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Math Mania for Grade 2, Semester 2

In this 16 week course we will explore the world of mathematics by using modeling tools and active investigations of topics such as probability, geometry, and measurement.
Cindy McAllister
Average rating:
4.8
Number of reviews:
(792)
Class

What's included

32 live meetings
29 hrs 20 mins in-class hours

Class Experience

The philosophy of this course is based on the Mindset Mathematics program developed by Jo Boaler and her colleagues at Stanford University. The main tenet of this program is that the brain learns the most when it is actively struggling to understand and solve problems. Mistakes are to be celebrated as this is when the best kind of learning happens. Students are encouraged to take risks, make guesses, and challenge each other to explain their thinking. The lesson cycle has 3 components: visualize, play, investigate. In the visualize activity, students are presented with a picture, a graph, or some other stimulus to get them thinking about relationships and patterns between and among numbers and shapes. Making math visual is helpful and gives students models upon which to build their understanding. During the play activity, students are given open-ended tasks to help them explore the skill or concept further. By allowing students the opportunity to experiment with materials and ideas, they create their own unique way of understanding. Students share their work with others at the end of the play activity so that all students benefit from the work of others. Math is a collaborative activity in the real world. In the investigate part of the lesson cycle students are given problems to solve that are relevant to the topic under study. 

This course is intended to cover all the semester 2 math skills traditionally included in a 2nd grade curriculum. However, since we only meet twice a week, we do not have the same amount of time in class that you would get at a traditional school.  To compensate for this, there will be weekly homework assignments on the website IXL.com. Each student will be given a username and password for this website and will complete weekly assignments there. The activities on IXL are of the “worksheet” variety and provide good feedback when students miss a question. This is where students will practice their skills. Some students may need parental assistance when completing the IXL assignments. 

Each group of students is different. The topics and the weekly schedule is a tentative outline. If I see there is a need to slow down or speed up, a need to review skills from semester one, or an obvious lack of understanding, I will modify the schedule and the topics in order to provide students will a solid foundation and prepare them for their next math class. 

Here’s a weekly breakdown of activities:

Week 1: In our first week we will learn about what it means to have a growth mindset and how mistakes are our best friends. We will develop a set of group norms that will guide our behavior during class. We will start some math routines such as creating a number line, collecting and recording weather data, and counting the number of days in the semester. We will also review addition by playing the game Race to 100.

Week 2: This week we will be focusing on addition fact fluency. 
In the visualize activity we will use double tens frames and counters to look at addition facts through 10 + 10. Students will practice subitizing, which is the ability to identify a number without actually having to count. For example, they should be able to hold up the fingers on one hand and know that it represents 5 without counting the fingers one-by-one. We will use tens frames and dot cards to practice this skill. During the play activity, students will use counters, tiles, or Cuisenaire rods to find the combinations for numbers 11 through 20. (Numbers 2-10 were covered in the first semester.) In the investigate activity students will study the addition table and look for patterns in rows, columns, and diagonals.

Weeks 3 and 4: The big idea for these 2 weeks is making change to understand subtraction. In the visualize activity students will determine how many pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters it takes to make $1.00. We will also make displays of coin equivalencies such as 2 nickels equal one dime. In the play activity, students will go shopping at an imaginary store and be given tasks to complete such as “How much money do 4 bottles of soda cost?” and “If you buy x, y, and z and pay with a $10.00 bill, how much change will you get?” Students will create their own story problems to share with the class. In the investigate activity, students will search for $1.00 words. The letters of the alphabet are each given a monetary value (a= 1 cent, b= 2 cents, and so on) and students add the letters of a word up to try and find words that equal $1.00. We will then create problems such as how much is “window minus door?” These can get really silly, but it’s a fun way to practice!

Weeks 5 and 6: During this part of the course we revisit some of the things we learned about solving story or word problems from semester one. We will learn to use change diagrams and parts-and-total diagrams. During the visualize activity we will create tape diagrams that model addition and subtraction. We learn to compare totals by building trains with snap cubes. In the play activity, students will create their own unit of measure using paper, then they will measure things in the environment and answer questions such as “how much taller is the refrigerator than the kitchen counter?” During the investigate activity students will work with measuring spoons and measuring cups to solve word problems about specific quantities.

Weeks 7 and 8: Students continue their work of understanding and solving word problems. In the visualize activity students look at a representation of various animals and their relative sizes. We organize animals by length from shortest to longest and make a bar graph to represent the information. In the play activity, students will write silly animal stories using the information from the visualize activity. These stories are to include a comparison between length and height of two animals. During the investigate activity, students will be given word problems involving more than one calculation. (Up to this point, all word problems have required a single calculation.) We will make use of the Math Playground website for  modeling and solving these problems. 

