Here's what I learned....
Those mental routines are meant to be pacey (make a mental note -what needs to be worked on at a later date DO NOT worry about it during the MR).

All kids need to have constructive failure. Let them make the mistakes!!!

Should be incorporating 2 problematized situations per week into our maths.

Spend lots of time learning those teen numbers and teach the decade word names. 
So what does this mean...
I need to have those easy peasy, middly piddly and those sting in a tail questions ready to go.

Show answer and move on, do not go off on a tangent- can do that another time!

Give them space to work out problems, try not to jump in too early to rescue them.

Tuesday and Thursday will be set aside for these.

Construction of a word wall.

More incidental chats about number names.

Bigger focus on place value.    
Now, what am I going to do about it.....
Hmm what am I going to do about all this.

Be organised and have that list of questions ready and raring to go for those mental routines.

Embrace those little challenges that the students are facing with those problematized situations and build on those tricky parts they get stuck on. Develop anchor charts to display around the room.

The teaching of number, number, and more number is so important with our little people. It is our job to lay that foundation and we want it to be a sturdy one!!!    
 
I enjoyed the day and have more of an understanding now of what Natural Maths is. I did the counting fractions activity with my kids and I think they understood improper fractions quicker than ever before!!! We are going to do it again tomorrow and play buzz and they are all looking forward to that!
 
Here’s what I learned:

A.        I am a rescuer!!! I hate to see too many big junior primary eyes staring up at me pleading for a clue to begin somewhere!! 

B.        Too often I get caught up in the answers during Mental Routines and that’s why sometimes those golly MR’s seem like they are taking me forever to get through!!

So what’s my interpretation of this learning:

A.        I think as I’ve gone down in the year levels (middle to junior primary) I’ve given my students less time for them to have to “cope” on their own (and I’ve also become a mum during that time too).  I think my “mummy instinct” jumps in.  At home I am remembering to make sure I give my kids enough time and opportunities to learn on their own how to tackle problems (like how to butter their toast) and this is what I have to do with my students at school. 

B.        I need to go back to my Mental Routines being a little bit ugly instead of being the rescuer–I think I am rescuing myself from feeling like I’ve failed if things get a bit too ugly instead of giving the kids an opportunity to learn themselves or through interactions with peers.

Now my action plan to build on this learning is:

A.        I can remember being told on lots of occasions that kids need time to think.  Each Tuesday and Thursday in our class we are going to provide problematized situations for the basis of our maths lessons.  I think this will give the kids opportunities to build on the strategies that we learn through our mental routines, more collaborative learning and I’ll begin to see that not being a rescuer means I’m not hurting anyone either.  We will be learners together.

B.        In our class we have made a word wall – to keep a track of the new language that we’re introducing and to keep reminding me of the language to use.  I am using timers to keep MR short and I will jot notes onto a whiteboard to remind myself for a MINI-lesson and not getting fussed about making an amazing anchor chart, but a useful and student lead/owned anchor chart.

A “quote” that I has played in my mind since our last session: 
I can educate your child for yesterday or educate your child for tomorrow.  If I educate your child for yesterday, they will not get a job.

 
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Session 2 reading
(pgs 21-26 up to tools subheading)
Teaching and Learning Mathematics with understanding
Carpenter and Lehrer

Our 3rd session occurs in late October- check back later.
 
