DIY Abacus

I love abaci (abacuses?). They can be used for so many things. My only problem with abaci is that they are pretty expensive, especially for a first-year teacher. I have five wooden abaci in my class and have tried to have the kids use them in groups and it just wasn't working.  I had to figure out a way to get one in every students' hands.  One trip to RAFT later, I figured it out.

 What you need:

1 Sheet of Corrugated Plastic

10 Pipe Cleaners

10 Drink Stirrers

100 Pony Beads

Start off by putting the pipe cleaners in the middle of the drink stirrers.

  Put one end of the stirrer/cleaner combo into the corrugated plastic and bend at a 90 degree angle.

 Thread 10 beads on the drink stirrer and bend the other end.

This part can be a little tricky, but put the other end of the pipe cleaner into the other side of the corrugated plastic. Make sure to hold the end that is already in and not to pull too hard.

 Front view. 

Side view.

Repeat until you have 10 rows. 

I made two different sizes:

 5.75" x 7"

 5.75" x 3.5"

I think I'm leaning towards the smaller version.  What do you think?

Oh, and you all have my permission to pin anything from my site, as long as you provide a link.  Thanks!

Family Math

Finding a teaching job in Southern California right out of a credential program is not an easy task.  Many of my friends and classmates were successful in securing jobs in the area, but many had to wait until the very last minute (2 days before school started!!) to hear back from schools, and I HAD to get to work.  I was lucky enough to land a job in Northern California right after I graduated in August and had a whopping 14 days to move into my new home and classroom. My husband and I moved to a new city on a whim and I wish I could say things are fabulous, but the truth is, I miss my family and friends. I do my best to keep in contact by calling, texting and doing the facebook thing, but sometimes it just isn't enough. I have been using personal story-telling (with an occasional exaggeration) to keep interest high and the kids love it. Plus, I get to remind myself how lucky I am to have such wonderful people in my life.  One thing that has emerged from this practice is what I have dubbed "Family Math."

It serves two wonderful purposes: I get to tell funny, mostly true stories about my family and the kids get really excited about math problems.  This is our most recent chart and they were really concerned with the task of finding the correct number of horseshoes for Morgan's horses.  They even asked me if she knew we were going to figure it out for her, so I actually texted her during our lesson to make sure she knew :).  It's also really fun to share pictures of our charts with my family and friends so that they know I'm thinking about them.  Win/win!