How to Have Fun When You Don’t Have Time for Fun!

Posted in Christmas, fractions, guided math, hands on learning, holidays, math, multiplication, problem solving, student engagement, task cards, test prep by

Some of my favorite memories of my elementary school years involve making crafts and playing games! My favorite craft was making gingerbread scented salt dough ornaments! But, anyone who teaches in this day and age knows we don’t always have time to do the fun stuff, right! So, to make the most of the season I sneak in a little holiday cheer as often as possible! Here are a few of my favorite ways to sneak in some fun when you have too much curriculum to cover or a dreaded math assessment to review for!

As simple as it sounds, white printer paper, colored markers and stickers or stamps can add a little holiday cheer to even the most dull math tasks! Here is an example of a Math Review I did yesterday with one of my Fourth graders. She has a test this week so we needed to spend some serious time reviewing fractions, but you can see that we still made it fun!

$fractions holiday mixed and improper lines.jpg$

I bet you can figure out what my third graders are reviewing this week! Check out this simple array activity to practice multiplication! This could also be used for fact families!

But what if you have to work on a review with word problems? No problem! You make that into a present too! Take any review or set of task cards and have students make a cheerful answer sheet like this:

Well, if you know me at all, you know I LOVE MATH GAMES, so I will have to mention that you can turn any math skill into a game! Here is one of my favorites from my TpT Store:

$santa game math 2.jpg$

I would love to hear some other ideas people have for adding a little holiday fun to math class! Leave a comment below with your favorite activity!

25Nov2017

Candy Shop Math Centers

Posted in addition, Christmas, guided math, holidays, problem solving by Mrs. Kirk

I am getting excited about the holiday season! I have made some new games/activities to play with my 3rd and 4th graders using some really fun clip art! Seriously, the elves are so cute!

The four newest games/activities I have created are:

Addition Bingo
Subtraction Matching
Addition and Subtraction Balancing Equations
Addition and Subtraction Word Problems

The four activities can be purchased individually or as a bundle in my TpT store!

2Nov2017

Math Ideas for Turkey Time!

Posted in addition, elementary, Fall, games, guided math, math, multiplication, problem solving by Mrs. Kirk

Well, I am a bit behind on posting, but I have a good excuse! I have been working on some new resources for November! I finally uploaded my two new Thanksgiving themed games to TpT.

The first one is a Word Problem Scavenger Hunt! Your students will get a chance to move around and work collaboratively with partners while solving one and two step addition and subtraction problems. The problems all have a Thanksgiving theme and have great clipart to go with the questions.

$Thanksgiving math hunt.png$

The second one is called Turkey Tic Tac Toe! It is a Thanksgiving themed multiplication game. Make fact practice a little more fun with this game.

I will be creating more Thanksgiving math activities so keep your eye on my Fall Pinterest Board or Visit my TpT store.

1Aug2017

Tips to Plan and Prep for Math Workshop or Guided Math

Posted in addition, back to school, classroom ideas, elementary, guided math, hands on learning, math, problem solving by Mrs. Kirk

While there may be times that you want to use a traditional whole group model for instruction, there are other times you need to work with small groups in order to differentiate for your individual student’s needs. Math workshop (or guided math) is a very successful way to work in small group instruction time and maximize student learning. To make the best use of your time, planning and preparation are key. I have rounded up some of my favorite tips and resources here:

1.) Plan how to use your time! I like to start my Math class with a quick warm up and skill review and then move onto a mini-lesson when needed. Some new concepts can be taught to the whole group quickly and then reinforced in centers / stations. Some need longer time. This is where you have to decide what is best for your classroom, but a few helpful blogs have great ideas for scheduling:

2.) Find or create a simple lesson plan template and/or small group template:

3.) Set up a binder to keep schedules, plans, templates, and notes.

4.) Pick and post your rotation system.

5.) Group students by ability or interest. Grouping should be flexible and change often based on student’s individual needs. For example, sometimes you may need to group students who need re-teaching on a specific skill and other days you may need to group students based on interests when planning projects. Another idea is to sometimes work with students you know will need extra help and pre-teach them a skill you will be teaching the whole class later in the week. This can save you time re-teaching later and will help boost their confidence and success when the class learns the skill.

6.) Teach your students the expectations for groups.

