teach by strategy By BookMuncher

I wouldn't go into such great depth, EXCEPT that I have this already typed up on my computer, so I'm just going to cut and paste. I really liked our little program-- but we won't keep it, because we made it up ourselves and

now I'm sure next year they'll buy one. :( We began teaching addition math facts organized by SUM. To get going, we taught "tricks" add 1 and 0 to any number. Then, after the kids had those down, we started with the sum of 4. Each week, we did one sum, adding in the next highest one each week. Our program had a short in-class component, homework component, and partner practice

component. In class, we taught the kids how to "break" apart numbers by playing the game of SNAP about 2 or 3 three times per week with that week's sum. (SNAP is where you have a stick of unifix cubes and when the teacher calls, "SNAP" the kids break their stick, look at the two addends, and walk to the spot in the room where the number sentence is posted.) Children got very good at predicting what they had in their hands without even looking. They understood the patterns that built through the week, and were able to predict with good accuracy what number had to be in one hand if the other was unknown.
The homework for each week was the same. On Mondays, they had to write all the ways (including the turn-around facts) to make that week's sum. On Tuesdays, they had to fill in the missing addend when the sum and one addend was given. (Both Monday and Tuesday homework is based on the game of SNAP) Wednesday and Thursday's homework were both timed practices. The children were to do it with a parent timing them who could write down their time. Their only goal was to beat Wednesday's time. Wednesday and Thursday's homework incorporated sums from previous weeks.
The partner practice was made in a way that the kids could fold it back and practice with each other. Also, a partner practice went home every Monday to be the practice for the week. Partner practices include sums from the previous weeks.
It took us longer than 7 weeks to cover the facts to 10 well. If our classes struggled with a particular sum, we repeated that sum for an additional week. We added other activities that children could do to visualize and understand breaking apart numbers. (For example: drawing 7's pictures with graph paper).
There was a timed test every Friday.
Once we had gotten through the sums through 10, we differentiated. Children who mastered their sums through 10 got FACT TRIANGLES with the "dot" or top number being above 10. The others got fact triangles with the dot number being 10 or below. In this way, everyone is doing addition and subtraction, but only the kids who were ready (which was most) were doing the higher numbers.
We sent home 2 triangles a week, and the triangles were organized by STRATEGY. For example, one week, we'd send home 2 doubles triangles. When the doubles were done, we did doubles plus 1 triangles. Etc... We still had timed tests on Fridays.

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