As promised I am back with another test prep activity that we have been doing lately to get ready for our state tests. This specific test prep activity may be my favorite and I can definitely see myself doing this all year long. It is a spin off a traditional gallery walk and gets the kids moving, reviewing, and critiquing each other's work. I prepared the activity by ... Read More
Browse the archives below for even more great ideas
Test Prep: Graffiti Style
Test prep doesn't have to be the same old monotonous review and work. In fact, I prefer to spice up my test prep activities to keep my students engaged and to keep the work relevant and interesting. On this post I will share a test prep activity that works well with any subject and any type of question. If you have never seen this before, students respond to a text or ... Read More
Math Assessment Accommodations Made Easy!
One more day to go till the weekend! I wanted to write a quick post to share with you how to make simple math assessment accommodations for students with IEPs or on RTI plans. First, I must tell you this was not my idea or my work. I was in a fellow teacher's (4th grade) room when I saw this on a student's desk. I was immediately impressed and knew I had to share it! I ... Read More
100th Day of School for Upper Elementary
I wanted to share one of favorite new resources for my students with you today. Every year we get to see the primary kids having 100th Day Fun, and I wanted to bring some 100th Day Fun for into my upper elementary classroom. As the years go on, the magic and fun of school slowly goes away for some students. With some help of some great 100th Day of School graphics from ... Read More
Interpreting Remainders {Anchor Charts, Ideas, and Activities}
Well, I don't know about your students, but every year, it seems that interpreting remainders is a struggle for my students. It is really a struggle for students who have difficulty understanding word problems or that have no conceptual understanding of what division is. This post will share some of the activities we did and a free anchor chart with sample word problems ... Read More
Division Fun and a Tropical Christmas Freebie
We have been working very hard on long division these past few weeks. My students have huge gaps in their number sense, so this has been somewhat of a struggle for some. We have been working very diligently getting them to understand the partial quotients method of division in a conceptual way. Read more about how I teach partial quotients by clicking here. We have been ... Read More
Teaching Math Through Cognitively Demanding Tasks
Once a week, I do a cognitively demanding math task lesson to expose my students to rigorous word problems and allow them to learn from each other. I do this with the skill we are working on (if most of the students have mastered it) a review skill, or even to introduce a new skill. 90% of the problems are word problems so the students have a context to deal with and not ... Read More
Winter Math: Free Constructed Response Practice
Earlier this week, I blogged about sneaking some constructed response practice into Halloween fun. Read that post and grab two free math tasks by click here. The students had a great time completing them and it was some much needed practice so I decided to create a winter version for this upcoming winter season. I created four winter math word problems based on the common ... Read More
Halloween Math Constructed Response Practice
You guys, I got super smart this year and tied some of our Halloween Math with some extra constructed response practice. The kids never knew they were preparing for an assessment with these fun problems! This year, our district is having students take constructed response assessments on a few of the fraction common core standards (multiplying fractions by a whole, ... Read More
Free Fraction Center {Nacho Math}
I just found out today that our Math night is a nacho theme. It is called Nacho Ordinary Math Night. I thought that was the cutest idea! So, I made this cute nacho themed free fraction center using these fun nacho graphics from Ashley Hughes (LOVE her work). On another note, the heat was running full blast in my room this morning. It reminded me of that ... Read More
Morning Work Freebies to Start the Year
I use a lot of my review printables and resources from my TeachersPayTeachers store throughout the year. However in the beginning of the year, I like to use resources specifically created based on the standards I have taught so far that year. This builds the students' confidence and makes the review truly a review and independent. To be honest, when I try to use 4th ... Read More
Teaching Volume – (Free Volume Hands-on Activity and Posters)
When we moved to the Common Core standards this year, volume was a new skill for my 5th graders. Also, since there were three standards that addressed some aspect of volume, it was assessed more frequently than the other standards. I knew I needed to find or create some quality and engaging resources for teaching volume. This post shares my go-to activities, video, and ... Read More