7.) Set up an organizational system and teach your students how the system works.

9.) Reflect and Plan for Next Time: When you get to the end of the schedule, take some time to reflect before setting up the next rotation. What worked? What was confusing? etc… This is also a time to look at your student groups and decide if you need to change anyone to a new group.

For more ideas, check out my Pinterest Board “Guided Math”.

3Jun2017

Posted in addition, elementary, hands on learning, kinesthetic learners, math, problem solving, student engagement by Mrs. Kirk

$math help 2$

There are many ways to teach problem solving to elementary students. Most students are successful with a well structured problem solving plan. However, we all have at least a few students who just don’t “get it” with regular classroom lessons. Working one on one or in small groups and applying well planned interventions helps these students find success. Last week I shared my first three top tips and today I am sharing the next three tips:

help with word problems Some students understand the questions just fine, but have trouble seeing the big picture, the story or the scenario. These students need extra help laying out the details. Most students will benefit from instruction in drawing pictures or making diagrams, and struggling students will especially need to practice with this. I like to teach my students how to make part-part-whole and whole-part-part models.

We will discuss each clue and label it as a part or the whole and then work from there. Strip diagrams and unit bars work well too. I also like to encourage students to make actual pictures of the clues. I am no artist and the kids like to laugh at my drawings with me!

$help with math$ This is so important for students who have trouble visualizing the actions in the problem. An example could be using this problem below with Martina and her purse. I will get play money out and we will actually act out the story with the play money. Another example could be to use colored counters with the apple story below. Now there are some big numbers so you could use smaller numbers to practice acting it out and then transfer the actions to your paper with the larger numbers.

$math help$ Sometimes students get caught up by the big numbers and can’t focus on the actions in the problem. For these students you can cross out the big numbers, substitute with smaller numbers and have them solve. Then apply the actions to the bigger numbers. If needed, use manipulatives to help build understanding.

Missed Part 1 from last week? Find it here:

$more math help 3$

30May2017

Interventions for Problem Solving in Math

Posted in addition, division, elementary, math, problem solving by Mrs. Kirk

$problem solving interventions math$

My favorite “Go To” intervention strategies are:

$math interventions$

Often students read the problem and pick a method to solve without really addressing the question asked. I like to point out to my students which part of a problem is the question and which part is the “story” or “clues”. This helps students to see what part of the problem is telling and which part is asking. I like to use this analogy with my students: “I asked Shelley what color the sky is. She told me the grass is green. Did she lie? No, but did she answer my question? NO” and then relate this to word problems. If you use the clues, but you don’t answer the question, you haven’t solved the problem. One way to make this successful is to give your students a problem without the question, then have the students brainstorm as many different questions they can think of for clues.

Another way to help with this is to give your students 3 problems that share the same clues, but have different questions. This is a good way to show students that they need to analyze the question before they make up their mind about what steps to take. (Click the photo above for a FREE set of analyzing the question word problems).

This helps some students to understand the question better. Look at the example below. After reading the story problem, ask the students to rewrite the question as a sentence with a blank for the answer. Do this before discussing and strategies for solving the problem. The process of rewriting the question as a statement helps students to focus on what is being asked. After solving the problem, have your students place their answer in the blank and read the statement with the number in the blank. Teach them to ask themselves if their answer makes sense in the statement.

Most word problems follow a standard format with clues first and question last. Some students have trouble filtering the question out of the story. Students that have this problem can benefit from working from the bottom up. Teach them to read the question first (usually at the end) and then read the whole problem to gather clues. I usually save this strategy for students who really need that extra something after trying other interventions. It does not work for everyone, but for some it is the “magic trick” to help them organize the problem. Also, they usually need to do this until they get better at other strategies.

Want more ideas for interventions?

$more math help 3$

or Visit my Pinterest Board for Problem Solving:

3May2016

How to Solve Multi-Step Word Problems

Posted in addition, elementary, freebies, guided math, hands on learning, math, problem solving by Mrs. Kirk

After many years of teaching I have put together a “tool box” of tips and tricks to help students really understand and solve word problems, even the all complicated multi-step problems. Today I would like to share some of those tips! Whether you are a teacher, home school parent, or a parent helping your child with homework, these tips should help! Continue reading →