There’s no doubt that I was meant to be a middle school teacher. I love zombies, pirates, unicorns, tacos, and avocados. Once I realized that my love for the random was shared by my students, I found a way to relate to them. Some of my students leave the room and tell me to have a nice avocado. It doesn’t really mean anything, but these inside jokes bring my class together When I practicing with real world problems, or word problems, I make sure to add some of that randomness flair to the math situations. We have a fun time solving these dreaded word problems, and it helps students stay engaged. Today I’ll share with you nine go-to strategies and activities that help students practice solving real world problems with equations. [Read more…] about 9 Magical Activities for Real World Equations Problems
12 Activities for Practicing Proportions that Pop
It’s crazy to me how much power some of the skills we teach really carry. Getting kids to understand proportions and how to solve for a missing value in proportions is one of those concepts that just keeps showing up. Understanding proportions helps students with so many other concepts. It shows up again when they learn about slope. I feel like the students who understand proportions have a much easier time understanding slope. When I was a kid, I enjoyed finding the patterns in things, and proportions have that type of pattern. Now, I love helping students to understand these patterns and watching the light bulb turn on. In this post I’ll share twelve activities that will definitely help students get the practice they need with proportions. [Read more…] about 12 Activities for Practicing Proportions that Pop
10 Activities to Practice Finding the Common Denominator Like a Boss
Teaching students how to add fractions has so many parts to it. It’s like a clock with all the cogs turning, and for some kids the cogs can get a little messed up. One way to make sure students are ready and have a solid foundation with fractions is by giving them a lot of practice each step of the way. They need to see fractions many times and they need to feel comfortable during the practice. For some kids, their math ego is pretty fragile. That’s why I like to use games. When kids play games they’re more likely to be okay with making mistakes. This post has ten awesome games and activities to get students the practice they need finding the least common denominator. [Read more…] about 10 Activities to Practice Finding the Common Denominator Like a Boss
13 Rockin’ Volume of Pyramids and Prisms Activities
Volume and surface area are some of the most difficult concepts for my students to understand in 7th grade. I feel like they get the two confused and they need to really understand what each entails. I like to make sure that students have a pretty good understanding of volume before we move on to surface area. Each year I have probably tried something a little different though. One of the best ways to build their foundation is through a discovery activity. A lot of students don’t come into our class with enough background knowledge, and leading them through the discovery process works great as way to build that background. In this post I’ll explain more about the discovery activity I use for this topic, and twelve more engaging activities to help students really get a solid foundation with finding the volume of pyramids and prisms. [Read more…] about 13 Rockin’ Volume of Pyramids and Prisms Activities
Math Review Game Strategy That Works: The Target Game
Sometimes great ideas are born out of a moment of desperation. That’s how this target game came to be for me. We were doing some task cards on the doc cam and the students were completing them with their SmartPals. I noticed that they weren’t fully engaged with the problems and, for lack of a better phrase, they were phoning it in. I had this suction cup ball sitting on the chalk tray and then it hit me. Draw a target on the board and then have the students try to hit the target. And just like that, the target game was born. I’m going to share with you how this easy-to-play game can take any worksheet or task cards and turn them into a fun, engaging math review activity. [Read more…] about Math Review Game Strategy That Works: The Target Game
