Ep 41: How to Plan a Building Thinking Classroom Style Math Task

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I think one of the hardest things about building thinking classrooms is coming up with tasks

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for your kids to do, because before you know it, it's back to a session and you're like,

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oh my gosh, what task am I going to do?

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So I'm going to walk you through today kind of how I think of tasks if I'm wanting to

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spice it up a little bit.

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Do you need a fancy task?

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Of course not.

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The goal is that your students will engage in any task, but sometimes, sometimes you

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just want a little spice, you know, you want to add something extra.

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So I'm going to walk you through how I think about tasks.

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Hello and welcome to Making Number Sense Make Sense, a podcast for elementary teachers,

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specifically early elementary teachers, looking to really make an impact in the number sense

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of their students.

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I'm going to walk you through a second grade example, and this is for a curricular task,

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not necessarily a non-curricular task.

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My go-to for a non-curricular task is usually a puzzle type task or something like that,

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that'll kind of keep them interested.

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And I find kids have a lot more stamina naturally with puzzles than some random word problems.

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So puzzles are definitely met number puzzles, math puzzles are my go-to for a non-curricular

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task.

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But I'm talking today specifically about curricular tasks.

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So the first thing I like to do is think about, all right, what are we even learning about

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right now?

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What is the connection?

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It also depends on if it's at the beginning of a new unit, in the middle, or at the end.

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So for this example, I'm going to do a second grade task about adding two digit numbers,

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up to four different two digit numbers.

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So for right now, I'm thinking of the standard, which is the number operations in base 10

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standard B6, which is add up to four two digit numbers using strategies based on place value

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and properties of operations.

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So if I have my standard in mind, I think about what is a real life scenario or a scenario

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I could make up, like if I want it to be in a theme, so maybe it's a space theme or something

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else they'll like or real world scenario where they might have to do that.

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So a simple one for adding two digit numbers might be they are at a grocery store.

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So in this scenario, this task, our background is that we are working at a grocery store

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and our register is broken.

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So we're going to have to figure out how much all of our customers owe based on what they're

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purchasing.

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So from there, I would think of, I guess technically it's a money task, but we're doing second

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grade, we're dealing with whole numbers here, we're not really working with decimals at

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all.

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So I would think, okay, this is scenario, there's lots of different people who are coming

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through, there would be lots of different quote unquote customers.

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So the addition of new customers might be my thin slicing for this task.

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So from there, I would have to think about if I wanted to do a price list, like this

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is the list of all of the items and customer A bought these items, customer B bought these

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items and then it would be the kid's job to figure out how much money each customer owes

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as they go to check out.

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So let's say that you did a price list, just like a master price list for you to be able

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to check and then the students would have each person's quote unquote order or purchase.

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So it might be customer A wants something that's worth this much, something that's worth

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this much and something that's worth this much.

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So maybe we start with three two digit numbers or two two digit numbers and you can be thoughtful

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about the numbers that you're choosing to put on each receipt.

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So it might be starting with simple numbers that you know, and intends and then as they

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get a new receipt or a new customer, then the numbers might start to get more tricky

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and you can consider numbers that would highlight whatever strategy you want the kids to be

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working on.

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So maybe your strategy is decomposing.

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So you would have numbers that are easily decomposable.

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Maybe your strategy is going to the nearest 10.

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So you would make sure that all of your double digit numbers, all the numbers in the ones

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place that you're choosing might conveniently end up making a 10 so that they can get a

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nice whole friendly number.

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And then from there, as they get better at it, as they move through these quote unquote

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receipts, the numbers start to get trickier.

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You might have more numbers, you might have numbers that don't end perfectly in a zero

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or a five.

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So they can start to pull out different strategies for these addition tasks.

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This is something that you could do on your boards.

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They could easily translate into a center or a station.

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If you have a master price list and you might have a spinner with, I don't know, eight customers

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on it.

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So you would have your students spin customer one, customer two, customer three, however

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many there are, and then say that they spun three customers, they would get what those

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three customers bought or the three items that this one customer bought, write down

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what their purchase was, and then they can add them together like that.

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So kind of moving that from the board to a center if you wanted them to keep practicing

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if it is something that they liked.

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So that's just kind of an example.

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I think through what is it that we're trying to learn here?

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What stage are they in the development of this skill?

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And how can I make it the most accessible I can while still keeping it close to or at

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the grade level content?

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Like what is our low floor?

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What is our entry point that kids would be able to do?

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And then from there enable them to feel confident in the strategies that they're using that

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they can keep going that they'll want to keep going.

