Sidewalk Scoot End of School Year Activity

It is so difficult to keep your students focused and engaged those last few weeks of school when they are already dreaming of summer and being outdoors.  If you are looking for a fun end-of-the-school-year activity, you will want to check this out!

I was checking out Pinterest when I saw this amazing version of Scoot from The Primary Gal.  I knew it would be the perfect way to get my kiddos outside while still working on content.

This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase using one of my links, which helps to support the blog.  All opinions are my own and I only promote brands and products that I have used myself and truly love.  

We have been working on elapsed time in our class, and it has been very tricky for some of my kiddos, so I decided to use this activity to give them a little more practice.

First, I had each student create their own elapsed time problem on an index card.

I checked their work and gave them a number on their card that corresponded to the answer key that I made with one of the sheets.

Then I had the students take their card and NEATLY write their question using sidewalk chalk on a section of the sidewalk.

After everyone wrote down their question, it was time to solve the problems SCOOT style.  Each child moved from question to question answering them on their recording sheet.

You can grab a free copy of The Primary Gal's recording sheet by visiting her blog post here.

I love how versatile this activity could be!  You can use it to review so many different skills.  I am looking forward to trying this again with other subjects and skills.  A few ideas I am thinking about include:

* Practicing Long Division

* Double Digit Multiplication

* Math Facts

* Perimeter and Area

* Parts of Speech

* Idioms and Other Figurative Speech

What skills would you use it for? 

Before you go, head on over to our giveaway page to enter our current giveaway!  Every week one lucky winner gets a $25 Teachers pay Teachers gift card! 

Using Songs To Increase Learning

Have you ever used music in your classroom to help cement a concept or an idea?  Music has been found to stimulate parts of the brain, and studies have demonstrated that music can enhance memory. Using music and songs in the classroom is a great way to help your students retain information and increase their learning.

My students were having a rough time remembering the difference between area and perimeter and how to find each of them.  I saw a video on Miss 5th's Instagram feed and I knew I wanted to try it with my students!  If you are not following her on Instagram or Facebook, you need to because she has a ton of great ideas just like this Bucket Filler idea I shared a few weeks ago.

She had a song that she had made up using the pop song "My House" by Flo-Rida.  Here are my students singing and dancing to the song.

The lyrics are:

Welcome to my house

We can find the area

Multiply the length times width

We don't have to go out

Welcome to my house 

We can find the perimeter

Take a walk outside

and add up all the sides

For the music I searched up My House instrumental version and found this one by JBFlex.

itunes Version

Google Play Version

I play it at the :31 seconds section and they sing right after the siren sound as you can see in the video above.

My students were so excited about this song that they started writing versions of their own to all sorts of songs for all types of concepts.  Every day they are coming up with a new song to sing to me!

And... yes, they ALL know how to calculate area and perimeter now!

Have you used songs to increase learning?  I would love to hear your ideas.  If you try this one, I would love to hear how it goes!

Movement In Math

You probably already know that when you incorporate movement into your lessons, your students are less bored and more engaged in learning.

But, Did you know that:

1. Movement actually increases blood flow in the brain?
2. Research shows that humans are able to recall better what we do actively? ( Jensen, 2005)
3. Movement increases attention?

There are so many ways to incorporate movement into your favorite math lessons!  Here are a few of my favorites:

Math Stations

Math Stations can be actual activities or just problems placed around the room.  I often will put one or two problems at each table and have my students travel around in partners or small groups to solve them.

One strategy that I learned recently is to have your students occasionally change partners or groups during the activity.  For example, I might say, "Partner Ones stay at your table, and Partner Twos rotate to the next table." This has really helped to cut down on off-task behaviors. It also gives students an opportunity to coach or teach each other which helps increase their understanding as well.

Scoot games are great for this as well!



Quiz, Quiz, Trade

In Quiz, Quiz, Trade activities, students are each given a problem card.  They pair up with a partner and each quizzes the other using their cards.  If they get the problem correct, the partner congratulates them.  If they answer incorrectly, the partner coaches them with the correct answer.  The partners then trade cards and find new partners.

 

 

My students were using my Quiz, Quiz, Trade Multiplication Cards.

Movements & Gestures for Vocabulary Terms

In a previous blog post, I mentioned using hand signals for geometric terms such as line, line segment, point, etc.  Hand signals are a great way to teach vocabulary terms of all types!




I found a video that uses similar hand signals to what we use here.




How do you incorporate movement in math?

Geometry Flip Books & $25 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card Giveaway!

My students have been loving our new geometry unit, thanks to some awesome resources from my TpT friends!  I have already shared about the geometry posters

and the geometry scoot game


that I used to begin our unit, and today I am sharing these awesome Geometry Flip Books from my friend, Lindsey from Miss Johnston's Journey!

I love how Lindsey has created a flip book that can essentially act as a text or resource for my students!  They also LOVE making flip books!

 

 

 

 

A completed flip book.

 

 

After our flipbooks were finished we had a mini-lesson on how to use them.

