What’s the best way for my child to learn multiplication?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions teachers face when the time comes to memorize those multiplication facts.

We teach all the arrays, and the strategies to cement that conceptual understanding but at the end of the day they need to memorize the multiplication facts in order to be able to perform more advanced math.

In fact, the Common Core lists this as a standard:

3.OA.C.7 : By the end of Grade 3, know from MEMORY all products of two 1-digit numbers.

I have compiled a list of my favorite methods and resources to get your students to memorize the multiplication facts:

1. Music

2. PowerPoint Slides with Movement

3. Multiplication Sorts

4. Multiplication Reward System

5. Websites and Online Programs

The post Resources to Practice Multiplication appeared first on Loving Math.

We all want to have successful math centers.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard teachers say:

“I don’t do math centers. Too much planning.”

“Who has time to do this everyday?”

“My kids can’t handle math centers.”

“Centers are too noisy.”

What if I told you that you can run successful centers everyday with minor planning and that your kids will behave?

What if I told you you can get kids to learn more during math centers than by doing 60 minute whole group lessons?

Here are some tips to get you started doing math centers successfully:

Start the first day of school

Practice Practice Practice

I have seen teachers spend an entire period rehearsing transitions. It might seen like such a waste of time but it is so worth it when they finally get it and then you can spend an entire year with flawless transitions and plenty of oohs and aahs from administrators when you get observed. Plus it saves your sanity. During this rehearsal period DO NOT sit with a small group. Walk around making sure students are following the rules and expectations. When you feel centers look and sound to your satisfaction, start running your teacher small group.

Organize your materials

Make it fun

 

Some math center ideas you might like:

Long Division Word Problems Game – Interpreting Remainders

Long Division Game – TRASHKETBALL

5th Grade Powers of Ten Digital Math Centers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-cDGaCLuo0

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Have you ever been to a Professional Development session where you sit and listen the whole time?

I have… and it wasn’t pretty.

Sitting there listening to a speaker without a chance to get up and interact with others is plain old boring. I usually end up pulling out my phone and scrolling through all kinds of sites just to keep my sanity.

Our students feel the same way. As much as they love you and want to listen, they are not able to concentrate and listen for long periods of time. Student engagement is key to avoid negative behaviors and get kids excited about learning.

One of the best ways to get kids energized and refocused is to get them out of their seats. I love using strategies to get them talking and walking. It works and they always ask for more.

But most importantly it increases student engagement  100 percent!

You can use these strategies in any content area and to pretty much review any skill.

When I taught third and fourth grades I promised myself I would get kids out of their seats at least 3 times a day. They loved it and engagement skyrocketed every time.

Here is a list of strategies  and games I love to use in my classroom to increase student engagement:

STAND UP, HAND UP,  PAIR UP

This one can be used to answer questions you pose after a reading or math lesson, to go over questions on a worksheet or to go over homework.

How does it work?

QUIZ QUIZ TRADE

This one is great for review prior to a test. You need to create questions on cards. you need the same number of cards as you have students. Task cards are great for this. The answers need to be on the back of the card so students can check their peer.

How does it work?

TRASHKETBALL

Trashketball Games

This game is great to review any skill in any content. I have used this game countless times and the kids love it. It’s highly competitive and great to play in teams. I create a slide show with the questions I want the students to answer. This could be a math review, questions based on a reading passage, or science questions based on a topic.

How does it work?

• Break the class up into teams. The number of teams is up to you. I recommend 4 to 6 students in a team

• Provide each student with a recording sheet  or you can give them dry erase boards to show their work.

• Set the trash can up in front of the classroom. Also set up different levels to take shots from, a one, two, and three point line.

• Project the slides on a smart board or using a projector and set a time for students to solve. It could be any number of minutes you feel your students need to solve.

• Each student solves the problem independently and then consults with their team members to agree on an answer.

• When time is up, call a member of each team to come up and show you their answer. If correct the team scores a point. They also get a chance to score bonus points

• For the bonus points, they get to shoot a soft ball into the trash can. They can score 1, 2, or 3 points depending how far from the can they stand ( Set up shooting point lines in advance

SCAVENGER HUNTS

Oh how I love scavenger hunts. they are pretty easy to set up and again they work for any topic. I love to use them to review math skills. You can set up a set of questions on pieces of paper, one question per paper. You then will have the answer to that question on top of a different paper with a different question and so on. Basically the answer to each question is on a different sheet, which the students need to find to complete that question.

