Spanish Subtraction Poem

I have always seen that lovely little poem to assist students in remembering what steps to take when encountering a 2-digit subtraction problem that goes along the lines of "More on top, no need to stop. More on the floor, go next door...you know the rest I am sure of it!

However, for a teacher who has always taught math in Spanish, as much as I adore the chant, I haven't ever been able to use it. 

Thus, last year, I worked hard to create something similar in the other language, so that my students could have a piece of the "fab poem pie". It was a hit with them and after adding a few actions to go along side it, I think it definitely helped them to nail down the steps to these types of problems. 

This past week, I had the opportunity to share and model this same chant in one of our 2nd grade dual language classrooms. We had so much fun, and I even recruited some model students to share the actions with all of you!

And now for the fun. Here are the actions (or TPR as we prefer to call it) to go along with it!

 

Once we rehearsed and learned the poem and actions quite well. We put our learning into practice and the students completed a sort in which they needed to determine whether various 2-digit subtraction problems needed to be regrouped or not. After cutting and sorting, the students solved then glued their work.

You can grab the sort page and the problems by clicking on each of their individual images below. (Note: Each student will only need a half sheet of problems.)