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Numberless Word Problems in the Elementary Classroom

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Word problems can always be tricky to teach and tricky for kids to understand. In the beginning of my teaching career, I focused so much on key words and strategies that told my students to underline the problem and box key words. As the years went on, I realized that even when my students are doing all of “the parts” of the word problem strategy that I am asking them to do, they aren’t actually understanding how to attack the word problem independently.

I wanted my kids to focus more on what is actually happening in the word problem so insert numberless word problems. When I first learned about numberless word problems, my first thought (if I am being completely honest) was, “How in the world would that actually help them understand if there’s no numbers?” As time went on and I learned more about the importance of taking the numbers away, the more I learned how this actually helps deepen students understanding of the word problem.

Let’s take a peek at what I do!

First thing I will do is display the numberless word problem on the Smartboard. Students will have a graphic organizer in front of them.

When this first is displayed I will read the word problem and ask students what they are picturing in their minds as I read the story. Students will record some thoughts/pictures/notes onto their graphic organizer.

I will now ask students about what information do we have now? (George=32 fish) What information are we missing? (How many more he bought) Students are recording this onto their graphic organizers as we are working through the problem.

I will now ask students about what information do we have now? (bought 18 more fish) What question could we be asking? Students may say how many fish does he have in all? We want students to start understanding that when you have some and you got some more, you will have a bigger amount than you started with. Students are recording this onto their graphic organizers as we are working through the problem.

I will now ask students about what operation we will use to solve the problem. It takes time but students will start to understand that they are looking for the total. They will see that they have a part, and got another part, which will help us to find the total. Students are recording this onto their graphic organizers and once the operation is determined, they will solve the problem using pictures, numbers, and/or words.

Here is an example of what it may look like!

I will use these numberless word problems as a warm up as a whole group or even in small groups. As time goes on and students feel comfortable with this, they can do it independently or with a partner!

Do you use numberless word problems in the classroom? Let me know if you have any comments or questions about this!

Soft Starts / Morning Choice: How we start our day in third grade!

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I will be the first to admit, I am not a real fan of mornings. I don’t enjoy my alarm clock, I love my bed, and usually don’t want to leave it. The thought of being an 8 year old and having classwork as soon as I walk through a door did not feel right. Therefore, we started soft starts. Soft starts are a great time for students to ease into the day by picking an activity that they want to do in order to “warm up their bodies and brains” before our morning meeting time begins. Soft starts give students choice which empowers them, builds their ownership in learning and of the classroom, and is a great way for students to build relationships within our room.

In soft starts, students have a variety of choices to choose from. Some of these choices include:

Students will come into the classroom, put their materials/things away, and pick a soft start bin. Students keep the bin they pick for the entire time to avoid students picking out a bin, putting it away, picking another, and so on. Students typically have about 15 minutes before morning meeting starts to build and/or create before our day begins. Students are responsible for putting all of the materials back into the bin they got it from and storing it where it belongs. I have learned that having distinct bins and distinct places for where the bins belong has helped us keep our materials neat and organized. I set a timer for 14 minutes and display it on our Smartboard. Students know when the timer goes off, they have one minute to clean up, put their items away, and join the rug for morning meeting.

We love starting our day with soft starts and I could not recommend doing them enough! Let me know what questions you have about soft starts below!

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Easy Warm Up Engagement Ideas For Distance Learning and In School Learning

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Easy and simple may be my middle name and that is exactly what I like to do in my classroom. Engaging warmups have always been one of my favorite ways to get kids excited about the lesson before we start. I love using warmup games that can easily be used for a variety of subjects, without having to reteach a new game every time! Remember, the easy and simple middle name thing? 🙂

*DID YOU KNOW?* I recently have added all of my math warm-up games and put them into ONE HUGE resource! Be sure to check them out here!

True or False? That is the question! We loved using this easy game as a math warmup! I wrote a fact on the board (it can be any subject, any question, not just math facts!) and kiddos had to tell me (in our Zoom chat) if it was true or false. If it was false, students had to tell me what made it true. To help with differentiation, I added a few numbers on the bottom so kiddos could use them to better help them figure out how to make it true! This was a hit and I’ll be using this in the classroom too!
OH SNAP!! This EASY & ENGAGING game is so fun! I picked a card and called on a student to read it, if they got it correct it went into their “pile.” If they read it incorrectly, it went back into the bin. After one student went, the next student went, and so on. If the card that came up was the OH SNAP card, I “snapped” up all of that student’s cards and returned them to the pile. So many ways to make this work for you and your kiddos in you classroom. (Sight words, math facts, SS/Sci vocab – kids will define the word that you show, morning meeting questions, grammar and more!) The possibilities are endless!
Today, we played 2 wrongs and 1 right. Students saw the problems, typed into Zoom the right and wrong answers, and we had a very dramatic reveal. Other ways to use this could be spelling, vocab, content definitions, grammar, and many more!
Make it true! Such a fun and easy math engagement warm up! I have always loved using warms ups before each guided math small group session but did not realize how important they were for our #onlinelearning time. My kids really looked forward to them. In this game, students have to make the number sentence true, however they choose to do so. I love when a student chooses to change the inequality and their minds are all blown. 🤯 😂 Looking forward to adding more #easyengagement games to our math rotations!
Poof! This easy engagement math warm up was so fun! Students had to use two numbers that equaled our target number and then the numbers that they used would POOF! and be taken off the board. Most students used addition but when a student used subtraction, their minds went 🤯🤯🤯! I’ve thought about using this with fractions, rounding, area, phonics, just to name a few!

