Hello and welcome to Making Number Sense Makes Sense, a podcast for elementary teachers,
specifically early elementary teachers, looking to really make an impact in the number sense
of their students.
Have you ever done math conferences with your students?
And if you did, how did it go?
I have been teaching math and science for a long time and I can't say that I ever really
did formal math conferences, but it's such a simple idea and can have a huge impact on
your students.
So let me show you how I do my math conferences.
I was listening to a presentation by Dr. Nikki Newton and she was talking about conferring
in math class and how visual goal setting is really, really helpful for all students,
but especially your students who might be struggling because then they get small achievable
goals and they see it.
They see it in real life, real time.
So I created my own math goals for kindergarten, counting in number sense goals, and it includes
number identification, number writing, subitizing, one-to-one correspondence, and wrote counting.
It is really, really simple to use, really quick to do.
I wanted it to be something that I could do quickly, something that the kids would really
enjoy, and something where I could take really quick anecdotal notes without having to write
everything out.
I teach Spanish immersion, so I have an English version and a Spanish version, especially
if I send it home for families, maybe Spanish speaking families, then they'll be able to
see exactly what it is that they're working on and how they might support it home.
I also have a progress collection sheet and on that collection sheet, it has the number
range that we're working on and a little check and a X.
So if they've mastered that numeral, they can circle the check and if they're still working
on that, you can circle the X for your own knowledge to know, oh, that's a target number
for them.
And that really helps when you're talking to your students about what their goals are,
because you're like, oh, you missed four, but you got one, two, three, and five.
So four is going to be the number that we're working on, and then you can come back and
revisit.
So the way that this kind of goal-setting conference works is you see the student doing
math or you might ask them to do a couple of tasks with you and see where they're at.
And after that, make sure that you give them a compliment on something that they're doing
really, really well and maybe offer a strategy or two to help them with something that they
were having a little bit of trouble with and kind of set that as your goal for the next
thing you're going to work on.
And after they've achieved all of these small, bite-sized goals, they get to color in this
section that they've mastered so they can see all the progress that they're making.
So to the actual assessment, in this resource, I've included numeral cards, dice cards, finger
pattern cards that you can use, but honestly, to make things really easy, I just used a
whiteboard, dry erase marker, and my own fingers for the lower numbers and 20 objects for the
higher numbers.
So what I would do is if we were working on the number range one to five, I would give
them the numbers out of order.
So I would ask them to tell me, like, what is this number?
And then if they say, four, be like, awesome, let's do the next one.
What is this number?
And go one through five.
And then if they master all of those numbers, they get to color in the section that says
you recognize numbers one to five, and then you can move on to the next section.
So the way that this works is they kind of go by rows.
The way that I've set it up is they kind of go by rows, so a number, writing, number,
recognition, counting, and supertizing.
You don't have to go in that order by any means, especially this number.
Counting is a little bit more of a challenge than counting or supertizing, but you can
definitely do whatever order you want and whichever fits the needs of your students.
So step by step, what was the procedure of this goal setting conference?
I asked the students to come over and sit with me that we were going to do some math
together.
And since I started this later on in the year, I knew that most of my students at least knew
the numerals to five, so I started with numerals.
But if I did at the beginning of the year, I probably would have started with counting
or supertizing since those aren't as number heavy, that's more abstract.
So after the numbers, I just drew a dice face.
So you can use the dice cards that I have, but I just drew a dice face and I was like,
okay, what is this number?
And I would show them for a few seconds and then put it down and they're like, ooh, it's
four.
You're like, all right, what about this number?
And then they say five and I would do all of the dice face.
And then if they got them all, they could color it in.
And if not, it'd be like, okay, we're working on learning this one.
This arrangement is the number four.
And as they move on and moved on to 10 frames, the same thing.
You could use a 10 frame and put your counters on it, but for supertizing, you want it to
go a little bit faster.
So you could use the 10 frame, you could use a 10 frame cards, or I just drew a 10 frame
on.
Really simple.
How many is this?
And then they're like, ooh, it's six.
And they're like, okay, great, how many is this?
And I just moved through the numbers.
And then the last thing I had them do for me was write the numerals, which seems to be
the most difficult thing for my students to do because of their fine motor.
So I let them use the whiteboard and they love using the whiteboard.
And also, I've, I mean, students love using the whiteboard anyway, but I've definitely
been diving into using whiteboards, vertical whiteboards, a lot with my students that they
get to write on them and solve math problems with them.
So I think they like how easy it is to like erase if they make a mistake and try again.
So they were really motivated to write on these whiteboards with me, like their numbers.
So I'd say write the number four, and then they'd write the four and write the number
two.
So all of these numbers, I'm giving them out of orders, know if they really know it and
are not just memorizing the sequence.
And for each master skill, they color in their square.
And that was really helpful for me and helpful for them that they know, okay, I'm working
on these numbers.
I'm going to write down my target numbers and for me myself to remember, okay, these
are the numbers that they're working on.
So here and there, whenever we can, I would bring up that number, see if they remembered
it, see if we're working on it.
And kind of that repetition and knowing that's my goal, that's my goal, really help them
master whatever small bite-sized pieces we're working on and move on to the next one.
And once they see that they're like really starting to understand things and really starting
to make progress, it kind of gives them that drive to keep going and keep building their
math brain, which is really interesting to see.
I had one student who was just missing the number 20.
So we had all the numbers except for 20.
So I talked to him about it.
I was like, okay, our goal is for you to learn that this is the number 20.
I think you know it, but you couldn't remember the name.
So we're going to work on that.
So for the next few days, I'll be like, Hey, what's this number?
Hey, what's this number?
He'd be like, Oh, I actually saw this number around.
Oh, look, it's right there.
It's right there.
And a few days later, I was like, all right, can you tell me what this number is?
Or can you write this number?
And he absolutely could.
And since then he still remembers that number.
So just kind of having that narrow focus, like this is what we need to work on.
And then you'll be able to meet this goal and color in this square was super helpful
for him within days.
And then the other students that I started using this goal setting progress tracking counting
sheet had very, very similar results.
They're really motivated to color it in.
They're excited to work with me one on one.
And they have been making amazing progress.
I will leave the link to the blog post that has everything written out, as well as this
resource down below.
And you can check it out for yourself.
I hope you use math conferences with your students and let me know how it goes.