Who wants to talk about Rekenreks?!

If you’re like us, you’re obviously jumping up and down right now yelling “I do! I do!” This is a completely reasonable response because, if you teach math, they’re just plain awesome (hence why I’m blogging about them on a Saturday night). Rekenreks, also known as arithmetic racks, act as a visual scaffold to support number sense within 5, 10, and 20. There are two rows of beads - 10 on top and 10 on bottom. Each group of ten is comprised of 5 red beads and 5 white beads, and looks like this:

We have found the rekenrek to be an invaluable tool for supporting flexible addition and subtraction strategies by visually showing students the structure of numbers to 20 in reference to fives and tens. As always, the more hands-on we can make math for our kids, the more it will mean for them conceptually! With my first graders I usually start with some basic addition skills; for example, if I slid over 7 beads from the top row and quickly “flashed” them to my students, they could quickly recognize the 7 as 5+2 (5 red and 2 white). If I slid over 6 on the top and 7 on the bottom, and again flashed it to my students,  they would quickly see the 10 red beads and 3 white beads to make 13. Another student might look at the same set of 6 and 7 and see the doubles of 6+6, with one extra on the bottom to also make 13. This may be the simplest use of the tool but there are many, many more! I found a great, free (46 page) resource online full of instructional ideas from The Math Learning Center - check it out here!

When I am working with a small group of students, the most popular activity is something I like to call Number Detective. For this activity I start by building a number on my rekenrek by pushing the beads to the left without showing the group. I then tell my students the number I have built (pictured below, I built 6!).

The students then built the same number on their rekenrek (pictured below, the student to my right built 5+1).

They take turns showing me their rekenrek and asking, “did you build six with five and one?” etc. In this case, I said “no, try again!” Sidenote - I’m usually extremely competitive but have learned to take it easy when working with first graders. The students kept building six in a variety of ways (4+2, 3+3) until someone’s rekenrek matched mine! It’s a fun game and the kids love being the person to build the number, then having their classmates be the detectives - but more importantly, it promotes flexible addition strategies and number partitions! After all, that’s what every kid dreams about at night, right?


Your rekenrek loving interventionist,
Brittany

100 Charts... Improved!

I know the 100th day of school is approaching and that is very exciting, but it’s also a great time to bring up an issue I have:

I have beef with 100 charts. I know, pick your battles right? Well I am choosing this one. 

At one point during one of my extensive training regarding mathmatics there was a brief conversation about how 100 charts would be better written if they started at 0. I wrapped my brain around the idea rather quickly because it really did make sense to me. Typically I am not a proponent of change, but this one was something I could really get behind. After working with struggling math learners the last year and a half I can definitely attest that our “typical” 100 chart is confusing for students who already find the subject confusing to begin with. I am constantly striving to help my students discover the relationships between numbers and be able to make sense out of the patterns, but a lot of this goes out the window when you look at 100 chart and the number 20 and 25 are on two completely separate lines.

It’s such a simple fix, but it just hasn’t been made. All we have to do is regard zero as a number - and it is! But who am I to have an opinion on how every 100 chart has been made in the history of all 100 charts, right?! For the sake of my intervention students it was time to take control of the issue and do what every teacher does: I printed off something someone else created! :) Brittany, my colleague, to be exact. We(she) had been creating the 100 charts for our packets to go to 109 and beyond just to be able to line numbers up like I mentioned above. Within a day I saw a difference with one of my students - it was remarkable! Here’s a photo of the finished product:

My coloring skills are lackluster, but printing in colored ink is something to be avoided at all costs :)

To celebrate this 100 chart that I do NOT have issues with here is a list of ideas of how to use a 100 chart as a teaching tool:

*Connect number identification to number sequence: Have a student find a number and start counting! It’s a simple, yet great review for our Kinders and Firsties.
*Use the 100 charts to notice all of the really great relationships numbers offer:
How numbers change into new decades after a “9” number.
How after every decade number the next number is a “1.”
Counting backwards the number before every decade number has a “9” in it.
The columns all have the same digit in the ones place.
Everything follows a pattern - even how it sounds! Except those tricky teens :)
*Find a colored chip and cover up a number, or two, or three, or an entire row! Point out the counter that you want the child to identify.
*Use a 100 chart to help adding by 10s - Remember to start at numbers other than zero, too!
*Grab a blank one hundred chart and throw it in a sheet protector, write in one column or row and have students identify blank spaces by using the numbers provided to figure it out. 

Thanks for reading my vent session :) If you're in love with this type of 100 chart like we are snag this freebie on our TPT site!

-Lindsey