Mathematical Monday! February 3

Hello everyone!  Long time, no see!  

I have been busy taking some "me" time, as well as creating some fun things for my TpT store.  But today I'm linking up with I {heart} Recess for Mathematical Monday!

In math for the past few weeks, the third graders have been working on Input/Output tables.  As an introductory activity, we created Input/Output Monsters!

The two white squares in either corner and the rectangle in the middle are laminated, creating a dry-erase surface that is perfect for practicing input/output!

For example, I told the students the rule was subtract 7, which they wrote in the center.  I also told them the input, which was 49.  They had to use the rule to figure out the output.  

Occasionally, I would give them the output, and they would have to find the input using the rule.  Some of my students even chose to grab their Monster when they had an input/output table, using it as a tool to complete each part of the table.

Here's how we got started:

1)  BEFORE doing the project, we cut out the squares (2.5 inch), and rectangles (4 inch by 2 inch).  Each student will need 2 squares and 1 rectangle.  Then we laminated all of the pieces and cut them out so they were ready to go for the project.

2)  We also cut out some card stock "templates" for the kids to use to trace and cut out a body.  We had circles, squares, and rectangles available for body shapes.  If you prefer, you can have students "freeform" a body shape.

Materials students will need:  

- A 9x12 piece of construction paper for the background

- 2 laminated squares

- 1 laminated rectangle

- assorted construction paper to create head, arms, legs, and body

- scissors and glue

- stapler

The process:

1) Have students cut out their body shape and staple the laminated rectangle to the body.  (Trust me, it is much easier to staple the rectangle to the body first before gluing… I learned this the hard way.)

2)  Staple the squares to the corners of their background paper.

3)  Begin to lay out the body, arms, legs, and head.  I made sure my students had their Monster exactly how they liked it before gluing.  They need to keep in mind that the top square is the IN, and one arm should be pointing up, and the bottom square is the OUT, so one arm should be pointing down.

4)  Once their Monster is cut and created, they can glue it all together.  Check out some of the creative monsters my students made!

Once they are all done, they can use a dry-erase marker on the laminated sections to practice Input/Output tables!  I showed my Monster on the document camera, and had a large blank input/output table on the board to fill in the inputs/outputs as we solved.

It's also a clear way for the visual learners to see that the input + the rule = output.

What have you been learning about in math?

Until next time,

- Miss Woodward