In my opinion, there’s no higher praise than when students say they’re having fun while we’re learning and practicing math. Learning math doesn’t always have to be super-dooper exciting, but it really shouldn’t be drudgery either. Luckily, it can be pretty simple to step up the fun and engagement with just a little preparation. Part of that preparation is having a few tools that go a long way to creating fun review games or hands-on ways to explore math concepts.
These are my go-to, gotta have it tools for the classroom. They go beyond the basics to create a classroom that can quickly turn math practice into a fun game, and just overall make the classroom a great place to learn math. Today I’ll share tools with you for game play & my favorite class prizes.
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Game Play:
With just a few tools, everyday math practice can turn into a friendly competition or an individual challenge. By turning practice into a game, or even into a more interactive version of math practice, student engagement goes way up. These simple adjustments can pay off big time with improved attention, better learning and retention, and a more manageable classroom. Here’s my go-to tools to easily incorporate game play:
SmartPals Dry Erase Sleeves
I can’t even imagine my classroom without dry erase pockets, or SmartPals. I use them all the time. Students complete their own work while we play review games. I ask them to show me their boards, and I can quickly see how everyone’s doing.
SmartPals make it simple to set up math stations and centers. Just put the graphic organizer or problem students need to solve into the sleeve and voila! The center is ready for students to get to work. For the approximating irrational numbers activity below, students could practiced writing and plotting the number, then they quickly checked the answer with me and moved on to the next prepared question by replacing the inserted page with a new problem.
Or, I place a math maze in the dry erase sheet for a quick math center or cyclical review activity, and have it set up for the whole day. Using dry erase pockets cuts back on copying and is great for quick practice activities.
Speaking of math mazes, if you haven’t already joined the Maze of the Month Club I hope you’ll check it out. Each month you’ll receive an exclusive free maze for middle school math delivered right to your inbox. You can get your first one today by signing up for the Maze of the Month Club.
Yes!!! Sign me up for the Maze of the Month Club!
Can’t wait to see you there.
Seriously, just by using dry erase sleeves the whole practice activity just feels different. Of course, when using dry erase sleeves you can’t forget the dry erase markers!
Suction Cup Ball
This simple suction cup ball has led to hours of math review fun in my classroom.
Students toss it at the hand drawn target on the white board when we play the target game. They love tossing it to find out how any points each review math question is worth.
With just this suction cup ball and a quickly drawn target I can quickly turn any worksheet or task cards into a fun math review game. It’s ridiculous just how much we use this simple ball in my classroom.
Giant Playing Cards
These super jumbo playing cards
I use these giant cards to play games that help students explore probability.
After introducing students to probability, it’s fun to practice with card games like the Diamond Game I break down in this post.
I also love to grab these cards to play a Price is Right inspired review game I call Pick a Card. This game is an easy way to turn a practice worksheet or set of task cards into a fun game. It works with any topic, and all you need is a deck of cards.
Oversized Dice
Another fun way to enhance math practice is with dice. I’ve gathered quite a collection of dice over the years! I really enjoy using the larger foam dice for hands-on math practice. My favorite dice for student stations and practice are these multi-colored, two-inch foam dice. I use these foam dice for students to practice multiplying and dividing integers and distributive property (this post has a free printable download to play this dice game).
Of course, dice are invaluable whenever teaching simple or compound probability. I like to have students do a range of experiments to prove the probability concepts we’re teaching. Again, these foam dice work perfectly.
I also really like my larger foam dice for whole class demonstrations. These are 5″ tall and add a dash of novelty whenever we use them. I like to use them to come up with random numbers for student generated math problems, or to decide which practice problem we’re going to do.
Prizes:
It’s fun to have little prizes for students. Even though junior high students are getting older, they still love prizes. And for my students, they really enjoy cheesy, offbeat prizes. Sometimes the most surprising things have ended up being wildly popular with my students. Here’s a few ways I’ve filled my prize box in the classroom:
Stickers
This past year these stickers were the #1 requested prize from my students. They LOVED these stickers. This pack of vinyl stickers ended up on a lot of students’ notebooks or even their water thermoses. Whenever I got a new batch for my prize box, they loved checking them out so we ended up dedicating a part of the white board to display the stickers that were up for prizes. And as far as prizes go, this was definitely a low cost option. ***Word of warning- these come in a bundle and a few of them won’t be school appropriate, so if you buy these for your class, please pre-screen them.***
Custom Badges
If you want to create your own stickers, it can be easy to do. I printed badges/stickers to match a class challenge we were doing and students decorated their composition notebooks with them. It’s an awesome way to create a customized incentive that students can only get in your classroom! To create badges I like to use PowerPoint to design and set it up. I use clip art I’ve purchased, or grab free clip art from Open Clipart. This would also be a great way to incorporate your school’s mascot!
Once you’ve designed your badges, just print a sheet onto full sheet shipping label sticker paper like this one. You’ll end up with several customized badges per page that just need to be cut and then they’re ready to go. Students just peel the backing and can attach their badge to their notebook, a classroom chart, or wherever else you’d like. This is a really cool way to gamify the classroom.
Slime
With slime being all the rage this past year, I decided to lean into the trend and got packs of slime for prizes. My students loved these. Of course, I had to remind them to not get crazy with the slime in other classes or we couldn’t have it anymore. They did a really good job of honoring that, and this was definitely a fun and different kind of prize to have in the prize box.
Office supplies:
Students really appreciate office supplies as prizes. My students love fun erasers and mechanical pencils. I’ve even had students who enjoyed packs of lead (you know they never have enough).
Snacks:
A jumbo bag of Jolly Ranchers or Starbursts goes a long way if you’re looking for a quick and simple prize. They’re fun to toss out to students who speak up to answer a question or just do something awesome.
For a slightly larger reward, this year I started buying jumbo packs of chips. For around $7 I could get 24 packs of Doritos and more for my students. They particularly liked the hot pack with hot Cheetos and hot Fritos, and more hot chips. Personally, I don’t really get it, but they loved those chips. And it was a fun little snack for them to earn.
Wrappin’ it up:
So what do you think? What are your gotta-have-its that make your classroom a unique and fun place to learn? It’s crazy how simple things like a suction cup ball or stack of vinyl stickers can bring an element of fun into the class.
Thanks so much for reading. Until next time!
