Time measurement

Hello!

How are you doing today? I hope you are all great. 

In this post I want to talk about a topic that I really like, and I think is pretty interesting. As always in this blog, related to measurement in Primary Education.

When we hear the word measurement, I am sure that what come our minds is to measure length, weight… But what about measuring time? It is also very important to teach our students about it, and I feel that sometimes it is a bit forgotten, or we give it less importance than what it really has.

Measuring time can be a fun and interesting thing to learn when you are child, and there are hundreds of different activities that I love! I am going to give you two ideas that I have seen during the internships I have already done at schools and that were so successful.

1. Create your own clocks! You just need a paper plate, some cardboard and colors, it is really fun. Once you have created it, play with a partner to guess the time he or she put in his/her clock.

2. Time bingo! For this activity the teacher just needs to print one board for each student in the class. You can play all together at the same time, and see who are the first three winners!

Finally, here you have a video where the basic concepts about time measurement are explained in a clear and simple way!

Any idea or comment is welcomed!

Thanks for reading!

The last banana

Hey there!

Today's post is a bit different from what I usually do, but I believe you will love it!

I am sure you know about TED talks, and you would have seen at least one (if not,you should, I am a big fan of them, just in case you had not realised). 

So, today I was watching some of these talks and I found this video, that is related to the content of this blog, so I thought I should share it with you. 

"Imagine a dice game, if the highest number that appears is one, two, three or four, player one wins. But, if the highest number appeared is five or six, then, player two wins". Do you think you know the solution? Then, you might watch the video and understand how probability works in this situation. 

I think we should provide our students with resources of this kind, as we need to make them think, use their brains! If we just use the textbooks and do the exercises that we find there, we are not helping them to develop their minds, or as I like to say it, to train their brains.

Thanks for reading!

Measure me

Hello!!

How are you doing today?

Today I wanted to share with you an idea for starting to use some measurement units with kids from the first course of Primary Education.

It is an activity that I could put in practice when I was doing my first internship in a school, and it was a total success (I hope you love it too!). I called it "My first numbers".

The aim of the activity was to make a card with each student information that we will use as a part of the class decoration.

So, the first thing we did was to collect the information. The kids had to ask their parents some questions: Which was my weight when I was born? Which was my height? When did I start saying the first words? When did I get my first teeth? Once they did this, we measured each student’s height and weight in the class. With all this information, they could now start filling their own cards. Once they wrote it, they pasted a picture of them when they were babies on it.

With all the cards created, the students could compare the differences between their numbers when they were newborns and their information now, and they really loved it! It was also a great idea to place all these cards around the class, it was fun!

Furthermore, if you make it a bit more complex, introducing more information, you can use it with higher level students.

Share pictures with us if you bring it to your classes!

Thanks for reading!

Playing cards

Hello everybody!

Probability is a numerical description of how likely an event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. And this is another topic related to measurement that you will have to work with students from the last two years of RPimary Education. 

As with statistics, I believe probability is an easy content to bring to a reality that promotes interest among the students, and today I am going to show you an example. 

As probability is really present when playing cards, in this case, I suggest you use the famous Spanish deck. 

A Spanish deck is formed by 40 cards (some with 48), and it has four suits: coins, cups, swords and batons. Furthermore, there are ten different kind of cards on each suit: ace, two, three, four, five, six, seven, jack, horse and king. Here I sahre with you a picture that will help you clarify this idea. 

Now, the existing games to play with these cards are boundless, but there is something in common among all of them: the probability plays a really important role.

I am sure your students will know different games with this deck. You can use any of them to make them solve some mathematical problems on probability (at the same time they are playing), such as: What is the probability to take a gold card if you are playing with other three people? And to take a jack? And to take a card with more that three  swords?

As I always say, please share pictures with the blog if you use this idea with your class, or leave any doubt, idea or whatever you need on the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Tangrams

Good morning!

