IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Today we explored a lot of new ideas during school. We talked about\learned about so much that I am going to stretch out the ideas over the next few days; otherwise, this blog entry would be so long!

Math Workshop, we explored a couple of new tools that we could use to solve math problems. One of those tools was the bead string. This bead string is made up of 5 red beads, 5 white beads, 5 red beads, and 5 white beads. We discussed first what we noticed about them,and they said things like: it was a pattern both by color and by number. Then the children had some great ideas of how to use the bead string to solve problems. I gave 2 plus 2 as one problem, and Malachi suggested that I slide over two beads, then slide over two more beads and then count how many are altogether. We did it together and it really seemed to help picture the problem. Selah mentioned how much she loved doing math using the bead strings so I am excited to see if the children will really use it as a tool!

I taped down a big rectangle that had 10 squares in it. I then asked a five friends to get inside the squares. I then posed the question “How many people are in the frame?” Maggie said 5 and I asked her how she knew that. Maggie said that she knew two plus two is four so she needed to add one more which would be five. Isaac said he counted each person inside of his head. I discussed with the children that it is important that we discuss the why when we get an answer so that we can see that we have a true understanding of math concepts. It was a great discussion that we had, and I look forward to seeing them continue to construct and respect how various strategies can get to the same result or even different results.

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