 

 

I asked them to look inside the flip book to find the answers to questions such as:

 

How many sides does a triangle have?

What is a right angle?

Is a rhombus a quadrilateral?

 

They loved it!  We finished up with a game of types of lines Simon Says. 

 

 

 

We have hand signals for

*point

*line

* line segment

* ray

 

We play just like Simon Says where I say, "Simon Says, show me a point, Simon Says, show me a ray. Show me a line."  They love being active and learning!

And now! Time for another giveaway! It is time for my monthly $25 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card Giveaway! You can enter using the Rafflecoptor below!

And stay tuned next week for a really big giveaway as I celebrate my TpT milestone!

Thank you for following my blog and purchasing products from my TpT store!  You are the best!

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Measuring Mania

A while back, Bill Nye came to the University I attended and gave a presentation.  One of the things that he said was that we don't measure enough in schools.  I would definitely have to agree.  When I taught 7th grade math, one of the projects we did when we learned about statistical measurement (mean, median, and mode) we did a project called, "Is Mrs. Malloy shorter than the average 7th grader?"  (The answer by the way is yes - I am only 4'11).  It was always a comment, so I turned it into a math project.  Anyway, when we started the measurement process, I was always amazed by how few of them could use a meter stick.

So, determined that my third graders will not have the same challenges, we began a little measurement this week.

We measured some common household items (post-its, dice, a sponge, and a small wooden block).

We measured the length, width, and height (using centimeters like scientists of course).  We also measured the mass in grams using a balance scale and some gram cubes.

We even recorded our data in our science notebooks.

Lots of mathematical discussion!

 

We were even able to discuss fractions and decimals as some students noticed their measurements had a half centimeter involved.  We talked about how just like in AR, .5 or five tenths is equal to 1/2. 

I just found this Bill Nye video with an introduction to the metric system that I will share with them today.

How do you practice measurement in the classroom?

Poppin' Place Value Freebie

 

If you are looking for a way to review place value with your students, you will love this adorable Poppin' Place Value I Have Who Has Game. I Have Who... Has? games  are a great whole group activity that can be used for review, test prep, fluency, listening skills, and mental math.

This set includes 30 cards that focus on place value with an adorable bubble gum - poppin' theme. Answer key is included. Your students will love practicing place value with this fun game! 

You can download this freebie here.

What's Your Math Problem!?! Book Study Chapter 2

I am linking up with

Jennifer Smith-Sloane from 4mulaFun

Meg Anderson  from Fourth Grade Studio

Jamie Riggs from MissMathDork

and Jennifer Findley from Teaching to Inspire 5th Grade

for this book study on What's Your Math Problem!?!



 If you missed my posting for Chapter 1 you can find that here.

Chapter 2 - Planning for Problem Solving in the Classroom

What Does it Mean to Plan for Problem Solving?

Students have difficulty solving problems in part because they do not have the necessary framework to approach these tasks.  They have been taught to compute and follow procedures. Solving problems involves much more than simply following procedures. In order to help students to learn to solve problems, you must plan for instruction that will help your students to become problem solvers.

Step 1: Finding a Good Problem - You need to find problems that both  involve the mathematical concepts that you are planning on teaching, but are also "doable" for your students. The author suggests building a library of rich problems.

 4mula for Fun has this freebie form to help you plan.  Visit her site to access it as well as to see an example of how she would use it in her classroom.

Step 2: Provide Your Students With A Problem Solving Framework

Gojak recommends using George Polya's 4 principles of problem solving:

1. Understand the Problem

2. Devise a Plan

3. Carry out the Plan

4. Look Back

Gojak continues on to describe a new model of problem solving called the Launch, Explore and Summarize Instructional Model.

The Launch stage engages the students in the problem they are about to solve.

 

 

The next stage, Explore, is where the students work as a class, in small groups, with a partner, or individually to solve the problem. 

 

The final stage, Summarize, is the area that I most overlook, and yet it is where the main teaching should occur according to Gojak. 

 

My main takeaways from this chapter:

 

1. I definitely need to plan my math lessons differently.

 

2. Gojak provides some question stems at the end of this chapter that I need to incorporate into my lessons.  Jennifer at 4mula for fun mentioned printing them out and putting them on a ring to use throughout the lesson, and I definitely think that is something I am going to do as well.

 

Using T-Charts To Solve Elapsed Time Problems

My kiddos have been REALLY struggling with elapsed time, and we have finally made a breakthrough thanks to the video below:


The video shows how to use a t-chart to solve elapsed problems and my kiddos loved it! Especially the part where he sings, "Stop in the name of math!" My kids were singing that all day long!

First, we watched the video:

 

A little close-up:

 

Then I had the students solve the amount of time we spend in school. We start at 8:30 and are released at 3:15.

 

Next, I put up two sample problems, and I had the students work in pairs to solve them using t-charts.

 

 

I decided to share, because it was so successful!  After partner work, I gave them an additional problem to solve on their own and ALL of them got it right! I just wished I had found this video earlier!

 

What do you do to teach elapsed time?