Long Division Scavenger Hunt

How does it work?

➟Tape questions to the walls around your room or hang from the ceiling (spread out).

➟Break up class into the same number of groups as questions. If 10 questions, then 10 groups.

➟Hand each student a copy of a recording sheet.

➟Place each pair or group of students at any of the stations.

Each stations sheet has a code, which students will enter on their recording sheet as they answer each question. This is to keep track of the problems they have solved.

➟Students work with partners to solve the problem on the paper and record it on their sheet. Then, they look for the answer they just recorded until they find it. Once they find it, they solve the problem on that sheet and so on until all stations have been visited.

➟If they cannot locate their answer, that means they made a mistake.

➟Students will end up where they started from

The post 5 Effective Strategies to Increase Student Engagement appeared first on Loving Math.

Look at all the place value standards listed from K to fifth grade:

DEVELOPING CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING

ENGAGE CHILDREN IN YOUR PLACE VALUE LESSONS:

Here are the topics and games included:

✓Representing Numbers

✓Greater Numbers ( ten thousands and hundred thousands)

✓Number Lines

✓Comparing Numbers

✓Ordering Numbers

✓Rounding to the Nearest Ten and Nearest Hundred

The 7 Center Activities are:

♥My Number:Three Ways : Writing numbers in standard, expanded and word form.

♥Place Value Race: A game board to practice value of digits in a number.

♥What’s Missing?: A game of Scoot to practice number lines.

♥Number War: Partner game of War to practice comparing numbers.

♥Order My Scoops: A craftivity where students order numbers written in different formats, then put the scoops on the ice cream.

♥Roll and Round: A dice game for students to practice rounding

♥Pop’em Round’em: A sorting game for students to practice rounding to the nearest 10 and nearest 100

 

PLACE VALUE COMPLETE UNIT – CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE

Have fun teaching your place value unit friends!

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An escape room is an adventure in which players solve a series of puzzles using clues, hints, and strategies to complete the objectives at hand.

 

Digital escape rooms, as the name suggest, are completed online, and require no printing, cutting, laminating, or setting up. All a teacher needs to do is give the link to the students and let them explore and struggle a bit to complete all the challenges.

 

I like to keep my digital escape rooms to about 4 challenges for a maximum time of 60-90 minutes. I have tested mine in different classrooms and find that this is a good time frame for students to work through. Believe it or not, the time goes by so quickly that it seems like only 15 minutes have passed.

 

 

 

Here is how I plan my escape rooms:

 

1) Decide on the skill or standard you want your students to review. This could be a specific math or reading skill, a chapter review, or the review for a quarterly assessment.

 

2) Decide how many challenges you want to include: This is important as you don’t want the students to finish too quickly or spend hours on a challenge. 60 minutes is optimal.

 

3) Decide on a theme or story line. Escape rooms have a story behind and includes the student as part of the story. Something like “a team of aliens have invaded earth and captured you. In order to escape you must complete each challenge.” This sets the stage and gives you a canvas for your creative process. Think about adding pictures or scenes of aliens

 

4) Design each challenge by using a variety of sources: I host my escape room in a google site and include a variety of outside links  such as puzzles, videos, google slides, hidden pictures, google forms, google drawings, etc.

 

5) Decide on different digital locks: You can pick word, color, directional, or number locks. All digital embedded in a google form.

 

6) Embed your forms and lock box right into your site: Embed your lock box right into the site you are using and publish your site.

 

 

 

Here are some site ideas you can use to create your challenges. 

 

https://www.jigsawplanet.com/

 

https://snotes.com/

https://www.genial.ly/

https://codemoji.org/#/encrypt

http://www.fakereceipt.us/sales_receipt.php

https://www.fakephonetext.com/

https://sites.google.com/site/digitalbreakoutjb/how-to

The post Creating your Own Digital Escape Rooms for the Classroom appeared first on Loving Math.

I discovered Boom Learning a few weeks ago while searching for new ways to create digital content for the students I serve as an Instructional Coach.

My school uses Google Classroom for grades 2 and up so I had been focusing on creating Google Apps resources to share with those teachers. But my Kindergarten and First Grade teachers had been struggling to get work to their students during the  COVID19 school closures. Boom Cards came up in one of the searches and I was instantly addicted.

What are BOOM Cards?

