Math Literacy Bags

Our math Literacy bags are starting to take shape. This is something very new to me and an exciting part of my research project for my Capstone class. After coming up with some Math resources that I want my students to use over and over again, I decided that a ziploc bag would be the perfect place to store all of our Math Literacy items. These are going to be fun to use over the year.

In the bags we have:

Our Journals were added first 

1. Interactive Math Journals 
I scoured the internet and found many great resources for Math journals and prompts. I now have a large collection of prompts that should last me thoughout the year! I took all of the prompts and sorted them. These journals will consist of three main kinds of entries-
     1.) Concept or task prompts- these are actual questions or word problems to answer and show your work and ideas:
      Ex./ Joe has 19. Sam has 30. Who has more cars? How many more? How do you know? Show how you figured it out. Explain what strategy you used to solve this problem.
     2.) Process prompts- these are more of the how do you style prompts. some examples are:
    -Write a letter to your teacher explaining what you understand about the topic                              
      - When I read a math textbook and see a word that I don’t know, I ...
      -How did I get the solution?
     -Describe the graph of…as if you were explaining it to a friend over the phone.
     -When I see a word problem, the first thing I do is…then I…
     3.) Affective prompts- these are more personal
       -I want to become bette at math so that I…

       - People who are good at math…

       -My best/worst experience with math was…

       -When it comes to math I find it difficult to…

       -When I hear someone say “Math is fun!” I…

       -Describe what mathematician  does.

       -If I were better at math, I would…

A great vocabulary package

2. A Math Vocabulary Reference book
I found this fantastic resource at K-5 Math Resources website. I have printed off the Math vocabulary reference book and added it to the math bags. This booklet should last all year as it contains words from all of the domains that we will cover over the course of the year. I purchased this package from K-5 Math Teaching resources as part of a grade 3 bundle. It came with a journal prompts booklet, a math projects booklet (more to come on this!) and this vocabulary package. In my opinion, it has been a great value so far. You can find the bundle here. 

3. Math vocabulary word books
I found these freebies on teachers pay teachers.  They use the Frayer model for vocabulary development. I love how this model uses examples and non-examples as these are perfect for Math. we will add our new words to these books as we go. You can grab these freebies here. 

Our Compass buddy chart

4. A compass buddy chart
I LOVE this idea. You may have heard of the idea of Clock buddies before. Laura Candler has taken this idea and transformed it into a compass! Perfect as it will also meet the goal of having students familiar with direction and a compass.   You can download the sheet that we use here. 

Fill-in and add to the bags 

Our Math Talk Prompt sheet facing out

5. Partner math talk prompts

 I found a partner literature talk sheet for free and changed the prompts from literature prompts to Math prompts. In our bags, we have this sheet facing out so students can use it for reference easily. I have also gotten them to place their compass buddy sheet on the opposite side facing out for the same reason. Our journals and vocabulary books are sandwiched in the middle. You can download the sheet I made here.