May 27, 2024 • 11 mins
The hardest part about Building Thinking Classrooms is finding the tasks when you want to spice it up a bit! In this episode, I'm walking you through how I approach coming up with ideas for tasks! Want the task I talked about? You can get the 2nd Grade Cash Out Task here! K and 1st Grade versions are below.
Any podcast episodes you want me to make?
Let me know in this Google Form!
Helpful Links
Let's Connect!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I think one of the hardest things about building thinking classrooms is coming up with tasks
(00:05):
for your kids to do, because before you know it, it's back to a session and you're like,
oh my gosh, what task am I going to do?
So I'm going to walk you through today kind of how I think of tasks if I'm wanting to
spice it up a little bit.
Do you need a fancy task?
Of course not.
The goal is that your students will engage in any task, but sometimes, sometimes you
just want a little spice, you know, you want to add something extra.
(00:26):
So I'm going to walk you through how I think about tasks.
Hello and welcome to Making Number Sense Make Sense, a podcast for elementary teachers,
specifically early elementary teachers, looking to really make an impact in the number sense
(00:47):
of their students.
I'm going to walk you through a second grade example, and this is for a curricular task,
not necessarily a non-curricular task.
My go-to for a non-curricular task is usually a puzzle type task or something like that,
that'll kind of keep them interested.
And I find kids have a lot more stamina naturally with puzzles than some random word problems.
(01:10):
So puzzles are definitely met number puzzles, math puzzles are my go-to for a non-curricular
task.
But I'm talking today specifically about curricular tasks.
So the first thing I like to do is think about, all right, what are we even learning about
right now?
What is the connection?
It also depends on if it's at the beginning of a new unit, in the middle, or at the end.
(01:30):
So for this example, I'm going to do a second grade task about adding two digit numbers,
up to four different two digit numbers.
So for right now, I'm thinking of the standard, which is the number operations in base 10
standard B6, which is add up to four two digit numbers using strategies based on place value
(01:53):
and properties of operations.
So if I have my standard in mind, I think about what is a real life scenario or a scenario
I could make up, like if I want it to be in a theme, so maybe it's a space theme or something
else they'll like or real world scenario where they might have to do that.
So a simple one for adding two digit numbers might be they are at a grocery store.
(02:18):
So in this scenario, this task, our background is that we are working at a grocery store
and our register is broken.
So we're going to have to figure out how much all of our customers owe based on what they're
purchasing.
So from there, I would think of, I guess technically it's a money task, but we're doing second
grade, we're dealing with whole numbers here, we're not really working with decimals at
(02:40):
all.
So I would think, okay, this is scenario, there's lots of different people who are coming
through, there would be lots of different quote unquote customers.
So the addition of new customers might be my thin slicing for this task.
So from there, I would have to think about if I wanted to do a price list, like this
is the list of all of the items and customer A bought these items, customer B bought these
(03:06):
items and then it would be the kid's job to figure out how much money each customer owes
as they go to check out.
So let's say that you did a price list, just like a master price list for you to be able
to check and then the students would have each person's quote unquote order or purchase.
(03:26):
So it might be customer A wants something that's worth this much, something that's worth
this much and something that's worth this much.
So maybe we start with three two digit numbers or two two digit numbers and you can be thoughtful
about the numbers that you're choosing to put on each receipt.
So it might be starting with simple numbers that you know, and intends and then as they
(03:48):
get a new receipt or a new customer, then the numbers might start to get more tricky
and you can consider numbers that would highlight whatever strategy you want the kids to be
working on.
So maybe your strategy is decomposing.
So you would have numbers that are easily decomposable.
Maybe your strategy is going to the nearest 10.
(04:09):
So you would make sure that all of your double digit numbers, all the numbers in the ones
place that you're choosing might conveniently end up making a 10 so that they can get a
nice whole friendly number.
And then from there, as they get better at it, as they move through these quote unquote
receipts, the numbers start to get trickier.
You might have more numbers, you might have numbers that don't end perfectly in a zero
(04:31):
or a five.
So they can start to pull out different strategies for these addition tasks.
This is something that you could do on your boards.
They could easily translate into a center or a station.
If you have a master price list and you might have a spinner with, I don't know, eight customers
on it.
So you would have your students spin customer one, customer two, customer three, however
(04:55):
many there are, and then say that they spun three customers, they would get what those
three customers bought or the three items that this one customer bought, write down
what their purchase was, and then they can add them together like that.
So kind of moving that from the board to a center if you wanted them to keep practicing
if it is something that they liked.
(05:17):
So that's just kind of an example.
I think through what is it that we're trying to learn here?