At PD yesterday with Ann Baker, we were treated to a modelled problematised lesson with a JP class.
Ann mentioned Dylan Wiliam being emphatic about kids not getting enough thinking time and commented on the culture we have of relationship rescue. As learners we need to have opportunities where we struggle for learning and this does not occur when we are rescued. This meant that for a room full of teachers we had to restrain from putting on super hero capes and rescuing students in the class, we watched many of them stare blankly at their page. But we also noticed them looking at others and listening to others. During this time they had opportunities to think, take risks, learn from mistakes, be responsible learners and be in the struggle of learning. Some kids copied from the board, but they were still engaged and working out a way into this proble . Importantly the task and pedagogy allowed multi entry points and encouraged students to be a community of learners. 
The role of the todays teacher is to approach learning maths with a task that goes beyond fluency.We also need to work diagnostically so learning intervention,  the what next of learning and assessment/reporting processes are effective and accurate.
At the last regional leaders day the TfEL team facilitated learning for leaders around the executive functions of the brain, intellectual stretch / increasing cognitive demands of learners.
Dan Myer is a mathematician who increases cognitive demand in maths lessons through irresistible questions, conversations, multimedia, wrong answer safety and thinking made visible by participants.
He has a project called 101 questions, there are many resources and support questions for bringing  problematised type situations into classrooms that enable students to stretch their cognitive demand and work beyond fluency. A great feature about this site is that it allows you to search for keywords or year levels. I love Charlies Gumballs when I did a year 2 search and I wanted to engage in the mathematical thinking and possibilities.





The clip alongside is Ann discussing and modelling a problematised situation with a 6/7 class.

Thank you to the DECD Digital Learning and Communications team for creating this video to support SA teachers.



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R/1 class

Ann hooked the students with a story about her neighbour Kai who had just turned 7 and got a bug catcher for his birthday.
Kai caught 4 ants, 5 spiders and  6 caterpillars.
The students were challenged to find out how many bugs altogether and how many legs altogether.
They also had to show their thinking on the page.
(the answer wasn't the key intention of this lesson)
A goal Ann sets is to interview and annotate a few students work and while doing this I observed her using the secret code language (double, count on)
She gave prompts to students like could you count them differently, to be quicker? and then scaffolded learning by counting by 2s.
Anecdotal notes need to focus on what the student can do.
Sally can count with 1 to 1 correspondence beyond 20, she could also record numerals 0-9 accurately.When prompted Sally Sally counted by 2s up to 8.With scaffolding she .......
The language,processes and diagnostic focus were also embedded into the whole class reflection at the end.
My 2 words to capture the lesson for students could be thinking and learning.
My 2 words to capture the lesson for the teacher are questioning and diagnostics.


 
Tania McFee began her Natural Maths journey last year with some Ann Baker PD. She began working with the 4/5 class last year and now has the 6/7 students. Tania has not only engaged herself but has supported staff and other students. Each week the 2/3 class visit with their teacher to work on Natural Maths. I was fortunate today to be a part of this and have many pics, audio clips and more to share. There were many highlights including seeing interpersonal skills in action, a range of maths strategies in action with all the language that goes with it (equal, split, chunk, rainbow fact, friendly numbers, open number line). The room was full of engaged learners, the thinking was made visible on boards , books and with metalanguage. The reflection at the end was like icing on a cake !
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The students are using the star model to support their learning.

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The reflection was rigorous and again highlighted differentiation. 3 students were asked to share how they got the answer.The class were asked if they used a similar strategy but different pathway, if they would change their strategy and again dialogue was promoted for learning. I took 20 minutes of audio during the reflection and will create a word cloud  to add to this post, so you can see the use of and evidence of language and learning for the students and their teacher.


 
5_problem_of_the_day.pdf
File Size: 413 kb
File Type: pdf
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Thank you to the Jervois staff who lead the learning and sharing tonight. It was a great opportunity for you to share your Natural Maths journey which began last year for all of you in different ways. I will be at Jervois again next Monday capturing some more of the work in Natural Maths to share with the cluster and beyond via this blog.

 
 
Here's what 
What I learned
by the end of reception the minimum expectations of children are :

·      to count on 
·      subitise 
·      count back
·      double

and
by the end of year one:
·      all of the above 
·      turn around
·      friendly numbers
       rainbow facts 
So What
My interpretation of this learning
We need to focus on learning this secret code inside out and back to front!!!!!

It is our responsibility to get the balls in motion!!!!!!  

All children should have automaticity of all number facts by the end of year 2.    

Now what?
My action plan to build on this new learning
Immediate action plan-

·      include a mental routine and reflection into all maths lessons

·      spend the rest of the term learning the secret code

·      make a maths wall