Number Sense Game & a discount

Don't you just love coming home to a box by your front door? Today I received my order from MPM School Supplies.

I was pleased with the variety of items that are available on this site! I got EXACTLY what I needed and couldn't find at the stores near us. The website was easy to navigate and the order came quickly. I highly suggest you check them out.  The first 25 readers of my blog can click {here} to get 15% off their purchase.

So what did I get?
1. Hundreds Pocket Chart (I saw some great activities with this at my math training.)
2. Ladybug 2-sided (I have this already in my door window but mine is faded so I needed a new one.)
3. 10 sided dice. I have been looking for these and the kids will LOVE that they are die in die!
4. Transparent counters (to use on 100 chart activities)

Do you have a hundred pocket chart?
Part of my math training last week was provided by outside speakers from the Silicon Valley Math Initiative.  They suggested that you change it to a 0 to 99 chart which was very interesting. If you think about it, that makes a lot more sense. Not only are all the tens digits on the same row (rather than the 30 last in the row of all the 20's) but I think it reinforces place value better. At the end of the row you have to make a move to the next row, just like you have to bundle that tenth straw and move it over to the tens pocket.

 One of the activities that they shared was a game called Build it Fast using the 0 to 99 pocket chart.
We went to a summer school class of 1st graders and they fish-bowled the game for us.

First, she passed out all the number cards to the class and they put them in order, least to greatest, on the rug in front of them. This in itself was an interesting assessment since it became clear who was unable to do it. She went around, helping those that needed it.

Next, the teacher explained to the students that during the game they would use a technique called Silent Star. When she made a star on the whiteboard, no one (not even the teacher) could talk. She then wrote their starting time on the white board.

She placed the 99 in the bottom right pocket and motioned to the 98 spot. When a student raised the card she motioned for her to come put it in the chart. The students were encouraged to go up on their own and put their card in when they saw where it went. When the teacher noticed a student holding two cards because they were only one apart from each other, she silently encouraged her to put both of them in at once, leaving the appropriate space.

If someone put a card in the wrong spot, the teacher did not correct them but waited for another student to notice the mistake and fix it when they went to put their cards in. It was

This was an awesome way to assess. You could see who totally got it, fixing others mistakes, using the ones place in a lower row (off-decade ten) to determine the correct spot for their card, and who needed to be prodded by their neighbor because they had no idea they should be up there.

It took this class 14 minutes but the teacher said after you play a few times they get it down to about 5 minutes. I thought this was a terrific number sense activity and I hope you do too!