Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division
Practice different types of addition and subtraction word problems creating step-by-step tape diagrams to solve. Multiplication and Division Word Problems using Tape Diagrams Practice different types of multiplication and division word problems creating step-by-step tape diagrams to solve. Fraction Word Problems using Tape Diagrams Practice different types of fraction word problems including comparing fractions creating step-by-step tape diagrams to solve. Ratio Word Problems using Tape Diagrams Practice different types of ratio word problems creating step-by-step tape diagrams to solve. Word Problem Challenge Work This site allows students to solve a problem and listen to reasoning about the answer. The student needs to determine which reasoning explanation is correct. Thinking Blocks Word Problem Modeling Tool 2-8 Grades On this site students can solve word problems using an online tape diagram tool. Students can choose from many different types of problems from addition to subtraction to ratios, percentages, and algebra. Students can even write their own problems and solve! Word Problem Data Base This site has various word problems to practice organized by topic. MathTV Word Problems for 5-8th grade. Word problems have the option of MathTV which explains how to solve the problem using a picture. Coding
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Printable Math Games Games are a fun way to practice math skills at home. Simply click on a game that you are interested in trying and print on your home printer. Most games simply need a few dice, playing cards, crayons, or old game pieces. Have fun! Enriching Math Activities and Worksheets Math GamesMultiplication War Click her for instructions Multiple Speed - This game was a big hit in class! To play, print the cards out on card stock and cut out. Shuffle the deck and deal all cards out to two players. Each player flips over a card in the center. Simultaneously, opposing players place cards either ascending or descending in rank according to one of the cards in the middle. For example, if you were playing with multiples of 1 and a 7 was one of the middle cards, players could play either a 6 or an 8. A player can take more cards from his drawing pile during any time; however, a player can have no more than five cards in his hand at any one time. When both players cannot play any of their cards, a card from each player's pile is turned over and play resumes. The winner is the player who runs out of cards the fastest. I spent the summer of 2009 volunteering in an orphanage in Tamil Nadu, India. The experience is one I will always hold dear to my heart. The experiences I gain through travels like these add a richness to my teaching that no professional development can. Creating Indian Kolam is a fun activity I share with students while introducing geometry. It is a great way to merge literacy, art, culture and math. The product is beautiful. The complete lesson can be downloaded here.  To start, I briefly discuss symmetry. After reviewing simple examples of symmetry (in circles, squares, alphabet letters) I introduce kolam. We look at several pictures and discuss kolam's origin. Using graph paper, I model how to start a simple kolam explaining how to use the graph paper to guide my drawing. Find a center point to begin, all loops and lines must mirror each other starting from the origin. This works best with 1-inch grid paper but anything will work. Check out student samples here! Below you will find the story of kolam, complete with pictures from my stay in India! The Story Behind Kolam Early every morning, before dawn, the woman of Tamil Nadu draw kolams on the ground using rice or chalk powder. Throughout the day, the drawings get walked on, smeared, or blown away by wind. Every morning, before a new one is drawn, the floor outside of the home is carefully swept and wet with water, creating an even and slightly muddy surface. 
  Fostering a true love and excitement for math in my students is well, not an easy task. Luckily I love a good challenge!
Every year I look for new ways to peak student interest in math. Whether it is teaching geometry through art, or hyping up the great Pi Day, I strive to make learning fun. In the last couple of years, I have been piecing together weekly activities to get kids thinking about math in different ways. Math truly is everywhere, and often there are multiple ways to approach a problem. I created these Math Curiosities and Wonders to get kids really thinking and talking about math. Once a week, we take a look at one of these and spend 10-20 minutes (usually 10) discussing and looking at the problem in as many ways as possible. Students are able to build those Mathematical Practice muscles, discuss, defend their thinking, and come up with different observations and answers. I love seeing and hearing what each class comes up with! I use a variety of resources to engage my students in deep mathematical thinking. For quick math talks, I use my Curiosities and Wonders resource every Friday. I highly recommend visiting youcubed.org for their Week of Inspirational Math series. These activities tend to be a bit more involved but are absolutely worth it for building a positive mindset and stretching mathematical thinking. I have been severely neglecting this blog lately but as a working mom in a new school on a new position teaching math to grades 1-5..... something had to give and sadly it's been this website. Never fear! I have a few great things coming including: March Mathness activities My favorite free math resources Easy differentiated math games More math art! More indepth blog posts to come but here are a few sneak peak pics as to what my kiddos have been up to this year.
Happy Tax Day! In my class, kids pay taxes. It is all part of the classroom economy system. Year after year, the kids are super excited to do this. (?!?!?) Go figure. Anyway, while I continue to be baffled by the excitement of paying taxes, below you can find the kid friendly tax form I created! I tried to make it as realistic as possible. Just like its real life counterpart, it definitely can be confusing to some. However, this is modified for kids and most kids do figure it out independently. Depending on the class I have and their needs, I sometimes walk through the form step by step with them. This form is definitely molded to fit my own classroom economy system. I still tweak it a bit every year depending on what my class needs.  Nerd alert. Pi Day is by far one of my favorite days of the year and it is an excellent day to get kids extra excited about a traditionally not so exciting subject- math. I happen to be one of those strange people who loves all things numbers so celebrating a day like today comes easy for a nerd like me. Even for those of you who are not lovers of math, take this day to connect with your inner nerd and celebrate numbers. Your kids will love you (and math) for it! Below are a few projects I do with the kids. I always start by reading "Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi." I even read this to my 6th graders. :) Pi Day Projects: 1. Pi Plates 2. Pi Bracelets 3. Calculating the Circumference of Yummy Things! 4. Pi Contest 5. Pi Mobiles. I usually pick and chose which projects to do - not sure any teacher would have enough time to do all of them. :) Pi Plates Measuring the circumference of actual pies using pi would be tough- and incredibly messy with 36 kids in a class. Instead, we create pi plates. We find the diameter and radius, label each, and then calculate the circumference of the plate using pi on the back. Students decorate their plates however they wish. Later, the plates are used to hold circular foods (cookies, usually) After measure the circumference of of food, we eat!
