Math ideas and freebies

Oh my! I have been absent from blogging for way too long. I've been missing it big time but I just haven't had the time or energy to get a post done. Then this past weekend for the holiday Chris and I went camping. It was so nice to be away from everything for a little while. I thought we wouldn't have cell phone service but we did. So I kept up with some of my blog stalking through an app on my phone. I haven't found an app that I like to actually blog on yet but I do love my app I use for Google reader. It's great. Anyway, I've had lots of ideas for things to blog about so hopefully this week I'll get back into. (Plus there's Farley's currently and I have to participate in that.) We've been in school for about 12 days now. My kids are doing a great job and it's hard for me to not get ahead of myself. We're starting real first grade reading today with spelling and everything. I'm pretty excited to start getting into the nitty gritty of everything. But we also have testing today and tomorrow and then next week. So it's going to be hard to get too much done. Say a prayer for me and my students. We're taking a Discovery Education Assessment this morning on the computer and I have no idea what to expect. We haven't done it on the computer before so it should be interesting. Anyway, this post is suppose to be all about math. I'll be back later this week hopefully with a post about reading and our progress with Daily 5.
Most of my kids seem to have a pretty good handle on identifying their numbers 0-20. There are about 2 or 3 that don't. (Just a reminder, I had my kids last year so we're kind of ahead of the game.) So I decided to start working on decomposing and composing numbers. We started with 5. I had them shake and spill 5 red/yellow counters and then record number sentences. I thought I had modeled this enough but it was a huge disaster. So the next day we did it again. We did it all together and I recorded number sentences on the board. Then I gave them a piece of paper with the number sentence frames written on it and they worked with a partner to come up with the different ways to make 5. This time it went a lot smoother. We've now worked on numbers 5, 6, 7, and 8. This week we're going to finish up with 9 and 10. Each day we review the ways to make the number before. They seem to be internalizing the patterns. I feel like if they can get this then their number sense will be great and they will do awesome with addition.

Here's an example of one of the sheets.
The next step we're working on is math journals focusing on these concepts. Last year, I used Mrs. Wills's math journals for kindergarten and loved them. I haven't found what I want yet for first grade so I've started making my own. I've made a math journal for each number and you can download it free from my Teachers Pay Teachers store. The file says preview because it's a work in progress. I think I might add to it as we go along in math. If you download, please consider following my store and leaving me some feedback. I would love to hear what you think of them. Click above to get to the file. Ok, I better go finish getting ready for the day. Hope you have a fantastic day. What are you doing in math right now?