Greater Than Symbol and Writing Our Numbers

Sometimes I just don't have something super exciting to share about a particular lesson.  Today the kids were a delight to work with and they worked really hard in their reading lessons.  Keep practicing at home!

 This afternoon we re-watched the Number Gators video and utilized the song while we played with the large TouchMath Number Mats.  We used the number mats for a while with the printable of the alligator and then talked about how we won't always have the alligator eyes and teeth in the picture, but that the sign that looks like a "V" is the same thing.  As a whole group we played with the greater than and less than sign and two numbers.  Now we were able to rotate the sign rather than pick a completely different number gator.  After some practice with the whole group we made groups of 2 and each team was given two numbers and the greater-than symbol.  They had to put the symbol in the middle of the two numbers pointing the right direction and explain to the whole class what they did and why.  This activity was super effective and everyone was successful putting the sign the correct way.

 After playing with the number mats we moved into learning to write our numbers.  Much like the handwriting letters lessons we went through each number one at a time learning the strokes that the pencil should make.  We didn't have enough time to fully wrap up the lesson (though we did get from 0-9) so we'll start right where we left off on Thursday.