It all started when Dan Meyer tweeted this Which One Doesn’t Belong prompt…

Math & contrasting cases collide in @WODBMath. Here is my contribution! What do you think? Which one doesn’t belong?! pic.twitter.com/jnrp8qVLpQ — Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) March 23, 2015

The MathTwitterBlogosphere had a ball using logical and comical thinking to conceive of ways to not pick the muppet.  I said Daniel Craig didn’t belong because his hands were showing.  Then I decided to send a response…

@ddmeyer@cmmteach@TracyZager@WODBMath@JustinAion Hey Dan, I found one where the answer is still snarf! pic.twitter.com/2M6QkBDiYu — Andrew Gael (@bkdidact) March 23, 2015

But all the fun and games got me thinking about my own classes and how I could leverage this fun for my students.  Enter Mary Bourassa and her new #MTBoS site Which One Doesn’t Belong?  Inspired by the work of Christopher Danielson, Steve Wyborney, and Chris Hunter, Mary has created a wonderful new website meant to spark mathematical conversations and debates among students and teachers.  It joins a list of other #MTBoS inspired websites that provide prompts for beginning of class activities. Beginning of class activities are called many different things: do nows, openers, bellwork, warm-ups, but I like to refer to them as daily routines.

Most students with disabilities respond well to structured, predictable, and regular routine classroom procedures.  So having the ability to choose from a wide array of fantastic activities is crucial, enter the #MTBoS. The MathTwitterBlogoSphere has collaborated to create and maintain many different activities that elicit and cultivate deep mathematical thinking.  They include:

• Estimation 180
• Would You Rather
• Visual Patterns
• Math Arguments 180
• Graphing Stories
• Which One Doesn’t Belong?

Andrew Stadel created Estimation 180, which I have blogged about here.  John Stevens created and maintains Would You Rather, a website that offers students a daily choice where students use math to justify their decision.  Visual Patterns, created and maintained by Fawn Nguyen, is a site that uses visual patterns to foster algebraic thinking.  Math Arguments 180 is a site created and maintained by The Math Curmudgeon, which provides prompts for students to engage in mathematical arguments.  Graphing Stories, created by Dan Meyer and friends, provides 3 easy steps to get students thinking about rates of change and graphing.  Lastly, Which One Doesn’t Belong? is welcomed addition to this growing library of beginning of math class routines. Which brings me to my contributions to Which One Doesn’t Belong? (WODB?).

As I said earlier, after having a good laugh over Dan’s joking WODB?  I began to think of ways to make it most relevant for my students.  We recently moved on to our spring financial literacy unit and so money was on my mind!

Here’s my @WODBMath contribution! @MaryBourassa#elemmathchat#spedmathpic.twitter.com/m1juxzsKRw

— Andrew Gael (@bkdidact) March 23, 2015

I wanted to find ways to make identifying coins and applying number sense knowledge for counting coins more fun.  I also wanted to make their thinking more visible by providing opportunities to discuss ideas and thoughts about money.  Mary’s new site is going to be one of my go-to’s for donowopenersbellworkwarmups or more simply, daily math routines.

Here are some more WODB? that I recently submitted to the site…

Enjoy and please let me know how you use WODB? in your class!

UPDATE:

I got this tweet earlier today from Casey in California!

@bkdidact @WODBMath @MaryBourassa you guuuyyysss!!!! I did the coin one with gr 5-8th for warm up. LOVED.IT!!!! Keep up the good work!

— casey (@cmmteach) March 25, 2015