Smartboard Lessons - Rekenreks for Building Math Number Sense K-1

Here is the next set of Smart board lessons created from:  “Number Talks Helping Children Build Mental Math and Computation Strategies. These lessons include an increasingly popular visual math model, called the “Rekenrek”. 

The Rekenrek is a math rack that provides a visual model to help develop strategic reasoning. It is a powerful manipulative model for young learners. The Rekenrek (developed by mathematics education researchers in the Netherlands) combines the strengths of other manipulatives (e.g., number lines, base-10 blocks, counters, etc.) in one easy to use tool. 

The 30+ daily rekenrek lessons provide multiple opportunities for your students to work with and visualize numbers in a variety of combinations. A work mat has been included in the Smart board attachments for classrooms that do not have actual rekenreks for students to use. Also, at the end of each document is a link to an online supplier of this math tool that I used to purchase my own class set of rekenreks.

All Smart board lessons provide a lesson plan to facilitate direct instruction and follow-up activities, as well as supporting website resources, and activities links in the resource section. In the resource section, you will find links your students can use in the computer lab for follow-up practice.

The next set of lessons that I will upload for you will focus on using Tens-Frames to help children build their visual and mental math skills. Feel free to request more information or send questions. I would be happy to respond.  For anyone who is unable to open Smart Board documents, I will be creating these in power point as soon as I have completed the Smart Board Lessons.

Rekenrek for 3 

Rekenrek for 4

Rekenrek for 5

Rekenrek for 6

Rekenrek for 7

Rekenrek for 8

Rekenrek for 9

Rekenrek for 10

Here is an additional source that can be downloaded as a pdf document:

How to Use a Rekenrek

I will be uploading power point lessons of these same smart board lessons for classrooms that do not have Smart Boards when I have completed them. Again, if you have an questions, suggestions, or comments, feel free to contact me.

Smartboard Back to School Bingo - Using Pictures

Hello Everyone,

I love using the Smart board and what better way to use it than with whole group bingo games. I thought you might like this "Back to School Bingo" game that I will be playing with my students when they begin school (after Labor Day).

So Prepare Your Supplies

It's very easy to use this bingo game. First, print off the bingo cards and the bingo board for your students. Then your students can cut the cards apart and glue them on their bingo board.

Smart board Printing Tip:

For those of you who have not printed any Smart board documents. Follow these directions:
1. Go to print set-up and select landscape
2. Go to print, delete the date that automatically appears.
3. Print with or without the border (I usually keep the border when I print Smart Board documents)
4. Select the page numbers to print (page 3 cards and page 4 bingo board)
5. Add the quantity that you want to print.

Then Play the Game

Once your students have cut-out the cards and glued them to the bingo board, open the Smart board document and select the "Call Board" page for game play. Here you will be able to select the picture for students to find on their bingo board to cover. The caller can slide the called picture on the "Call Board" into the grid.

I created the "Call Board" to provide an easy visual for students to follow and I added extra "Call Board" slides (cloned) to allow playing more than one bingo game.

Let the Winner Call the Next Game

Once you have a bingo winner, allow your winner and a partner to call the next pictures and slide the pictures on the call board. This is a hit with my students.

Once you close the game, do not save and it will be ready for the next time you wish to play.

Here is a visual of the bingo game. The link is below for you.

Game Cards

Game Board

Bingo Call Board

Print the bingo game here:

Smart board "Back to School Bingo"

Since I love bingo games .... watch for more of my Smart board bingo games:

Halloween ... Thanksgiving ... Christmas,  and more ~ ~ ~

Smart Board Tips

I have been using the Smart board for several years and conduct training sessions in my district. If anyone has any questions about the Smart board software ... please send me your questions and I will surely try to answer them for you.

FYI: Dot Detectives for 3

I changed the embed code for Dot Detectives for 3 as I was informed I used the wrong code, so please download the corrected copy. Sorry about that. Please let me know when you find any errors, as I will surely correct them and reload the documents.

Smartboard Lessons - Dot Detectives for Building Math Number Sense K-1

"Number Talks Building Mental Math and Computation Strategies K-5" provides over 800 lessons for teachers to introduce and build Mental Math skills for students. I have taken these lessons and presented them within the Smart Board format.  These lessons provide the initial introduction for kindergarten-grade 1 students to develop their conservation of number.

Dot Detectives provides over 50 daily lessons to use with your students. These lessons meet the Common Core Standards for Math. Each of the documents I have included for today, provides a lesson plan for teachers to introduce and follow-up on these mental math skills. Additional resources including supporting website resources and activities links are at the end of each of these documents.

Common Core Standards for Math
1. Make sense of problems and persevere to solve them.
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
4. Model with mathematics.
5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
6. Attend to precision.
7. Look for and make use of structure.
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Next week I will add the next set of lessons using the Rekenrek (Math Rack) to help children build their visual and mental math skills. Feel free to request more information or send questions. I would be happy to respond.  For anyone who is unable to open Smart Board documents, I will be creating these in power point as soon as I have completed the Smart Board Lessons.

Dot Detectives for 3

Dot Detectives for 4

Dot Detectives for 5

Dot Detectives for 6

Dot Detectives for 7

Dot Detectives for 8

Dot Detectives for 9

Dot Detectives for 10

Building Number Sense through Relationships

After a summer of reading great math books .... I'm so excited to share activities that will help children learn to build their mathematical relationships. Here are a few of the books I've loved reading along with Debbie Dillers "Math Work Stations".

These books have given me great inspiration to design a math program focused on building number sense. I look forward to learning together with my students, while helping them move along their learning path toward building their own sense of numbers, Throughout this journey, I want to share many of my newly created activities for you to consider integrating into your math program. Please feel free to contact me with suggestions, comments, and requests. 

Relational Math Dice Toss

Relational Math (1) Add 1

Relational Math (2) Add 1 and 0

Relational Math (3) Add 0 and 1

Balance Scale Addition

Balance Scale Subtraction

Balance Scale Multiplication