Pi Bracelets Let me explain this one. This project obviously has less academic value but it really truly gets kids excited about math and numbers. Each bead represents a digit of the number pi. The kids are given instructions, along with the number pi. With 4th grade, 18 digits will typically fill up the entire bracelet! Have kids tie a not, or use a smaller bead for the period. You can also use smaller beads to mark where pie begins on the bracelet and where it ends. For this bracelet: Pink = 1; Orange = 2; Yellow =3; Green = 4; Blue = 5; Light Orange = 6; Light Blue = 7; Purple = 8; White = 9. 
The Pi Contest and Pi Mobiles
In the past, I have had kids participate in a "Memorize Pi Contest." The winner wins a pie :) Pi Mobiles is another art project that younger kids enjoy. I will post pics later.  Fractions and Decimals- Sometimes (well most of the time) fraction circles alone simply don't cut it. Kids need to play with fractions- a lot. A deep conceptual understanding of these concepts is essential for student success in elementary school and beyond. I have found that activities combining fraction manipultives and number lines helps to solidify conceptual understanding of fractions and decimals. The resource below combines number lines, decimals, and fractions- connecting two visual models and allowing kids to explore the concepts through hands on activities.
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Common-Core-Fractions-and-Decimals-A-Merging-of-Manipulatives-and-Numberlines-661860  For hands on learning fun- explore shapes through origami! This cube teaches symmetry, triangles, rectangles, squares and parallelograms. For upper grades, measure the cube's dimensions and/or extend this lesson as a surface area lesson. You will need six pieces of construction paper, cut into squares. I usually use 12 x 12 pieces of paper. Colors do not matter, you can use six different colors if you would like but the product looks best when only three colors are used. Step 1: Get Your PaperTo make one cube, you need 6 sheets of square paper. Step 2: Fold the Paper in Half Horizontally and Unfold Step 3: Fold the Bottom Edge to the Crease You Just Made Step 4: Do the Same With the Top Edge Step 5: Fold the Bottom Right Corner Up Step 6: Fold the Top Left Corner Down Step 7: Unfold the Corners Step 8: Unfold the Top Edge Step 9: Using the Existing Crease, Fold the Top Right Corner Along the Line. Step 10: Fold the Edge Back Down Step 11: Unfold the Bottom Edge Step 12: Again, Using the Existing Crease, Fold the Bottom Left Corner Along the Line. Step 13: Fold the Bottom Edge Back Up Step 14: Unfold the Top Edge Again Step 15: Using the Existing Crease, Fold the Bottom Right Corner Up Step 16: Fold the Top Edge Back Down Step 17: Make a Pocket for the Top Left Corner to Go In, As Shown Step 18: Slide the Top Left Corner InStep 19: Turn the Paper Over Step 20: Fold the Bottom Corner Up Step 21: Fold the Top Corner Down Step 22: The First Unit Is Done. Step 23: Now Follow These Steps to Make 5 More Units Step 24: Connect the Units. Step 25: Your Cube Is Finished!   This is Common Core aligned activity that gives kids daily practice with a variety of crucial math skills.
I have been using this in my class for years and my kids love it! After initially teaching the procedures to your students, it can easily transition into a 10 minute daily math warm up that kids are actively engaged in. This packet includes complete instructions on how to incorporate "Cube-A-Day" into your classroom. There are student templates, examples, a "Divisibility Rules" printout, a complete factors lists for numbers 1-180, and a complete prime factorization list for numbers 1-180. Activities provide daily review of key math concepts. Students will explore the properties of numbers, deepening their understanding of Prime and Composite Numbers, Facts, Factors, Multiples, Squared and Cubic numbers, Patterns, and Prime Factorization. Students are actively engaged in this activity, using cubes to give a visual representation of numbers. Each day, students will study a new number, discussing characteristics, finding factors and facts, stating multiples, and finally writing the number as a product of primes. The activity brings numbers to life, giving students the opportunity to develop a deep understanding of numbers that will carry with them for a lifetime. This activity is easily adaptable to 4th, 5th, or 6th grade Common Core Standards. The main standards addressed are: Operations and Algebraic Thinking Gain familiarity with factors and multiples. 4. Find all factor pairs for a whole number in the range 1–100. Recognize that a whole number is a multiple of each of its factors. Determine whether a given whole number in the range 1–100 is a multiple of a given one-digit number. Determine whether a given whole number in the range 1–100 is prime or composite. |
MathMath- a subject that traditionally makes most kids cringe happens to be one of my favorite subjects to teach. Archives
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