In our math teaching world today we have to administer a plethora of tests throughout the year. Sometimes our students get tired of the same old ways of practicing and reviewing. Today I’d like to share some test prep and review ideas with you for those tests that have all the 6th grade level standards on them. I believe that students really need to be engaged when they review, or they will not remember and carry it with them. Also, I like to make test prep a collaborative effort between students. So, many of the activities below don’t just review the math, they also get students working together and having fun.
Of course, you have to find what works best with your students. Also, you have to figure out just how much time you have for review. I start reviewing a little bit each day months in advance of our benchmark and state testing. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that students can have a couple of days of review and they’ll remember everything from the whole year.
Also, in order for it to be review, that means that students actually understood it the first time. Otherwise you will have to reteach and not just review. Let’s look at some ideas and activities to help make reviewing for the big test a breeze.
10 Ideas for 6th Grade Math Test Prep
Daily progress monitoring
Skill review activities
Cyclical review mazes
Reflection and Progress Tracking
Whole class review games
Customize Task Cards
Computer Games
Growth Mindset Activities
Illustrative Mathematics
Error Analysis
Let’s look at each of these ideas and dig deeper. Some of them are things you can do all year long, and some of them work best when the test draws closer. You don’t have to try and implement all of them, but there are a lot of nuggets here that will build better math students.
Daily progress monitoring
Sometimes students need a little boost. That’s why I love to do two weeks of reviewing 12 specific topics. Each day students take a 12 question quiz and then we go over the answers. Students keep track of which problems they get right and wrong. Every day the same concepts are tested in the same order. This gives students a chance to see their strong and weak areas. Also, by looking at the students’ progress charts it’s easy as a teacher to see trends among students. It helps pinpoint where the class needs some overall pointers and reminders.
For 6th grade we review the following topics:
- graphing inequalities
- equivalent ratios
- percents
- unit rate
- GCF
- dividing fractions
- one-step equations
- decimal operations
- ordering rational numbers
- volume of rectangular prisms
- mode and range
- simplifying expressions
You’ll notice that most of these topics are the building blocks for the big concepts of 6th grade math. My favorite part of incorporating this type of practice is watching students improve their skills over the 2 week period.
Skills review activities
I like to pair the daily review above with activities that reinforce the individual concepts. So, each day we complete an activity that corresponds to one of the 12 topics from the above list. We complete a paper chain for dividing fractions, and a match and paste activity for mean and range. There’s a one-step equations escape room and a QR codes game for finding volume. The activities get students talking and playing while they get ready for the test. This is so much more engaging then giving them worksheet after worksheet.
Cyclical review mazes
If you’ve read any of my blog posts before, then you know how much I love using mazes in my class. Almost every class period all year long begins with a maze in my classroom. Mazes give students a chance to practice in a non-threatening way, and can be a great way to review before a test. I’ve found I can even recycle some of the mazes that I used earlier in the year to do some test prep. Mazes work great as homework as well.
Some of my favorite 6th grade mazes are distributive property, combining like terms, solving one step equations, multiplying fractions, dividing fractions, and unit rate. I have three mazes for each of these topics, so we use them for weeks of homework or extra practice.
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Reflection and Progress Tracking
Sometimes we have students learning so many new things, but we forget to involve them in tracking their own learning. We have charts and spreadsheets with numbers and scores, but the students don’t understand their own progress. I’ve found that when I include students in the data tracking process, they buy into their success on the test more.
You can find different ways for students to track their progress. One way is just to build in a little bit of time for students to reflect on their learning and their data. Teach them how to read the data and reflect on their effort and understanding.
One tactic we’ve recently started is having students mark how confident they are when they complete a question on a test or activity. Then they can reflect on if their confidence was founded or not. Having them record their confidence helps them really think about what they’re doing during the test, and it leads to great conversations afterwards.