What do you think about learning through games? I think it is the best way to learn anything 😉

The tangram is a really old game with a Chinese origin. It is formed by seven flat pieces of different sizes and shapes, that are: one small square, one small rhomboid and five triangles, and all of them together make a big square. It is basically a jigsaw puzzle and consists in forming silhouettes with all the pieces.

Using the tangram with young children provides lots of benefits, such as the improvement of the attention, the creativity, the visual memory, the logical-mathematical intelligence the encouragement of orientation and spatial structuring…

Regarding the main topic of this blog, that is measurement, children can learn a lot about it through the use of the tangram. And how? Well, you can use the tangram to teach your students to differentiate the perimeter and the area, they can calculate it form the figures that form the tangram or from figures they create using their imagination…

Another interesting activity could be to create your own tangrams, and then play with them.

Just let your (and your students’) imagination play! You will love it.

Thanks for reading!

Every kid needs a champion

Good evening!

How are you all doing today?

Today I am not going to talk specifically about maths, but I wanted to share with you an idea that I consider crucial for any teacher of any stage (primary education, secondary education, university...).

I think, when we (as teachers) think about how to teach, what to teach, prepare our classes... we just think about the contents. As if we were teaching robots without feelings, that could not have a bad day, or week, or a difficult situation at home... Teaching is much more than just prepare a good class with excelent activities and explanations. Teaching is about relationships and feelings with your students. Why nobody teach future teachers about this at the universityt? I think it is the most important part of our job. If we are not able to connect with each of our students, to understand them, to know how they feel and what they need... we will never reach a good teaching. 

I really recommend you to watch this video and see what I am talking about. It does not matter what you teach, or the age of your students, every teacher should now about what this women talks about. 

I hope you enjoy it and learn as much as I did, and please leave any suggestions or opinion in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

Statistics in our day to day life

Halo!!!

How is everybody doing today?

Today I am going to talk about statistics. The truth that it when I was a child (and still today), I love maths, but statistics was one of my favourite’s parts of the maths contents when I was at school. And I think that the main reason of this is because it was the only thing that my teacher explained us related to our reality. I mean, I believe children are much more interested about anything that they learn at the school and they feel that they can use in their day to day life. And why? Well, it is totally comprehensible. It Is boring and demotivating to learn something just to do exercises and exams at the school.

So, here with statistics you have a great content to teach to your students close to their life.

And how? Well, it is so simple. You just need to design activities o problems where they have to collect the data they need to solve them or that talk about things they are interested in.

Here I am going to give you two examples of problems where, before solving them, the students need to recollect the data needed.

1. Create a bar graph where you show the four seasons and the number of students of the class that there born on each one.

2. Create a graphic where you show the 12 months of the year and how many children of the school where born on each one.

You can also find already created activities on the internet that your students could like. And I would also like to recommend you an app that you can use in the class or show your students how to use at home and that is really useful and helpful for them: Calculator of Statistics.

Thanks for reading!

Decorate your schools with measurement units

Hello!

I hope you are all great!

Today I bring you an idea that I think you will love!

It is a well-known fact among teachers that children love to do anything that involves something different than what they are used to (they love breaking the routine) and that is something so easy to do! We (teachers) just need to get out of our comfort zones, think a bit, and we can create great activities that will motivate our students much mor than just openning the textbooks and do some exercises.

So today I am going to tell you about a great activity to work the measurement units with your students!

When explaining to your students the “jump” between two measurement units (length, capacity or mass), I think that compering it to some stairs, is a great idea. So, for example, when you are going from kilograms to grams, you have to divide between 10 for each step you go up, and if you are doing the opposite, you might multiply for 10 for each step.

Once your students have understood this, you can bring it to the real word! Is it a better way to make your students understand something than bringing it to their world, letting them manipulate it?

Here I have posted a picture in which you can see an example of the stairs made by students in a school and how they play with them.

When you have created the stairs, you can play with them and practice with your students to change from one unit to another.

