Standards and Accountability

At the beginning of my service learning hours, Mrs. Cunico was teaching her students 2 digit addition and subtraction. Another thing she was having them work on was the hundredth, tenth, and ones place. They were also very familiar with counting by 5's and 10's, every time they would line up for lunch Mrs. Cunico would have them count by 5's or 10's to 100 until they were all in line. Now that the students understand these, Mrs. Cunico likes to still have the students work on them. Every day after lunch is their Math time. They come in and get out there "Math self start". Some of the questions on the self starter are writing the number of the day (how many days they have been in school). They would write the number and then spell out the number as well, they have a space for making tallies of that number, and then there is a question on either the hundreds, tenths, or ones place. There is even money on the board that Mrs. Cunico has them count and there is a question on that, and also a what time does the clock show question. After they have had sometime to fill those out, she has them go to the carpet where she teaches the math lesson. Then the students go work on a math sheet from their books. When they are finished they get to play a math game. Mrs. Cunico has so many games from word and phonics games to spelling games and math games. But after Math she has them choose from the Math games. Now that they have those things down Mrs. Cunico has moved on to the next step in the math standards. She is now working on 3 digit addition and subtraction. Having just learned the 2 digit addition and subtraction going into the 3 digit addition and subtraction is the next step it was a great transition. The things/rules they worked on with the 2 digits they can now use with the 3 digits with a few more rules/strategies. Math is the one I see most in the service learning class that I am in. As I was talking to Mrs. Cunico about common core and standards. She told me that common core doesn't really affect her because they start that when they are in 3rd grade, not 2nd. But she feels like the standards help them get ready for the 3rd grade and common core testing.  Mrs. Cunico follows the standards, she says most of the time it is great, but she did say sometimes it can be time consuming, and if they are behind she feels like they have to rush to catch up. I feel like Mrs. Cunico does a great job in making sure the students are ready to go on to the 3rd grade.