Big Math Ideas in Second Grade

Classroom activities

• Second grade students read the story Who's the Big Bad Wolf?
• They explored the math in the story (using linking cubes)
• They practiced telling stories they could share at home about the math experience
• They drew pictures and wrote to descibe what they learned
• Their writing was compiled to create three songs
  • Chocolate Bar
  • Chocolate Bar v.2
  • Some Odd Numbers
• Their seventh grade math buddies then came to their class and:
  • The second graders read them the story
  • They explained the math they learned
  • Then they sang their two songs
• The seventh graders then went to their class and used concrete materials to model and then to write algebraic expresions for the sums of the first N odd, even and Natural numbers.
• Then the seventh graders wrote and sang a song to the second graders
  • Numbers
• They shared their song publicly though the Math Performance Festival.