BUILD Implementation

Day 1
Hello All,

Just wanted to document my experience this year as I implement BUILD day by day into my math centers time. If you have not purchased my program yet, head to my store: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Teaching-Hands for all activities and data collection sheets to get your program up and running. My littles are struggling to stay awake in the afternoon, so we are introducing a little bit at a time. This week we are focusing on the letter B and learning how to play all Buddy Games.

Today, I introduced War. I played it under the Elmo (screen) and then divided the kids into partners. I bought a couple of extra sets of cards at the dollar tree so that we could learn whole class. With war, the kids are each pulling a card out and deciding who has the bigger card. Whoever has the bigger card wins both cards. If both students have the same card, then they have a war. To have a war, you each place 3 cards down with a fourth card facing up. Whoever has the bigger fourth card is the winner of all the cards within that war. It's fun and the kids loved it. We played it for about ten minutes as I walked around the room - making sure they knew the rules.

Happy First Day of BUILD! :)

 Day 2
Good evening! Day 2 went great. I introduced whole group under the Elmo Turkey War and Count and Solve. If you don't own Count and Solve, don't worry - just use any sort of addition game, like Hi Ho Cherry-O, that you have. The whole point is to get manipulatives into their hands when adding. Today, I just introduced those two games. Waiting to rotate the kids tomorrow after showing them the last two games under B.

Good luck! 

Day 3
Day 3 went great. I introduced the last two tubs whole group - Add Two More and Cover Up. 

Because it is the beginning of the year and Cover Up is a little complex, I decided to just make number cards 1-20 twice and teach number recognition with that game instead. I think that they will be ready for the real rules on that game once we get through the first 9 weeks. So, the kids play it in partners, and each have 7 counters. One partner grabs a card and places a counter on top. Same type of rules as the original - if their partner pulls the same number, they can knock their partners' piece off. If they pull the same card twice on their own turn, they can stack on top of their own piece. First one to get rid of all 7 pieces wins. 

For  Add Two More, I taught it the correct way. Just make sure there are manipulatives in the tub to help them "add two more" to the number they pull/roll. 
***Modification - If you want to start the year off with number identification, just copy number cards 1-9 (2 times because of all the spots that need to be filled) and just have them identify one way that number can be represented. Continue the real rules of add two more once your kids are ready for addition.

After I had all games explained, I partnered the kids up (I only have 11) so if you have more, you may need groups of 3 - and allowed them to play one 7 minute rotation. I will do the same the next 3 days.

Goodnight!
 
Day 4
 Today I just did another rotation within B - so the kids got to partner up and choose another game to play.
 
Day 5
Same thing - rotate to try a new game.

Day 6
For U, I am going to teach the number sense buckets of 1-20 ONLY. This is because I want all kids to start here and as I collect my data, I will change kids where they need to go and teach those specific kids the new tubs in 1-50 or 1-100. It's not worth it to take the time to teach the other tubs whole group because I had some kids that needed to stay in 1-20 the entire semester last year. It's best just to teach as your kids change tubs. 

Today, I taught Build On whole group and then we practiced whole group. Each student gets 2 colors of unifix cubes. This is a simple one to teach and a lot of fun whole group. Good luck!  
***Modification - if your students are not ready to create addition sentences, you can just have them build the cubes by reading the numbers, then have them orally count how many are all together and write the number in the box. Let them know that addition sentences will come later. Add addition sentences when you feel like your kids are ready!

Day 7
Part-Part-Whole: This was taught whole group. This is a tough one and may be too hard for the beginning of the year - maybe more of an October activity. My class this year is totally getting it, but I wanted to provide a modification if your class is struggling. 
***Modification - Use JUST the part-part-whole cards. Do not use the apples page with addition sentence because the transfer may not make sense. If you just use the cards, the kids can then just lay small cubes in the empty box on the part-part-whole card. So if the whole is 8 and there are 3 dots in one box, they "count on" to get the whole in the second box.

