1. All Systems Go: Launching Math in Grades 2-3
August, 2017
Sue Myette, Nona Wright

2. Objectives In this session you will…
Become familiar with resources to support math priorities for the first 3-5 days of school
Plan lesson objectives and activities for your first 3-5 days

3. YouCubed.org: a resource to know about
Point out that many of the activities we are drawing upon come from Jo Boaler’s website YouCubed.org, and specifically her Week of Inspirational Math. Encourage participants to explore the website, when they get a chance, for its wide range of resources to support their students’ math learning and their own professional development.

4. What are your math priorities for the first 3-5 days of school?
Build community
Encourage a growth mindset
Have participants order these priorities from greatest to least, and then share with a partner. It’s OK for participants to add something else, but you’ll need to decide whether to address it or not. Take a pulse of the group to see whether all of these priorities are among their to 3. If not, you might decide to skip one of them.
Cultivate curiosity
Teach routines

5. Building community Ideas Resources Engage in a group mathematical task
Building rope shapes.
Give each group an 8-foot section of rope tied in a loop. Each with at least 1 hand on the rope, kids make various shapes (e.g. rectangle, square, star)
Engage in math tasks that show different ways of thinking
Dot cards. Show for a few seconds. Ask how many dots, and how the students saw the dots. Dot card A Dot card B
Which one doesn’t belong? Have students give rationale for why a shape doesn’t belong with the other 3.
Which one doesn’t belong? A Which one doesn’t belong? B Which one doesn’t belong? C
Collaboratively develop class norms
Sample norms.
Bring several 8-foot ropes to engage participants in building rope shapes. Use the internal links to show one of the Dot cards and/or a Which one doesn’t belong? [Can print samples from the appendix.]

6. Encouraging a growth mindset
Ideas
Resources
Show a math mindset video
Brains grow and change:
Believe in yourself:
Create growth mindset posters
Start by coloring two halves of the brain: B&W fixed, colorful growth:
All of these are external links to YouCubed.org. Try to gauge how familiar the group is with what we mean by growth mindset, and adjust the time you spend here accordingly.

7. Sample growth mindset poster

8. Cultivating curiosity
Ideas
Resources
Explore patterns
Pascal’s triangle: Pascal’s triangle (simple version)
Engage in open ended tasks
3 Block Towers:
How many different towers can you build using one red, one yellow, and one green block? Three block towers
Engage in visual math tasks
Triangle designs:
Triangle designs (simple version)
Note that this includes both internal and external (YouCubed) links. Decide how many of these to shows based on the interest of the group.

9. Teaching routines
What routines might you need when you teach Module 1?
Coming to the carpet; returning to seats
Using personal white boards
Taking out and putting away math books and tools
Turn and talk
Debrief
Sprints ?
Have participants brainstorm additions to list. Reinforce the truth that investing adequate time teaching and reteaching routines is essential before we can teach any content, and will pay off all year long.

10. Planning considerations
Prioritize, and then balance.
Define your outcomes: what will students know, understand, and be able to do?
Decide when to begin teaching Eureka lessons, and which components to start with.
Remember that math is fun!
Provide plenty of time for participants to plan. You might consider creating a sample plan that integrates some of these activities (depending on your priority) along with some Eureka components to teach routines.

12. Appendix: Resources
All or some of these pages can be printed out ahead of time and given as handouts, if desired.

13. Dot card A
Back to Building community

14. Dot card B
Back to Building community

15. Which one doesn’t belong? A
Back to Building community
Source:

16. Which one doesn’t belong? B
Back to Building community
Source:

17. Which one doesn’t belong? C56 45 32 24
Back to Building community
Source:

18. front
Back to Encouraging a Growth Mindset

19. Pascal’s triangle
Find the sum of each row in Pascal’s Triangle. What pattern do you notice?
Shade all of the odd numbers in Pascal’s Triangle. Is there a pattern?
What other patterns can you find? Can you use these to fill numbers for the last 2 rows?
Back to Cultivating curiosity

20. Three block towers
How many different towers can you make with one red, one yellow, and one green block?
How many can you make if you have a blue block as well?
Back to Cultivating curiosity
Source: nrichmaths.org

21. Triangle designs Examples:
What shapes can you make with 4 isosceles triangles?
Each triangle must touch at least 1 other triangle along matching length sides.
No overlaps or gaps.
Non-examples:
Back to Cultivating curiosity