of objects, in this case dots.
*Subitizing is the ability to quickly identify the number of items in a small set without counting. It is a foundational skill in a student's development of number sense.
Question/Prompt: Tell me fast how many dots you see. What do you notice about them? (show one image at a time)
Suggested Steps:
Quickly show one of the dot images so students do not have time to count. Have students show a thumbs-up to the chest if they think they know how many dots. Depending on the number of students who are showing you a thumbs-up, you may wish to show it a second time.
Solicit student responses, right or wrong.
Have students do a Turn-and-Talk to discuss how they saw the dots.
Have a few students share how they saw the dots. Make several copies of the Dot Talk in order to record student thinking by circling the groupings they identify, and writing the corresponding equation. Record students’ names on the copies.
Summarize the Math Talk by connecting the equations to each other and to the dots in the ten frame.
Math Talks Visuals are here:
Day 1 Dot Talk Procedure Teacher, Day 1 Two Dot Talk 1 BLM
Day 2 Two Dot Talk 2 BLM
Day 3 Two Dot Talk 3 BLM
Day 4 Three Dot Talk 1 BLM
Day 5 Three Dot Talk 2 BLM
More Math Talks Visuals are here Days 6-10 Three Dot Talks and Four Dot Talks.
Ready Teacher Toolbox- Lessons 0 for the first five days: Lessons to launch to review key concepts to prepare for the start of the school year and familiarize students with the flow of the Try-Discuss-Connect instructional routine.
Guided Math expectations: For assistance on structuring guided math, click here. Guide to the first 20 days here.
Youcubed: Day 1: Brains Can Grow and Change
In this lesson students will be helped to see numbers through a dot card number talk and finger activities, both of which will help important brain connections.
Lesson Plan Day 1 Day 1 Nearpod lesson Good Group Work-setting norms
Classdojo Video - Growth Mindset Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 Video 4 Video 5
Ready Teacher Toolbox- Lessons 0 for the first five days: Lessons to launch to review key concepts to prepare for the start of the school year and familiarize students with the flow of the Try-Discuss-Connect instructional routine.
Guided Math expectations: For assistance on structuring guided math, click here. Guide to the first 20 days here.
Youcubed: Day 2: Mistakes are Powerful
This gives students the opportunities to see numbers, to consider how numbers are made up, and to engage with numbers flexibly. Some students can also start to think about factors and multiples.
Lesson Plan Day 2 Day 2 Nearpod lesson
Classdojo Video - Perseverance Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 ( You may have to log into Classroom Dojo)
Ready Teacher Toolbox- Lessons 0 for the first five days: Lessons to launch to review key concepts to prepare for the start of the school year and familiarize students with the flow of the Try-Discuss-Connect instructional routine.
Guided Math expectations: For assistance on structuring guided math, click here. Guide to the first 20 days here.
Youcubed: Day 3: Believe in Yourself
This activity is open and gives space for students to learn about representing in a graph with different dimensions but without numbers.
Lesson Plan Day 3 Day 3 Nearpod lesson
Ready Teacher Toolbox- Lessons 0 for the first five days: Lessons to launch to review key concepts to prepare for the start of the school year and familiarize students with the flow of the Try-Discuss-Connect instructional routine.
Guided Math expectations: For assistance on structuring guided math, click here. Guide to the first 20 days here.
Youcubed: Day 4: Speed is Not Important
Mathematics problems always have many ways of seeing them, many ways of approaching them, and sometimes have different answers. In this activity there are many different possible solutions, which gives students opportunity to be creative, and to discuss their sense making. Activities such as this one allow different students to feel like their ideas are valid and valued, which makes them feel more comfortable with mathematics and enjoy learning it.
Lesson Plan Day 4 Day 4 Nearpod lesson
Ready Teacher Toolbox- Lessons 0 for the first five days: Lessons to launch to review key concepts to prepare for the start of the school year and familiarize students with the flow of the Try-Discuss-Connect instructional routine.
Guided Math expectations: For assistance on structuring guided math, click here. Guide to the first 20 days here.
Youcubed: Day 5: Visual Math
Mathematics is a creative and visual subject! This activity gives space for students to exercise the visual part of their brain. It encourages students to be visual and make connections between decomposing larger shapes into smaller shapes or composing smaller shapes to make larger shapes. A video is replaced by students completing the activity themselves.
Lesson Plan Day 5 (the link for the video inside this lesson has been removed, it is just intended that you use the lesson)
Day 5 Nearpod lesson
“Closure in a lesson does not mean to pack up and move on. Rather, it is a cognitive activity that helps students focus on what was learned and whether it made sense and had meaning.” How the Brain Learns Mathematics (2007) P. 104
There are many ways to wrap up and reflect the day's activities but this step is often overlooked or rushed. Purposely plan and allow time for students to have closure each day (even if it means setting a timer or daily alarm so you don't run out of time).
Ideas for closure activities