What stage are they in the development of this skill?
And how can I make it the most accessible I can while still keeping it close to or at
the grade level content?
Like what is our low floor?
What is our entry point that kids would be able to do?
(05:38):
And then from there enable them to feel confident in the strategies that they're using that
they can keep going that they'll want to keep going.
And then from there it leads to really rich discussions about what students were doing,
what was working, what wasn't working for them.
And then hopefully, right, the goal is that they'll take those strategies and apply them
(05:59):
to the next situation that might not be so fancy.
Maybe the next time you do a task like that, it's not a scenario.
It's not, you know, being a cashier at the grocery store.
Maybe you just give them bare numbers and then it's like these three bare numbers, these
three bare numbers, but they'll have the experience of putting it in context so they won't need
context for the next time you do problems like that.
(06:22):
If you have a formula that works, you can make it work for any strategy.
You can make it work for any theme.
So if Halloween rolls around, this is completely out of date right now because when I'm recording
this it's May.
But if you wanted to, you could be like, okay, how can I make do the same thing but Halloween
theme?
How can I do the same thing but Thanksgiving theme?
(06:44):
How can I do the same thing?
But my kids are really into space right now.
So I want to make this whole scenario a space scenario.
So just peaking their interest, giving them a little something different so that when
you don't have a quote unquote fancier task, it's not that fancy, but a fancier task, they'll
still be able to engage just as well as they did for the other tasks.
(07:06):
Tasks, like I said, don't have to be fantastical.
So the example I gave was a grocery store.
Another one that I've done in the past was a Halloween theme, which is why it came to
my head, a Halloween theme, where we had all of these spiders in a haunted house that escaped.
And if these spiders escaped, how many legs escaped the haunted house.
(07:27):
And the inspiration for that came from a free task that you can find in the show notes.
It's called escaping ants.
We were learning about ants, the county delivered ants to us.
So we had this ant farm, we were learning all about the ants.
I did not let the students touch the ant farm in these certain little place.
They had these little tubes that went from one part of the ant farm to another.
(07:50):
I let they did not let them touch it because those things popped out easy.
And we're not trying to have ants all over the classroom.
But one of the specials that we had was in the classroom.
So to get my own stuff done, I left the classroom for that hour.
So it was my assistant and the actual teacher were in my classroom giving this lesson.
And then I come back later, didn't think anything of it.
(08:13):
And I'm teaching and then I see one of these amps, one of these ants from the ant farm,
just crawling around the classroom.
And I was like, how did this ant get out?
And I know it was one of those ants because it was huge.
So the normal ants you'd see are the teeny tiny black ones where I live.
And these were these giant ants that bite their mandibles are sharp.
(08:33):
I was like, how did that ant get there?
And I was like, maybe maybe it's just a fluke.
Maybe that didn't actually happen.
Then I see another one.
So I go to check the ant farm.
And one of my students had sneaked over to where the ant farm is.
And I wasn't in the room and touched the little tube part and the ants were escaping.
(08:55):
And I am not a bug person anyway.
So I was like, oh my gosh, there's ants all over my classroom.
I was like, whoo, oh no, what am I going to do about this?
But that ended up being the inspiration for the escaping ants task.
It's like if this many ants escaped, how many legs escaped the classroom?
(09:15):
And that was a fun task for my kids to do because we were learning about ants.
So they're like, oh, ha ha ha, the ants escaped.
Little did they know the ants actually escaped my classroom.
Even though my kids were five in kindergarten, they came up with some amazing strategies.
So some of my students were just drawing the ants with the little legs on and counting
all of the ants.
(09:36):
Then some students kind of didn't need to draw it.
They knew that there were six.
So they would either represent groups of six on their whiteboard or they got groups of
six manipulatives that they were using to show how many and counted them all.
Some students, keep in mind they're in kindergarten, figured out on their own how to draw an array.
So they had little dots in an array representing it and skip counted it that way.
(10:02):
And I was looking at them and I was like, you guys are so smart.
Are you kidding me?
Because organizing things in arrays is a second grade skill.
Guys, kids are in kindergarten.
And for my thin slicing, I was like, you guys have a strategy that works.
What if six ants escaped?
What if eight ants escaped?
What if 12 ants escaped?
And they were able to use that repeated addition strategy for larger and larger numbers.
(10:25):
So it was really interesting to see, like, if a problem makes sense, they can think about
it logically and figure out a solution to that problem.
So those are things I would have you keep in mind.
Like, maybe it's a fun scenario that they'll enjoy that's really fantastical, but still
is rooted in reality.