Day 8
Today I taught One Less, One More. This is a very simple game and has great language. I taught the kids who struggle with reading to underline either an L or M and that's how they know less or more. This game is very important to have some sort of manipulative in their hands so that they are able to add and take away to determine the answer!  

Day 9 and 10
For both of these days, I just practiced the kids going out and completing a 15 minute session of BUILD with some kids at Buddy Games and some kids at Using Manipulatives. It was important for me to especially see kids rotate through Using Manipulatives (1-20) tubs because I continued to see who needed the modifications on those tubs and who was ready to complete the tub with the original instructions. Over the weekend, I will be getting ready to start Independent Work with my students. At this point, you should have spiral notebooks for their math journals with their names on them ready to go for Monday. Happy Weekend (almost)!  

Day 11 
Today I introduced Independent Work as their math journals. I gave them a problem that included their classmates' names in it to help them relate to it. My problem today was: Dylan has 2 pencils in his art box. Michael has 3 pencils in his art box. How many pencils do they have altogether?
I typed it up and printed it on strips so that they could glue it into their math journal quickly. I brought them back to the carpet and read it out loud to them several times. I explained that this week we are going to learn several ways to show our answer to a math problem/solve a math problem, but that today we were just going to learn how to draw a picture. We talked about that we wouldn't draw pictures of us running through the snow or pictures of star wars, but rather pictures of pencils or an object to represent pencils. I didn't tell the kids how to do it - just sent them off to see what they produced. All, but one child produced 5 pencils on their paper. For the child that did not, I had her explain her picture to me and she immediately caught that she only had Michael's pencils drawn, not Dylan's. I used one of the kids journals as an example and let her explain how she got her answer. One thing that I noticed that my kids did not do was actually write the answer, so we went back to our seat and wrote the number 5 and circled it. Great day today! Looking forward to tomorrow - we will solve another addition problem with picture and tens frame this time!  

Day 12 -14
Hello All - for the rest of this week, I will introduce one part to their math journal. Day 12 I will introduce tens frames with my tens frames already made (see your BUILD packet from my teachers pay teachers store), then on Day 13 I will introduce tally marks, and finally on Day 14, I will introduce number bond (we do this daily in number of the day, so my kids are familiar). I am not going to introduce number line or an addition problem until LATER because I want to teach full lessons on those concepts. Basically, if you put a number sentence in front of kids too early, they dont really understand what it means, so I am going to hold off until later in the year. So for now, we will draw a picture, use tally mark, tens frame, and number bond. Best of luck!

Day 15
This week, I will be introducing the L (learning about numbers tubs) in the 1-20 range. Today I introduced using my magnetic tens frames and counters. Within the tub I put number cards up to 20 that had the answer drawn on the back so that they can self check. We talked about all of the positional importance of their placement of the counters and such. We also do this daily in Number of the Day, so my kids are familiar with this concept. Tomorrow I will introduce Domino Addition that is a modified version. Addition will not be used at the beginning.  

Day 16
For Domino Addition, I decided to wait on doing the addition part and instead made cards with numbers through 24 on them. The kids are then supposed to sort the dominoes on the cards according to their dots. I think this will be a powerful modification because students will begin to notice dot patterns quickly as they pull different dominoes with different dots. It is important to not introduce number sentences too early, because do Kindergartners really understand what an addition sign is? Some of mine do and they are naturally doing it, but most do not. No need to push them when they are not ready. Because this was a simple tub to explain, I went ahead and explained our Tens Frame tub where the kids make numbers on their magnetic tens frames. 

Day 17-20
Now that all of the 1-20 tubs are explained, I used my free flip chart on my TPT sight to split up my kids among the tubs.  I have all students working in 1-20, even though my data on my students support that many of my students are ready for 1-50 (I have a VERY high class this year). I think it is important for all of my kids to be working in 1-20 for a few weeks so that each child is getting that foundation in 1-20. If you are curious as to how I collect my data, you can purchase my program from my Teachers Pay Teachers sight - I have all activities and data collection you need to get this up and running! https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Teaching-Hands