Math Journals

On Thursday, I will be sending home all of the students' things.  They will each get a large bag of classroom treasures.  Then, on Friday, students don't need to bring anything to school for graduation.  Amongst the treasures, the children are each bringing home their math journals.  We have been using the math journals all year long.  In the journals, I give the students different problems that they have to apply skills from our kindergarten standards in order to solve.  The students not only write the answer to the problem but they also show their thinking on the page.

In the two above examples, the children used pictures to solve and explain the math problems.  On the left, this kindergartner showed mastery of the kindergarten objective to be able to decompose numbers into pairs in more than one way.  On the left, it is obvious that the mathematician can effectively solve and represent subtraction word problems.

Here are two entries that show different strategies for solving problems.  The child on the left used the strategy of counting on to solve an addition problem.  On the right, the child used her fingers to help her subtract.  

The great mathematically thinking continues.  On the left, this student explained that she knew what 6+5 was because she knew the doubles fact 5+5=10.  On the right, the student showed that she used resources in the classroom to solve 10-7.  Because of the ten fact rainbow, she knew that 3 and 7 go together to make 10.

After the students solve the problems independently in the journals, we meet together to discuss the different strategies for solving problems.  The students celebrate all the different ways they can arrive at the same answer and learn from each other.  The above entry shows a mathematician that had been paying attention during math discussions!  In one entry, she shows four different ways to explain the same problem. 

Please take some time to look through your child's math journal and discuss his/her thinking!