Also, short, individual conferences with students to talk about what their data means helps them understand how they’re doing in a more personal way. Usually, students don’t know what the data means and that gives an important opportunity to frame it for them. When I tell students their score on a benchmark test they look at me and say, “Is that good?” I try to find the good in their score even if the score isn’t passing. Maybe they improved since the last time or maybe they were close to being at the next level. Use this time to give students confidence that they can get better.
Whole class review games
Sometimes you just want everyone to practice the same thing at the same time. Whole class review games give you a chance to see what the misconceptions are and help students resolve them. We use a variety of whole class games to review for tests, including the end of the year test. Some of my favorite whole class games are bingo, knockout, Kahoot, the target game, and 20 questions.
Customize Task Cards
In my class we use task cards throughout the year. I have task cards for just about every topic that I teach. At the end of the year when we review, I look through the task cards that I have and I take cards from different sets to make a customized task card set for review. One of the sets that I made a few years ago I use every year with my 8th graders.
For example, you could take 4 cards or one printed page from each of your task card sets. You could choose to do two pages from the topics that need more in depth practice. Then, just copy them all together and, voilá! you’ve made a review set of task cards. For 6th grade math that set might have a mix of volume, equations, inequalities, and decimal operations. After you’ve printed the page you want you can cut them into cards and mix them up. Then you can use one of so many activities for task cards and have a fun review activity.
Computer Games
You can find a variety of games for students to play to get individualized practice with various concepts. Some of my general go-to sites are Manga High, Prodigy, and XP Math. For 6th grade practice, here’s a list of some games that will work great for your students:
Comparing Numbers with Deepest Ocean
Flower Power for Ordering Decimals, Fractions and Percents
Sigma Prime for Prime Factorization
XP Math List of 6th Grade Games
Remember that games get kids engaged and they work great as a productive assignment for fast finishers or homework. For even more review games and activiy ideas including more technology tools, check out this “18 Math Review Games” post.
Growth Mindset Activities
When it comes to testing, an awareness of Growth Mindset can help students get closer to their potential. If you’re not familiar with growth mindset, then check out this video from MashUp Math here.
I spend a good amount of time working with kids on being okay with trying, even when they don’t know exactly what to do. Many students don’t want to try and look silly if they don’t immediately get a tough problem. That’s where explicitly teaching about having a Growth Mindset comes in.
Illustrative Mathematics
If you’re looking for some deeper problems for your students to tackle, then I’d suggest Illustrative Mathematics. They have a variety of problems to choose from and they’re aligned to specific standards. These performance tasks require students to apply mathematical understanding to a novel situation. They’re much more complex than traditional multiple choice questions.
Pro tip- remember that when you first give student these types of questions they’ll struggle with them. Just like anything else you have to teach them the skills to not give up easily and to look for aspects of the problems that they do understand before jumping into solving.
Here are a couple of my favorite 6th grade problems from Illustrative Mathematics:
Error Analysis
Analyzing errors helps students to see potential pitfalls in a topic, and they don’t have to be the one making the errors. My team and I use this method a lot with our students. We use it for test corrections and for bellwork. My favorite way to practice error analysis is to take actual student work (without names, of course) and show a “good” example and a “bad” example. Then, students use a rubric to evaluate where the mathematician went wrong or what they did right. Even “correct” answers can have bad process, so this helps students focus on the process, not just the correct/incorrect answer.
The time of the year that we really use it the most is during test preparation. Many of our students just don’t know some of the test taking strategies that they need to be successful.
Try one thing…
Well, I’m sure that you already do some of these strategies in your classroom. Even so, when you see them all together it can get a little overwhelming. Don’t try to do all of them all of the time. Just take bite-sized goals and implement it.
I’d recommend starting with adding more collaborative activities to your classroom when you’re having students prep for the test. Also, remember to sprinkle the stategies and test prep through out the year.
Want to grab these resources? Check out the daily math review & math review activities in a ready-to-go, low prep set HERE.