Weeks 9 and 10: This week we focus on probability. In the visualize activity, students will be shown various spinners and asked to determine which color or number on the spinner is likely to be spun most often and least often. We will then do some spinning to try and verify our predictions. In the play activity, students will try to create their own spinners that have different probabilities associated with them. For example, they might be asked to make a spinner that would spin green 5 times out of 10, blue 2 times out of 10, and green 3 times out of 10.  In the investigate activity, students are asked to predict the most likely sum resulting from rolling 2 dice. Students will roll dice and record the sums on a graph to determine if their prediction was correct. 

Weeks 11 and 12: The focus for these two weeks in subtraction of two-digit numbers. Students have been subtracting numbers 1-20 for most of the year. We have done a lot of “exchanging” when doing subtraction during our investigations involving money. Now we extend this work to other areas. In the visualize activity, we use the Cuisenaire rods to find differences between rods and trains of rods, and how to represent numbers greater than 10. In the play activity, we will play a game of “Race to 0” where students practice subtraction with regrouping. (Students will need Base Ten Blocks for this.) I don’t like to be a “drill and kill” teacher, but this is one skill that requires a lot of practice for most students. In the investigate activity, students will be asked to subtract 2-digit numbers from 100 and report on the strategies they developed.

Week 13: This week we will explore 2D and 3D shapes and attributes. In the visualize activity, students will draw 2 dimensional shapes with 3, 4, 5, and 6 sides. We will also look at  more complex geometric patterns such as tessellations and fractals. In the play activity, students will use attribute blocks to develop their own rule of classification. Each student will share how they divided up the shapes and then the class will try to guess what rule they used. In the investigate activity students will make shapes on their geoboards and try to classify them according to rules that they create. 

Weeks 14 and 15: This week we will be working with graphs and measurements. In the visualize activity students will look at a graph of the number of hours different animals spend sleeping in a 24-hour period. We will review the basic components of a graph and identify them on the visual. In the play activity, students will make estimates of things like how long it takes to do 25 jumping jacks, or how long it takes them to draw 100 squares. We will create a bar graph of our data. In the investigate activity students will create a “favorites” graph. They will determine what data to collect, collect it, then graph it. 

Week 16: Students will explore the idea of equal groups using arrays, color tiles, and other tools. In the visualize activity, students will look at groupings of objects and create repeated addition sentences to match. In the play activity, students will determine how many ways they can make a rectangle with 12 tiles, and they will create a way to name the rectangles so that we all know what rectangle we are talking about. In the investigate activity, students will describe different ways to make equal groups from the numbers 1-20. This is an introduction to multiplication.

Learning Goals

By the end of this course students should be able to:
*add and subtract with and without regrouping
*solve one and two-step word problems involving addition and/or subtraction
*read and create bar graphs
*count money and find change
*describe measurements of length and capacity and use measurements to solve problems
*identify and describe basic 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes
*give a basic definition of probability and provide an example
*reason using correct mathematical terminology
*understand how a growth mindset helps them become better mathematicians
learning goal

Other Details

Parental Guidance
Please make sure to look at the supplies list and order your supplies a couple of weeks before class begins. In addition, there may be times when household items like string, tape, markers, etc. are needed for class. All materials needed for the week will be on the front of that week's packet. At times students may need supervision when using tools such as scissors.
Supply List
For each topic I will provide a pdf file that needs to be printed before class. Some packets will contain only work for one week, while others may contain content for multiple weeks. In addition to basic school supplies, the following math tools are needed. You can find these on Amazon as well as other sites that sell learning resources. If you have been homeschooling for a while, you probably already have a few of these. I also suggest that you check with friends who homeschool to see if they have some they can loan you. 

Cuisenaire Rods		Measuring spoons, cups
Color Tiles			Dice		
Base Ten Blocks		Clear plastic spinners 
Attribute Blocks
Ruler, yardstick, measuring tape
External Resources
In addition to the Outschool classroom, this class uses:
Sources
www.youcubed.org
Joined February, 2019
4.8
792reviews
Profile
Teacher expertise and credentials
I have a bachelor’s degree in psychology and elementary education, and a master’s degree in educational psychology. I have been teaching for over 30 years and have taught at all grade levels from kindergarten to college. I am a certified teacher in the state of Texas and I participate in yearly professional development. I maintain memberships in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Science Teachers Association.

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Live Group Class
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$450

for 32 classes

2x per week, 16 weeks
55 min
Completed by 2 learners
Live video meetings
Ages: 7-8
4-10 learners per class

This class is no longer offered
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