These warm ups have been such a great addition to my class and I love creating new ones as the year goes on! 🙂

Distance Learning FREEBIES!

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Distance Learning has been ROUGH. At first, I was eager for a new challenge but the newness of the challenge shortly wore off and now I just want to hug my kiddos and be in school. I have tried to make this virtual learning experience as easy as possible for others so below I have listed a few different freebies that may be helpful for you all during this time! Be sure to follow me on Instagram at http://www.instagram.com/missvin3 to check for all the additional free ideas and resources that will be included!

This easy engagement game was super fun! Head over to my Instagram page @missvin3 to check it out!
This resource will include ELA and Math JPEGS to upload to Google Classroom or Seesaw.
I have recorded ELA and Math videos to help your kiddos during this remote learning time!

Halloween: Possibly the most exhausting day of the year.

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HALLOWEEN. One of the most exhausting, fun, exciting, and did I mention exhausting days of the year? I mean is there anything better than seeing your kiddos excited about their costumes and candy and all things fall?

Halloween always seems to be a crazy day every year until I started implementing Halloween Centers. For some reason, the day went by so fast, the kids were engaged, and every 15-20 minutes they were up and moving (and maybe walking like a mummy or flying like a bat) to the next rotations. We played Halloween music, laughed, and truly had an amazing time.

This past year was the first year I truly “transformed” my room for this day. I love decorating the library area and covering it with spider webs or hanging witches from the ceiling to make the day feel “a little more exciting.” Everything I used to transform was either decorations I’ve gathered over the years, old decor that my mom gave me, or a few things I purchased from Dollar Tree, Target, or Amazon. 

Okay, now to get to the good stuff, THE CENTERS! I had all the centers laid out around the classroom. That way, each area had a specific center and kids were not running around like crazy, losing pieces of the center, etc. Before the centers began, I divided kids up into groups of 2-3 kids and that was their partner/group for the day. I assigned each pair/group a center to start and then together as a class we walked to every center, went over the activity together and answered any and all questions students had.

The centers we used are:

Eyeball Rounding: Students pick an eyeball and round that number to the nearest ten or hundred according to what their recording sheet says!

Build an array: At this center, students will pick a task card and build an array using the Target Dollar Spot Halloween Mini Erasers. I found this task cards for free on Teachers Pay Teachers years ago.

Grammar Sort: Students will pick a sign and decide what part of speech category it belongs in. (noun, proper noun, verb, adjective) I was surprised to see how many students had difficulty with this and was definitely a good informative assessment for me to use in my planning for the following week!

Monster Math: This game students will play as a whole group and one person begins and picks a card. Student will solve the card and show everyone in the group the card. Everyone will solve it and if the student who choose the card correctly solved it, that student gets to keep the card. Whoever has the most cards at the end of the game is the winner. There are some fun cards like lose a turn, extra turn, game over, etc.

 

You can find the multiplication and division version of this game here. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Halloween-Multiplication-and-Division-Game-2805870

Fluency Reading: I found these fun witch/scary looking finger pointers in the Target Dollar Spot and gathered as many Halloween/Fall picture books that I had. Students whisper read with partners and loved falling along with the “fingers.”

 

Halloween Inferencing Game: This is one of the favorites!! Students will be in pairs and one student will pick a task card and read it and the other student will try and make an inference that matches the task card that their partner described.

 

Addition/Multiplication Game: Students will work in partners and spin a paperclip twice to get two numbers. Students will either add or multiply (depending on their Vampire sheet) find the answer and create a number sentence. Partners will check each other’s work. This can also be an independent center or you can have students add up all of their answers at the end and whoever has the highest score is the winner.

 

Overall, it was a wonderful and exciting day BUT I was looking forward to getting home to my couch and eating as many Reese’s Pumpkins as I possibly could! Happy Halloween!

I was almost 8 months pregnant in this picture!