I hope I have given you an useful idea that you will use in your future classes (when we go back to school after this quarantine) and of course, if you have any comment, any other idea or any picture once you bring this into practice, share it with us!

Thanks for reading!

Homeschooling

Hi!

How are you all? I hope you are keeping yourselves physically and mentally healthy.

As you all might now, the situation we are living is forcing all the teachers around Spain to carry on with their courses from home, so now every teacher is doing what is also called Home-schooling with his/her students.

This is a new situation for all of us, and we are not prepared for it, so we are just doing the best that we can.

Today I wanted to share with you some ideas that are being helpful for some Primary Education teachers that I know, so you can also take advantage from them.

First of all, here you have some Spanish apps that are sharing their premium contents for free (because of the current situation) to ensure that children can learn from home. Isn’t that great?

Academons Primaria: this Homeschooling App is offering for 30 days free access to all its games’ catalogue for Maths, Language, English and Science.

http://bit.ly/Academons_Gratis

Ta-tum: free Access until July to its reading encouragement platform.

http://bit.ly/Edelvives_Tatum

Smartick: 15 days free access to revise math’s contents.

http://bit.ly/Smartick_15

Genially: this platform is sharing for free its premium templates and resources for limited time.

http://bit.ly/Genially

AMCO: free Access to the Spanish and Maths games of its App Eduzland.

https://amconews.es/eduzland/

 Smile and learn: ou have one month of free interactive games.

http://bit.ly/smile_learn

Cerebriti Edu: more than 50.000 Primary and Secondary education games until June.

http://bit.ly/Cerebriti_Edu

*The ones in blue include maths contents!

I would also like to share with you that RTVE has started up some educative channels for Primary Education students and they are so interesting! From 9am till 12am every morning, on Clan TV, the classes are for students from six until twelve years old!

Last but not least, I believe it is a great idea to encourage your students to write a diary with everything they are living these days, as it is a strange situation for all of us.

Of course, as I always say, if you have any other idea that you think is good, share it with me in the comments and I will be so thankful!

Thanks for reading!

Sing stars

Hey there!

How are you doing today? I hope you and your families are all safe at home! We are living such an awful situation but if we all collaborate, it might end up soon!

Today I would like to share with you a resource that I believe that works with any subject, any class, any age… And this resource is: using SONGS!

Yes, all children love singing, well and adults too. Furthermore, songs make it easier to memorise things, so just choose songs that are appropriate to your students’ age and the subject you want to work with them and… let the sing stars you have inside come up!

As I have already told you, this blog is dedicated to the subject of maths, and more concretely, to measurement. I do not think that maths teachers use songs in their classes, or at least I have not seen it (they are more popular in subjects such as English, Natural science…). So today I am going to show you some songs that I find great to use in this class (although you can find lots of them on the internet, these are my favourites ones).

Any child enjoys learning by singing, it makes it easier to memorise things, improve their imagination, provides a significant learning… And many other advantages! So, I really recommend you play them in one of your classes and tell me about your experience!

And of course if you have a great song, just share it with us in the blog please!!!

Thanks for reading!

Welcome!

Hi everyone!

First of all, I would like to introduce myself. 

My name is Ángela Romero Montanary, and I am 21 years old. I am from Melilla but right now I am living in Málaga because I am studying the bilingual Primary Education degree at the University here, also known as UMA. Actually, this is my fourth and last year 😊. I am doing my specialization in English.

I have created this blog for the subject "Didáctica de la Medida", and I will be posting here things related to this main topic. You will not see theoretical information about measure, but different ways to apply it at the classroom, interesting news about maths... Let's see the ideas that comes to my mind!

I have always loved maths, since I studied them at school, and I think they are one of the most important subjects that we have, so, as a future teacher, I would love to be able to make my stuents love them! 

Please feel free to leave any comment, suggestion, idea... They are all welcome!

Thanks for reading!