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And then from there it leads to really rich discussions about what students were doing,

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what was working, what wasn't working for them.

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And then hopefully, right, the goal is that they'll take those strategies and apply them

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to the next situation that might not be so fancy.

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Maybe the next time you do a task like that, it's not a scenario.

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It's not, you know, being a cashier at the grocery store.

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Maybe you just give them bare numbers and then it's like these three bare numbers, these

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three bare numbers, but they'll have the experience of putting it in context so they won't need

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context for the next time you do problems like that.

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If you have a formula that works, you can make it work for any strategy.

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You can make it work for any theme.

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So if Halloween rolls around, this is completely out of date right now because when I'm recording

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this it's May.

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But if you wanted to, you could be like, okay, how can I make do the same thing but Halloween

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theme?

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How can I do the same thing but Thanksgiving theme?

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How can I do the same thing?

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But my kids are really into space right now.

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So I want to make this whole scenario a space scenario.

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So just peaking their interest, giving them a little something different so that when

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you don't have a quote unquote fancier task, it's not that fancy, but a fancier task, they'll

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still be able to engage just as well as they did for the other tasks.

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Tasks, like I said, don't have to be fantastical.

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So the example I gave was a grocery store.

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Another one that I've done in the past was a Halloween theme, which is why it came to

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my head, a Halloween theme, where we had all of these spiders in a haunted house that escaped.

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And if these spiders escaped, how many legs escaped the haunted house.

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And the inspiration for that came from a free task that you can find in the show notes.

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It's called escaping ants.

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We were learning about ants, the county delivered ants to us.

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So we had this ant farm, we were learning all about the ants.

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I did not let the students touch the ant farm in these certain little place.

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They had these little tubes that went from one part of the ant farm to another.

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I let they did not let them touch it because those things popped out easy.

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And we're not trying to have ants all over the classroom.

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But one of the specials that we had was in the classroom.

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So to get my own stuff done, I left the classroom for that hour.

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So it was my assistant and the actual teacher were in my classroom giving this lesson.

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And then I come back later, didn't think anything of it.

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And I'm teaching and then I see one of these amps, one of these ants from the ant farm,

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just crawling around the classroom.

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And I was like, how did this ant get out?

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And I know it was one of those ants because it was huge.

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So the normal ants you'd see are the teeny tiny black ones where I live.

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And these were these giant ants that bite their mandibles are sharp.

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I was like, how did that ant get there?

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And I was like, maybe maybe it's just a fluke.

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Maybe that didn't actually happen.

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Then I see another one.

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So I go to check the ant farm.

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And one of my students had sneaked over to where the ant farm is.

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And I wasn't in the room and touched the little tube part and the ants were escaping.

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And I am not a bug person anyway.

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So I was like, oh my gosh, there's ants all over my classroom.

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I was like, whoo, oh no, what am I going to do about this?

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But that ended up being the inspiration for the escaping ants task.

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It's like if this many ants escaped, how many legs escaped the classroom?

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And that was a fun task for my kids to do because we were learning about ants.

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So they're like, oh, ha ha ha, the ants escaped.

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Little did they know the ants actually escaped my classroom.

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Even though my kids were five in kindergarten, they came up with some amazing strategies.

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So some of my students were just drawing the ants with the little legs on and counting

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all of the ants.

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Then some students kind of didn't need to draw it.

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They knew that there were six.

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So they would either represent groups of six on their whiteboard or they got groups of

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six manipulatives that they were using to show how many and counted them all.

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Some students, keep in mind they're in kindergarten, figured out on their own how to draw an array.

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So they had little dots in an array representing it and skip counted it that way.

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And I was looking at them and I was like, you guys are so smart.

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Are you kidding me?

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Because organizing things in arrays is a second grade skill.

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Guys, kids are in kindergarten.

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And for my thin slicing, I was like, you guys have a strategy that works.

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What if six ants escaped?

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What if eight ants escaped?

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What if 12 ants escaped?

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And they were able to use that repeated addition strategy for larger and larger numbers.

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So it was really interesting to see, like, if a problem makes sense, they can think about

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it logically and figure out a solution to that problem.

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So those are things I would have you keep in mind.

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Like, maybe it's a fun scenario that they'll enjoy that's really fantastical, but still

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is rooted in reality.

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Like what is actually happening here that they can figure out, tease out, and they'll

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be able to come up with their own solutions to solve these problems.

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If you have any other questions, please feel free to let me know.

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And I'll have this whole task written out so that you can see it in the blog post link

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down below.

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And until then, I will catch you next time.