Like what is actually happening here that they can figure out, tease out, and they'll
(10:48):
be able to come up with their own solutions to solve these problems.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to let me know.
And I'll have this whole task written out so that you can see it in the blog post link
down below.
And until then, I will catch you next time.
I think one of the hardest things about building thinking classrooms is coming up with tasks
(00:05):
for your kids to do, because before you know it, it's back to a session and you're like,
oh my gosh, what task am I going to do?
So I'm going to walk you through today kind of how I think of tasks if I'm wanting to
spice it up a little bit.
Do you need a fancy task?
Of course not.
The goal is that your students will engage in any task, but sometimes, sometimes you
just want a little spice, you know, you want to add something extra.
(00:26):
So I'm going to walk you through how I think about tasks.
Hello and welcome to Making Number Sense Make Sense, a podcast for elementary teachers,
specifically early elementary teachers, looking to really make an impact in the number sense
(00:47):
of their students.
I'm going to walk you through a second grade example, and this is for a curricular task,
not necessarily a non-curricular task.
My go-to for a non-curricular task is usually a puzzle type task or something like that,
that'll kind of keep them interested.
And I find kids have a lot more stamina naturally with puzzles than some random word problems.
(01:10):
So puzzles are definitely met number puzzles, math puzzles are my go-to for a non-curricular
task.
But I'm talking today specifically about curricular tasks.
So the first thing I like to do is think about, all right, what are we even learning about
right now?
What is the connection?
It also depends on if it's at the beginning of a new unit, in the middle, or at the end.
(01:30):
So for this example, I'm going to do a second grade task about adding two digit numbers,
up to four different two digit numbers.
So for right now, I'm thinking of the standard, which is the number operations in base 10
standard B6, which is add up to four two digit numbers using strategies based on place value
(01:53):
and properties of operations.
So if I have my standard in mind, I think about what is a real life scenario or a scenario
I could make up, like if I want it to be in a theme, so maybe it's a space theme or something
else they'll like or real world scenario where they might have to do that.
So a simple one for adding two digit numbers might be they are at a grocery store.
(02:18):
So in this scenario, this task, our background is that we are working at a grocery store
and our register is broken.
So we're going to have to figure out how much all of our customers owe based on what they're
purchasing.
So from there, I would think of, I guess technically it's a money task, but we're doing second
grade, we're dealing with whole numbers here, we're not really working with decimals at
(02:40):
all.
So I would think, okay, this is scenario, there's lots of different people who are coming
through, there would be lots of different quote unquote customers.
So the addition of new customers might be my thin slicing for this task.
So from there, I would have to think about if I wanted to do a price list, like this
is the list of all of the items and customer A bought these items, customer B bought these
(03:06):
items and then it would be the kid's job to figure out how much money each customer owes
as they go to check out.
So let's say that you did a price list, just like a master price list for you to be able
to check and then the students would have each person's quote unquote order or purchase.
(03:26):
So it might be customer A wants something that's worth this much, something that's worth
this much and something that's worth this much.
So maybe we start with three two digit numbers or two two digit numbers and you can be thoughtful
about the numbers that you're choosing to put on each receipt.
So it might be starting with simple numbers that you know, and intends and then as they
(03:48):
get a new receipt or a new customer, then the numbers might start to get more tricky
and you can consider numbers that would highlight whatever strategy you want the kids to be
working on.
So maybe your strategy is decomposing.
So you would have numbers that are easily decomposable.
Maybe your strategy is going to the nearest 10.
(04:09):
So you would make sure that all of your double digit numbers, all the numbers in the ones
place that you're choosing might conveniently end up making a 10 so that they can get a
nice whole friendly number.
And then from there, as they get better at it, as they move through these quote unquote
receipts, the numbers start to get trickier.
You might have more numbers, you might have numbers that don't end perfectly in a zero
(04:31):
or a five.
So they can start to pull out different strategies for these addition tasks.
This is something that you could do on your boards.
They could easily translate into a center or a station.
If you have a master price list and you might have a spinner with, I don't know, eight customers
on it.
So you would have your students spin customer one, customer two, customer three, however
(04:55):
many there are, and then say that they spun three customers, they would get what those
three customers bought or the three items that this one customer bought, write down
what their purchase was, and then they can add them together like that.
So kind of moving that from the board to a center if you wanted them to keep practicing
if it is something that they liked.
(05:17):
So that's just kind of an example.
I think through what is it that we're trying to learn here?
What stage are they in the development of this skill?
And how can I make it the most accessible I can while still keeping it close to or at
the grade level content?
Like what is our low floor?
What is our entry point that kids would be able to do?
