From Tom: On Wednesday of this week, Tom treated his math students to a special reading of Grandfather Tang’s Story, a tale told with tangrams by Ann Tompert and illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker. It is the story of Grandfather Tang and his granddaughter, Little Soo. The story begins with them sitting under a tree playing with their tangram puzzles, each set containing 7 geometric shapes that can fit together to make a square. They decide to make up a story about fox fairies. They begin by each arranging their pieces to look like foxes. Then begins the tale of Chou and Wu Ling, two fox fairies who could change their shapes and morph into different animals. Each tries to outdo the other and so the saga begins. The students tried to guess what type of animal each fox fairy turned into as they carefully listened to clues given on each page. At the conclusion of the story, the students tried to put their tangram pieces together to make squares. On Friday the students were introduced to the Tangram jobcards and took turns trying to reproduce the various outlined shapes on each card.
From Natasha: We have been working on solving a riddle in Natasha's math group this week. I put a number of plastic, colored bear counters in a box and have been giving clues to the group that they are using to solve the riddle of how many bears and which colors of bears are in the box. The children are working in teams. They analyze each of the clues and then display with their colored bears what they know. Each successive clue narrows the possibilities until they can determine what is in the box. "I have twice as many blue bears as yellow bears," caused the students to think about the meaning of twice as many. Once we have had plenty of practice solving riddles, I will ask the students to create similar riddles for their classmates to solve.
From Joan: Joan's group has been working on various activities involving money. A couple of weeks ago the group learned to play the game Race for a Dollar in which students take turns rolling two dice and taking that many pennies. When they get enough pennies, they can trade for a dime. They keep playing until they have 10 dimes that they can trade for a "dollar." As they play, Joan moves around the room asking each student how much money he/she has at that point and how much more is needed to make a dollar. It's a great activity for developing base ten thinking. The group has also been playing a board game, Cool Cash Bingo, and doing activities with Kathy involving counting up change and solving riddles about money.
