Teacher Toolkit

Top Ten Text

1. Burns, Marilyn. Spaghetti and Meatballs for All! New York: Scholastic Press, 1997.

The book is about a family named the Comfort’s and they are going to have a dinner party and Mrs. Comfort cooks spaghetti and meatballs and arranges the tables for her guests. Her guests have a different idea about the arrangement. It is a book with humor to draw children into thinking about area and perimeter. Of course I would use this book to introduce area and perimeter to the class. It is not a long book, one I could read to the class while they use a basic story map to fill in information.

2. Lobosco, Michael L. Mental Math workout. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 1998.
The book is a collection of techniques for doing mental math. There are over 30 math puzzlers with exercises to test your abilities and give you a mental workout. Many, many math games to play with the class. It is a book that will make math fun for all students because of the games involved.

3. Finding Forrester. Dir. Gus Van Sant. Perf. Sean Connery. 2001.

This movie is about the struggles of a black teen growing up in the Bronx, New York and all he wants to do is get a good education. He is taken in by a reclusive writer, played by Sean Connery, a Pulitzer Prize winning author and taught how to write. Not just write but how to write like a very polished writer. I would use this movie in my class as a motivational movie to teach them that it does not matter where they come from or what their circumstances are growing up they can become a better at whatever they decide to do. I would incorporate some of the strategies that are discussed in the movie into the class. Part of the movie talks about just writing, in other words sit down with a topic and start writing everything that comes to mind and after writing for a few minutes things will start to fall in order.

4. Bruce, Colin. Conned Again, Watson! Cautionary Tales of Logic, Math, and Probability. Basic Books. 2001.

This a book that is made up of short stories based on Sherlock Holmes. It introduces some important concepts and lessons from statistics, probability, logic, and game theory. The lessons include two examples. The first is in the form of a case for Holmes to solve, explain, or illuminate. The other is a structurally identical situation in Watson's life. I would divide the class up in pairs and have them each read a different story and learn what lesson is being taught. They would each have to write up how it is solved and come up with another similar problem for the class to solve.

5. Devlin, Keith. The Numbers Behind Numb3rs: Solving Crime with Mathematics. New York: Penguin Group, 2007

This is a book that goes along with the hit TV program NUMB3RS. It explains real life mathematical techniques used by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to catch and convict criminals. I would use this book in conjunction with the TV show to reinforce the use of math in everyday living. I would try to use the book and TV show every other Friday and write lesson plans based on the TV program, the students would have to take notes and pay attention to what is being said and see if they can solve the crime without the TV show telling them how they solved it.

6. Kaplan, Andrew. Careers For Number Lovers. Brookfield: The Millbrook Press, 1991.

This book is a book about careers and how math is involved in those careers. The book interview 14 different people that work in different careers and they discuss how math is involved in their career. There are also about 12 other careers listed in the book with descriptions of those jobs as well. I would use this book to show students the importance math in the world and everything they do. As far as using this as an assignment, I would have students pick a career and read about it in the book and also have them do internet research to learn even more about the field.

7. Burns, Marilyn. The I Hate Mathematics! Book. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975.

This book is about making math fun, and easier to understand. It's not just boring numbers, equations, and formulas, there are games to play and problems to solve, and math tricks to play on your parents. The title itself peaks the interest of the most challenging in class to read it. I think once they start reading they will not want to put it down. I might pull this book out on days that we take a test and finish early and to make the day a little lighter for the students we would read some of the problems or tricks and give them a try so they could take them home to their parents and show them what they learned at school for the day.

8. Scholastic Math Magazine. Scholastic Inc. 3 June 2010.

This is a kids magazine with different articles that have math involved in what they are talking about. The magazine helps students practice their reading and analytical skills as well as address issues in their academic and personal lives. I would use this magazine to do some lesson planning and base my entire lesson on the magazine.

9. Money. Magazine. Time Direct Ventures. 10 June 2010.

This is a magazine that is filled with articles and issues that include information on increasing the value of your home, financing vacations, planning for retirement, paying taxes, protecting finances, investment strategies for building wealth, refinancing homes, life insurance, and generally making the most of the money that you do have. This magazine covers family matters regarding money, including how to teach children good money-management habits. I would use this magazine to give real world examples. I know that most students can relate to money, there are plenty math examples to use in the magazine. This magazine would also go a long way in increasing the students vocabulary.

10. Lichtman, Wendy. Do The Math: Secrets, Lies, and Alegbra. Greenwillow Books, 2007.

This is a book with a character named Tess and she loves math and uses math to describe everything in her life. It turns into a mystery when someone gets killed. I would use this as a class read, either reading it aloud or having literary circles to read the book. We could discuss the book as a class and I could give assignments for them to read and respond to based on the moral themes in the book.



