Friday, November 22, 2013

Long Time, No Post

I have dozens of pictures and tons of ideas for posts, but this year has gotten the best of me! I haven’t even managed to find time to read blogs. I miss it!

I’d like to say that I have spent all my time cleaning my house and that I am all caught up at work, but I can’t. I am happy to say that I finally have all the computers set up in my classroom.

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I’m thrilled with the computers and the tables I picked out. They are set up and functional, but there are still a few things that need to be installed/updated on the computers. I’m thrilled to actually HAVE computers though, so I won’t complain!

I also just registered for FETC. Anyone else going? I've signed up for two workshops that sound fantastic. This will be my first time and I can’t wait

At home, we’ve spent the last two weeks celebrating our birthday princess. She has never actually watched The Little Mermaid, but she loves all things Ariel.

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We brought a cake to her class at day care and celebrated at home. Instead of a party, we went to Disney last weekend. She beamed every time someone wished her a happy birthday at the parks!

My how the time flies!

Monday, November 4, 2013

Using the Wii in the Math Classroom


At the FCTM Conference last month I went to a session on gaming in the classroom. I am not a gamer. The only game I could almost play successfully was Tetris back in the day. I really stink at video games.



WiiMath

I bought my husband a Wii several years ago, but we haven’t used it in a long time. We decided to donate it to my classroom. My students were THRILLED!

At the conference we used Wii Golf to practice subtraction. I did this with my 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classes.

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We did this as a center. I had 6-8 kids at the Wii at a time. They split into two teams. The first group recorded the math, while the second group golfed. After each student had a turn to swing they switched places. I used the SMART board to record answers.

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My first and second graders were bowling. They wrote an equation to show what happened each time a player bowled. I talked them through it. “There were 10 pins. I knocked down 8 pins. How many pins are left?” (One of those pictures was taken on Halloween. They do not usually dress like that!)

wiibowl

I’ve been researching ideas online. I’ve used this site quite a bit. My students are now looking for a “math excuse” for some of the other games. We will definitely be doing this again!

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I’m linking up:

Be sure to join the math fun!