Math Journals

I am super excited....well.....maybe.... that I was asked to be one of the presenters at the UETCM or Upper East Tennessee Council of Mathematics meeting coming up on Monday, November 12th @ our local high school. Each county in the area gets to host the meeting one month a year. I was part of the team who presented last year and loved it and was honored to be asked to do it again this year. 

Last year my coworker and another kindergarten friend in the county did the K-2 group and we presented on math stations. I enjoyed it because in the process we made new things to implement into our stations and the people who attended seemed to enjoy it. They were not familiar with Math Stations so it was good.

This year, my kindergarten coworker who did it with me last year is doing it again and so is my 1st grade friend who blogs over at First Grade Rocks! I am super excited to hear her part because she is showing us an introduction to Daily 5 Math. She loves it and honestly I have no clue what it is except that the sisters started it and they are wonderful so it has to be good! I am eager to learn about her part. 

My kinder friend is going to share some new ideas on math stations that we didn't cover last year.

And now on to me...... I am going to share about math journals. I LOVE them. I don't know what I did prior to using math journals and math stations in the morning while my kiddos are coming to class. 

I use the notebooks that I have had cut in half because we don't need a whole sheet of paper for a little math journal. I purchased Deedee Wills's Math journal prompt bundle while it was on sale a few months ago and absolutely love it. Click on the picture below, sorry it is blurry to check it out on TPT.

All I do is print out the prompts at the beginning of each month. Cut the strips and put each sheet of prompts into a baggie and each morning, place the strips into a cup beside the journals and read the prompt. The students them illustrate the problem and have an answer. 

My kiddos are already doing addition and subtraction and we haven't really talked about it in class. You can review any topic you have covered in class and it takes all of about 5 min. 

So I am just curious what do you do for math journals and if you were to come to my presentation, what would you want to know about them?

Thanks!