THE CRAZY MATH LADY!

Look who showed up at Reagan Elementary to promote mental math, number talks, and fact strategies! 

The CRAZY MATH LADY!  (I've heard she has also been spotted at Giddens Elementary before.)

The CRAZY MATH LADY dresses up to bring warm-up activities into the classrooms. She enters with clappers, yelling "WooHoo," startling many teachers and students.  She introduces herself as the CRAZY MATH LADY because she is CRAZY about math. (Aren't we all?)   

She always begins her mini-lesson with a chant, "When I say Math, you say Rocks! Math....Rocks! Math....Rocks!" Then she gathers the students on the carpet for a quick number activity.  

On this day, she handed each student a hundreds chart. The hundreds chart is a great model for seeing patterns in numbers. Most children decided to use the hundreds chart, while some challenged themselves to try it mentally and turned their charts over. 

The activity was a series of problems to calculate quickly.  It went something like this: Put your finger on the sum of 10 and 25, add 50, subtract 4. Is the sum of the digits 9? 

Wow, she went CRAZY fast but it was fun and engaging.

Hopefully after a few more weekly visits from the CRAZY MATH LADY, students will become more confident in their mental math ability and less dependent on using their hundreds chart. 

The next day students were still wondering . . . who is the CRAZY MATH LADY???  
One never knows where and when she will show up next!!   

The lesson idea is from Mary Alice Hatchett at http://www.mahatchett.com./