(05:38):
And then from there enable them to feel confident in the strategies that they're using that
they can keep going that they'll want to keep going.
And then from there it leads to really rich discussions about what students were doing,
what was working, what wasn't working for them.
And then hopefully, right, the goal is that they'll take those strategies and apply them
(05:59):
to the next situation that might not be so fancy.
Maybe the next time you do a task like that, it's not a scenario.
It's not, you know, being a cashier at the grocery store.
Maybe you just give them bare numbers and then it's like these three bare numbers, these
three bare numbers, but they'll have the experience of putting it in context so they won't need
context for the next time you do problems like that.
(06:22):
If you have a formula that works, you can make it work for any strategy.
You can make it work for any theme.
So if Halloween rolls around, this is completely out of date right now because when I'm recording
this it's May.
But if you wanted to, you could be like, okay, how can I make do the same thing but Halloween
theme?
How can I do the same thing but Thanksgiving theme?
(06:44):
How can I do the same thing?
But my kids are really into space right now.
So I want to make this whole scenario a space scenario.
So just peaking their interest, giving them a little something different so that when
you don't have a quote unquote fancier task, it's not that fancy, but a fancier task, they'll
still be able to engage just as well as they did for the other tasks.
(07:06):
Tasks, like I said, don't have to be fantastical.
So the example I gave was a grocery store.
Another one that I've done in the past was a Halloween theme, which is why it came to
my head, a Halloween theme, where we had all of these spiders in a haunted house that escaped.
And if these spiders escaped, how many legs escaped the haunted house.
(07:27):
And the inspiration for that came from a free task that you can find in the show notes.
It's called escaping ants.
We were learning about ants, the county delivered ants to us.
So we had this ant farm, we were learning all about the ants.
I did not let the students touch the ant farm in these certain little place.
They had these little tubes that went from one part of the ant farm to another.
(07:50):
I let they did not let them touch it because those things popped out easy.
And we're not trying to have ants all over the classroom.
But one of the specials that we had was in the classroom.
So to get my own stuff done, I left the classroom for that hour.
So it was my assistant and the actual teacher were in my classroom giving this lesson.
And then I come back later, didn't think anything of it.
(08:13):
And I'm teaching and then I see one of these amps, one of these ants from the ant farm,
just crawling around the classroom.
And I was like, how did this ant get out?
And I know it was one of those ants because it was huge.
So the normal ants you'd see are the teeny tiny black ones where I live.
And these were these giant ants that bite their mandibles are sharp.
(08:33):
I was like, how did that ant get there?
And I was like, maybe maybe it's just a fluke.
Maybe that didn't actually happen.
Then I see another one.
So I go to check the ant farm.
And one of my students had sneaked over to where the ant farm is.
And I wasn't in the room and touched the little tube part and the ants were escaping.
(08:55):
And I am not a bug person anyway.
So I was like, oh my gosh, there's ants all over my classroom.
I was like, whoo, oh no, what am I going to do about this?
But that ended up being the inspiration for the escaping ants task.
It's like if this many ants escaped, how many legs escaped the classroom?
(09:15):
And that was a fun task for my kids to do because we were learning about ants.
So they're like, oh, ha ha ha, the ants escaped.
Little did they know the ants actually escaped my classroom.
Even though my kids were five in kindergarten, they came up with some amazing strategies.
So some of my students were just drawing the ants with the little legs on and counting
all of the ants.
(09:36):
Then some students kind of didn't need to draw it.
They knew that there were six.
So they would either represent groups of six on their whiteboard or they got groups of
six manipulatives that they were using to show how many and counted them all.
Some students, keep in mind they're in kindergarten, figured out on their own how to draw an array.
So they had little dots in an array representing it and skip counted it that way.
(10:02):
And I was looking at them and I was like, you guys are so smart.
Are you kidding me?
Because organizing things in arrays is a second grade skill.
Guys, kids are in kindergarten.
And for my thin slicing, I was like, you guys have a strategy that works.
What if six ants escaped?
What if eight ants escaped?
What if 12 ants escaped?
And they were able to use that repeated addition strategy for larger and larger numbers.
(10:25):
So it was really interesting to see, like, if a problem makes sense, they can think about
it logically and figure out a solution to that problem.
So those are things I would have you keep in mind.
Like, maybe it's a fun scenario that they'll enjoy that's really fantastical, but still
is rooted in reality.
Like what is actually happening here that they can figure out, tease out, and they'll
(10:48):
be able to come up with their own solutions to solve these problems.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to let me know.
And I'll have this whole task written out so that you can see it in the blog post link
down below.
And until then, I will catch you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.