Top Ten Strategies

1. Flow Chart- A flow chart can be used to summarize the action in a piece of literature or to track the occurrences in a process. I would have students use this when beginning a new concept so they would know which step to do next. (reading comprehension)
2. List-Group- Label – The teacher identifies the broad topic of the text. The teacher leads the students in brainstorming, the class groups related words or subtopics. Students label or categorize groups of words. Following reading, students identify previously identified vocabulary contained in the text and may add new words or categories that were also included in the text. This could be used to broaden the vocabulary of a new concept that has just being taught.(assessment)
3. Venn diagram (mapping) - A Venn diagram consists of overlapping circles. Each circle contains all the elements of a set. Where the circles overlap shows the elements that the set have in common. Generally there are two or three circles. Any more and the exercise becomes very complicated. Venn diagrams are used to compare and contrast groups of things. I would use this in my class when teaching statistics or even teaching how numbers have the same multiples and how they overlap. (assessment)

4. K-N-W-S process of Problem Solving (Reading Comprehension)

Allows students to use word problems to determine what facts the Know (k), what information is Not relevant (N), what the problem Wants them to find out (W), and what Strategy can be used to Solve the problem (S).
The following is an example:


Example of K-N-W-S
Video Heaven rents movies for $3 a piece per night. The store also offers a video club plan. The plan costs $100 per year and allows unlimited rentals at $1 per movie per night plus two free rentals per month. How many movies must you rent in a year to make the video club worthwhile?

K What facts do I KNOW from the information in the problem? $3 to rent 1 movie.
Club plan charges $100/year.
Each movie under the plan costs $1.
There are 2 free movies per month under the plan.

N What information do I NOT need? The video club plan allows an unlimited number of movie rentals.

W What does the problem WANT to find? How many movies must be rented in a year to make joining the club worthwhile?

S What STRATEGY or operations will I use to solve the problem? Make a chart to compare the costs of both regular service and the club plan.
Write an inequality to compare the cost of the regular service to the cost of the club plan.

5. Frayer model concept map (engaging diverse cultures)

This is a graphic organizer where students are asked to provide a definition of the word, facts or characteristics of the word, examples, and non examples. First the student folds a piece of paper so they have 4 rectangles or they can draw out 4 rectangles, then they draw a sphere in the middle of the page, this is where they put a word. For this example Quadrilateral would be the word in the center. A definition of the word in the students words would go in the top left rectangle,facts and characteristics in the top right rectangle, examples in the bottom left and non examples in the bottom right. I would use this when introducing new concepts and new vocabulary.

6.It Says - I Say - and so (struggling Readers)

This is a visual scaffold that helps students organize their thoughts as they move from what is in the text and connecting that to their prior knowledge. This strategy is important for using with struggling readers because they often have problems being able to visualize what is happening in the text. In other words they have problems making inferences. This a chart that they can make.

(a)Question
Read the
Question

(b)It Says
Find information from the text that will help you answer the question.

(c)I Say
Think about what you know about that information.

(d)And So
Combine what the text says with what you know to come up with the answer.

This could be used in math as a way to solve word problems.


7. Double - Entry Journal (struggling Readers)

Students need to fold their paper vertically so that there are 2 columns. The left side should be headed with "key ideas" the right side should include examples or application to the work and be headed "what it means to me". This can be used for note taking or a variety of different reading. I would have my students use this for taking notes when learning a new concept in math.

8. Exit Slips

The exit slip is used to examine what the students understood during class and what they maybe did not understand. Note cards are passed out and the students write a response to a question that the teacher has posed to them at the end of class. They are given to the teacher on the way out the door. I would use them to find out if the class understood what I was teaching and use it to pull students aside if they needed a little extra help understanding something.

9. Writing break (engaging diverse cultures)

This strategy gives students time to reflect on what they have learned or to just get some thoughts down on paper. These usually only last from one minute to five minutes. They can even be used with a prompt to get the students thinking. I would use this along with an occasional paper during class to give the students a break from math. They could write on most any topic and we could go around the room and read some of the papers and discuss them as a class.

10. S.T.A.R Strategy

This is for answering word problems.
(1) S - search the problem
read the problem carefully; ask questions "what facts do I know?" "What do I need to find?"
(2) T - Translate words into equation into picture form
Choose a variable.
Identify the operation
Draw a picture of the problem
Write an equation
(3) A - Answer the problem
(4) R - Review the solution
I would use this strategy to teach students how to solve word problems.