This summer my co-teacher and I attended the Excellence in Co-teaching Institute in Richmond on July 19, 2017. I was trained on how to utilize the Frame routine. This is a new strategy that is designed to help students as they organize topics when learning about the key topic and related information that goes along with it. We used the Frame routine to help introduce place value into our third graders curriculum. It was a good way to help students understand and learn key information. It also helped students focus in on relationships on main ideas and details. I used the frame routine technique as a visual device when teaching a lesson on place value that helped my students understand and recall the key topic as well as all of the associated details that went along with the key topic. My students focused attention on the importance behind the key topic while also being able to identify the main ideas related to the key topic. My first strategy when teaching place value was to model numbers in various ways by using base ten blocks. For example I told my students “the ones are represented by individual squares, ten ones makes a group of ten also known as a “stick”, ten tens make a group of one hundred also known as a “flat”, and ten one hundreds makes a group of one thousand also known as a “3-dimensional cube.” After being able to review and identify the place value of the number we reviewed how to represent different numbers with base ten blocks by actually building the number. We started with smaller numbers then gradually worked our way up. We also taught them a little tune to remember in their head starting at the ones place and going all the way to the one hundred thousands place. We found that by asking students to represent numbers with concrete objects or pictures and carefully examine their use, it gives an insight into their conceptions. Once the students were able to grasp the understanding of place value we were able to put our Frame routine together with out key topic, main ideas, essential details and most importantly our “So what statement”. We told them that one important thing to learn about place value is knowing how certain numbers work can help you use them.
