Place value...a fun place to be..

I love love love love love (get the picture?) The two pictures below.  I am still bursting with energy this evening from what a fantastic day of learning we had.  Today in small group guided math instruction we worked on place value.  We looked at different numbers and decided how many groups of tens and how many ones made up that number.  Once students mastered that, we went onto using manipulatives where I would set out groups of tens, and ones and they would quickly write the number down on their whiteboard. If students get the answer correct I quickly point to them and they know they got it right and they should erase their answer. If they didn't, I quietly and quickly say "try again". The awesome thing about guided math is they are working with students at a very similar skill level which allows for each student to feel very comfortable in learning, trying, not being far behind the person next to them.  Students know we can find the answer in different ways but they have to be able to explain in words how they figured out the answer.  They have gotten use to defending their answer whether they are right or wrong. Most of the time if they are wrong, they don't realize it until they start explaining their answer to the group...and during some point in their explanation, we usually hear an..."oh..wait..it's actually.." and they go on to explain the correct answer with a smile on their face.

I had to break for a minute to assist another center today and I asked one of the students to be the teacher, and when I returned I was able to capture these two moments. The first image shows 2 of the students counting the manipulatives without needing to touch them, another student it touch counting the manipulatives to get her number, another student already wrote that there are 4 groups of tens in the tens place, while the other student is starting to write what goes in the ones place. In the second image you will see the student teacher pointing to students to erase because they got the answer right and if you pay attention to the other students' whiteboards, the answers are all correct. Warms my teaching heart!

All guided math groups did a fantastic job and got to learn and practice in Mr. Whit's drawing station as well.