Place Value

Happy Monday friends! As you know, I work with struggling students. My second and third graders struggle with place value. What's so funny, I don't feel like struggle with the "place" part as much as they do the "value" part. There can tell me where the digit goes in the number, but struggle to understand that a 2 in the tens place has a value of 20. We've worked on reviewing it for the last two weeks with different activities. I decided they needed a bit more practice with the different forms of numbers and place value (standard form, written form, expanded form, and base 10). I searched and searched for what I wanted. I decided to make some task cards to use with them. I paired them up and had them work together to do the task card practice, but each student had a recording sheet to complete. Their partner was more so there to help if they were completely stuck. This way I could move around the room to help, but they could ask their partner too. They did a great job, and I feel like it really helped to put it all together.

Here's the packet you can check it out in our TpT store (click image below):

It has 4 task cards; each of the cards has one form of the number. The students have to complete the recording sheet by filling in the corresponding card number and all four forms of the given number.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week! We're back to state testing tomorrow...two more to go!

~Steph

Next Stop... Testing!

Hey everyone it is time for another "too much to talk about Tuesday"! The thing that is being talked about in our life right now is the end of the year testing. Everyone in the school is getting ready for the test. While administration is planning for the test and getting proctor training and things sorted out teachers are fitting in as many reviews as they can. What is your schools doing to prepare for end of the year testing? What types of reviews are you doing? Does anyone have a really great review activity they would like to share?
This is a short post for such a stressful topic but I want to hear from everyone and hear how everyone else is handing the end of the year stress?

~Manda

Math Challenge Review Pack

 Hey everyone it is the start of a new week and time for our second Maniac Math Monday! We have been working really hard on a project we would like to share with everyone this week. As we all know the end of the year can be very stressful for students and teachers with all the end of the year assessments. We have made a packet that serves as a way to review with your students and also allows teachers to see what areas the students are struggling with. We even used it in the place of weekly homework. It is a very useful tool to alleviate some of that end of the year stress.

We call this math packet the “Math Challenge” and it is aligned with the Georgia 5^th grade Math Common Core Standards. It covers many of the topics that are covered throughout the year. It includes daily practice as well as weekly projects. It is designed to take 4 weeks to complete but can be graded weekly in order to assess how students are doing. 

We have posted the full "Math Challenge" in our TpT store and we also have a free preview for everyone to check out. Lets us know what you think!

What are some ways you like to prepare your students for their end of the year assessments? Do you think a challenge like this could be beneficial for your students? 

~Steph & Manda

Review that gets your students moving!

 Our first Maniac Math Monday is here and we have been thinking all week about what to talk about with everyone. We want to talk to you about an exciting product we are working on but it isn’t quite finished yet. Therefore instead we decided to think about something fun that could be done in all math classes. 

I began thinking about ways for the students to review topics covered earlier in the year. As the school year gets closer to all those end of the year test teachers are constantly faced with needing review games and activities to keep students thinking as well as keep them engaged. When I was student teaching I used activities my supervising teachers called “Gallery Walks” to review with my students. These “Gallery Walks” were a great way for students to review any topic but I always enjoyed how they worked in Math.

The teacher would post up word problems around the room. Each word problem had a corresponding picture on the page as well. The teacher would give each student a paper with the pictures from each word problem; this served as a reference for how many problems they had to find. The students would then have to “visit” each picture in the “gallery” and solve the word problem. The students would be checked off by the teachers and be given a sticker or signature marking the picture they completed. The students were told that they were to act as if they were in a real art gallery and they could not talk. I never had a problem with this activity getting out of hand because the students enjoyed getting out of their seats and doing this type of activity.

I feel that this is a great review activity for students and it also allowed students to work at their own pace. It also gives teachers a chance to check the student’s ability in a wide range of topics.  

Have you done any activities similar to this in your classrooms? Do you think it could be beneficial for reviewing topics with your students? We want to know what you think!

-         - Manda