2nd Grade Math

The best part of my job is spending time in the classroom with our outstanding students. We call them walkthroughs. Most of my day I travel from room to room watching the teaching and learning process. On this day, I was in Mrs. Cain’s 2nd grade class. Students were engaged practicing their addition skills. I asked Emerson to explain how the math game works. She said, “We are practicing our Go MATH! skills.” “It’s like BINGO,” She explained. You role the dice, move forward to that addition algorithm-add it up, and place a chip over it. WOW! You folks are doing quite well today. There is no time to waste. Ms. Cain brings them back for whole group instruction. She points to the white board. She states, “I have 426 marbles, I gave 100 away, how many do I have left? Ms. Cain immediately models her thinking by drawing four squares that represent blocks of 100, two lines to represent tens, and six dots to represent ones. She ponders her thoughts momentarily so her students can catch up their thinking. She continues, “If I cross out one of the 100 block squares, how much do I have left?” Students immediate respond 326 marbles! You see the light bulbs going on. I leave Ms. Cain’s room and meander to Mrs. Larson’s room. The same jubilation about math is happening there as well. No wonder Perkins students do so well in math.

Mr. Koss