Boom Cards are digital, self checking, interactive task cards that can be used in any device with internet access. A Boom Learning account must be set up by the teacher in order to assign the decks to her students. Setting up an account is super easy and free and the best part  – it is compatible with Google Classroom. This means that you can import your classroom rosters from Google Classrooms and students would log in through Google.

What’s so special about Boom Cards?

They are self checking, meaning students get immediate feedback. They can save their progress and go back and finish later.

Teachers get live reports on student progress and mastery. They can also assign decks to specific students or the whole class, making differentiation easy to accomplish.

It’s easy to create your own and your students will love completing them.

Boom Equivalent Fractions

Boom Fractions on a Number Line

Boom Word Problems

The post BOOM CARDS! The easiest way to create Digital Resources! appeared first on Loving Math.

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Is your school district closed due to the COVID 19 pandemic?

Stay healthy and charged:

Teachers are not used to sitting in front of a screen all day. During this time of remote learning, take frequent breaks, go outside for shorts periods of time to get fresh air, eat healthy meals, and hydrate.

Use technology to engage students:

Connect with parents:

If you use Google Classroom, assigning activities through this platform is a very easy way to get your students engaged and at the click of a button you can get it out to all your students. I have a variety of Google Classroom resources that align to the standards and provide practice to a variety of skills.

Check them out below.

 

Are and Perimeter GOOGLE CLASSROOM

Fractions on a Number Line Interactive GOOGLE CLASSROOM

Long Division for GOOGLE CLASSROOM

 

The post Helping your students during the COVID 19 Pandemic appeared first on Loving Math.

Are you looking for ways to engage your students during review days? Perhaps a game that will have them working to their potential and screaming with joy? I will show you the perfect math game to review any skill.

Review days! They can be so boring at times.

It’s the end of your multiplication chapter.

The test is tomorrow.

You must review with your class.

Your choice of review? That’s easy…. the test review page on your students’ math book.

This is how most of us review for every test. I get it. It’s easy. It aligns perfectly to the format of the test. The questions are pretty much the same, just with different numbers. You assign it, they do it, you go over it. BOOM! DONE!

But is it fun and engaging?

I bet not.

THE KIDS ARE BORED!

Let me share with you another way that you can implement to review for any skill prior to the test. In my opinion, this is the perfect math game to review any skill!

It’s a game called TRASHKETBALL.

–

Why Trashketball?

The kids love it. It’s competitive. They really really really try to get the answers and collect points as a group. But most of all they get to shoot balls or paper into a trash can.

It’s simple to use and doesn’t cost any money!

You can even copy those questions from the test review onto a PowerPoint presentation and save yourself the annoying task of having to make copies.

This is how the game is played.

Here is a FREE Trashketball game perfect for St. Patrick’s Day:

Click here to download

 

The post THE PERFECT MATH GAME TO REVIEW ANY SKILL! appeared first on Loving Math.

In my years teaching students and providing support to other teachers, one of the biggest challenges I’ve encountered has been solving word problems. Most students are able to compute but are often puzzled by which operation to perform. In fact, that is usually the first question they ask after they read the word problem. 

“Is this addition?”

“Is this subtraction?”

“Is this multiplication?”

“Is this division”?

To be honest, the way we teach math is mostly to blame. Think about most math textbooks. There is often a unit on addition (or subtraction, or multiplication, or division), followed by a problem solving lesson at the very end. Kids know they are learning that skill so they don’t have to think about the operation needed. Tests are designed the same way. A chapter test on Addition. Well, no wonder our kids don’t have the strategies to decide which operation is needed when they are presented with all these word problems at once.

Other teachers rely on clue words. In my humble opinion, this is not enough and is often misleading. 

For example:

 the word total can be any operation

the word each could be multiplication or division

the word left could be subtraction, or addition

Sometimes no clue words are mentioned at all. What are kids to do?

I have created some lessons to help kids decide which operation is needed when solving one step problems. As a math coach,  have tried these lessons with our third grade students and have seen considerable increase in understanding. 

For addition / subtraction problems, we teach them various scenarios that call for addition and subtraction. We then, break up those problems into two categories:

• PART PART WHOLE problems
• COMPARISON problems

A variety of practice problems are shared with students, where they used the graphic organizers given to decide which operation is needed to solve. 

• “I know I need to multiply when the numbers are small like 3 and 6.”
• ” I divide when they give me a big number and a small number, like 64 and 8.”
• “I multiply when it says each.”
• “I divide when it says share equally.”

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