Throwback Thursday (and my giveaway!)

Before I launch into my Throwback post about math talk and math journals, just a reminder that I'm running a small little giveaway with two great prizes! My 3 new decor items and a $25 gift certificate to get some additional back to school goodies on TpT! :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway 

I spent most of my morning on Pinterest getting some pins organized and planning for the next school year and I've been thinking a lot about math journals. I (heart) math journals! I use my prompts daily with my math groups during my math daily 5. This year, I stuck with the daily 5 format for my math workshop year long, and one station was the "Writing About Math" station, in which my firsties used their math journals to answer journal prompts. Last year, I wrote a little blog post about math journals and math talk, and it's been repinned lots of times on Pinterest, so I'm using that as my "Throwback Thursday" post today! Also, I created a fun little freebie for math talk to glue into the inside cover of their math journals (I use a spiral bound notebook). I plan to print this at a slightly smaller scale so it glues in and fits nicely. It's below if you want to snag it for your own students! :)
Math Talk Menu

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013

I Heart Math Journals! (a quick little giveaway)

I have seen the light. I never did math journals before when I taught K or 2. This is a recent adventure for me, and I am SO happy I started them! I just got through 18/19 of my parent conferences, so excuse the quick post.

I am writing about math journals for 2 reasons: first, because I just had conferences and I was able to use my math journals to show student work, growth, and areas for improvement. We do math journals at least twice a week for morning work, and it is always a choice at the math daily 5. Journal prompts range from story problems to missing part problems, how many of each? problems to true/false problems. My kiddos have gotten so good at showing what they know! The thing I love the MOST is the sharing aspect of journals- everyday, my kids share what they wrote and how they solved it. I have my kiddos in pairs, we created a poster on math talk, and we are on a roll!

The second reason I'm writing is to show my April/May journal prompts that I just posted to TpT, and I would love to give 2 copies away tonight! The first two comments get these prompts free! :)

If you want to check them out on TpT, click the pic!