Math Reference Sheet (freebie)

Several of my parents have told me their child has been having a hard time completing their math homework at home lately. Fact fluency just isn't a skill we have developed yet. 

Our main strategies for adding and subtracting are using number lines and Touch Math in my class. To help my students out, I made this reference sheet for them to keep in their folders.

And the good news is that my parents said it really helped my students independently complete homework! Yay! 

You can download your own copy {here}.

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Making Valentine's Day Arrays!

The holidays are tons of fun, but it's sometimes difficult to find 

resources that fit your curriculum AND let you have holiday fun.

I made this array activity to help my 3rd graders practice their multiplication facts 

as well as celebrate Valentine's Day.  It was really helpful and they enjoyed it!

The kiddos had to create an array using the different hearts.  They also had to add 

the repeated addition sentence and multiplication sentence to match their array.  

Here's a glimpse of what the final product may look like:

You can download the array freebie {HERE} or 

by clicking on either of the pics above.

I hope you and your kids enjoy Valentine's Day!

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A Calculator License!

Hi friends!  It's Amanda from Teaching Maddeness.

We're nearing the end of our regrouping unit and I always have a love/hate relationship with it.  I LOVE the fact that my students are so stinkin' excited about solving equations with such big numbers.  I HATE the careless mistakes that come along with it.

Enter.....my CALCULATOR LICENSE.

I wanted a way to encourage my students to go back and check their work - to use the strategies I've taught them.  They KNOW how to solve these equations, but those darn careless mistakes were killing them!  How could I get them to slow down and really apply the strategies?  How could I get them to really care about checking their work for perfection?

The answer was simple - a calculator.

I told my students that once they were EXPERTS at these types of problems, they would be able to use calculators in class.  I mean, I use a calculator when I do my work to speed up the process so why shouldn't they?  Of course, I don't give these to them in the beginning.  But after they've learned the concepts and mastered the skills, they are rewarded.....with a calculator license!

How does this work?  I give students 5 math problems per day.  These math problems include 2-digit and 3-digit problems.  The problems are written horizontally on the paper I pass out.  This requires students to rewrite the problems vertically (stacking the ones on top of the ones, tens on top of the tens, etc) to solve.  These problems are also mixed addition and subtraction problems.  Yep, earning that cursive license is tricky and only the experts will succeed!  If students solve all 5 math problems correctly for 3 days in a row, I declare them experts and give them a license to create.

Once a student's license is created, I laminate it and tape it to his/her desk.  The entire class instantly knows that this person is a math expert and has permission to use a calculator for future math problems.  They eat it up, I tell ya!  Those careless errors suddenly start to disappear as students are so motivated to become a license holder!

You can grab my calculator license freebie from my shop!  It includes the license I use, along with the problems I use to certify them as experts!  Enjoy! :)

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Fall Fact Frenzy {Fact Practice Freebie}

Happy Fall, y'all!  It's Dana from Prepping for the Primary Gridiron and I'm excited to share an activity that will help your kiddos master the relationship between addition and subtraction!

It's extremely important that students understand the relationship between addition and subtraction.  Once this connection is made, their fact fluency increases.

In this activity, the kids start by matching up number sentence cards.  They are creating a fact family, so they will match two addition sentences with two subtraction sentences.  

Once the kids find the four matches for each fact family, 

they must begin to solve for the missing numbers.  Each card 

has a missing number.  If the kids understand the relationship 

between addition and subtraction, this part of the 

activity will be a little easier.  

The kids record their answers on the recording sheet.  It's a great way for you to assess their understanding and fact fluency.  

I hope this activity benefits your kiddos as much as it has mine!

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Fun with Graphing {And a Freebie!}

Hi, Owl friends!  Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend!  It's Day one of my Spring Break, so I'm on cloud nine!  

I'm excited to share one of my favorite resources with you!  It's a graphing pack that helps the kiddos practice:

- counting data

- creating a bar graph

- analyzing data 

Here's a closer look at one of the packs:

Each pack comes with three versions.  I wanted to differentiate the graphs to fit the needs of my first graders.

Here's a peek at Version A:

Version B:

Version C:

One tip that always helps my kiddos is using three different colors for the three different pictures on each graph.  It's a great way to keep things organized.  

You can check out the pack by clicking {HERE} or on the Zoo Pals pic above.  I hope your kids enjoy these graphing packs as much as mine have!  It's the perfect way to offer constant practice for a tricky skill.

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H(array) for St. Patrick's Day!

H(array) it's almost St. Patrick's day! It's Linda from 

Around the Kampfire here with one more glorious 

day of Spring Break then it's back to school to buckle 

down for the home stretch! I thought I'd share this 

free printable my little leprechauns will be using this week.

Before our break we did some St. Patrick's Day writing about 

how to capture a leprechaun and the wishes he would have to 

grant in order to be set free!

We defined a leprechaun and learned about the

history of St. Patrick's Day then made these pots o' gold!

You can find another quick lesson for arrays, along with
a free printable over at my home blog, Around the Kampfire!

My little leprechauns think they'll get to pinch me on Tuesday

but I'm ready with this adorable shirt from Teacher T-shirts!

How do you keep from getting pinched on St. Patrick's day?

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Math Management Tip - Keeping Kids Engaged & Learning!

Hi Owl friends!  It's Dana from Prepping for the Primary Gridiron (and 3rd Grade Gridiron).  I hope all of you had a relaxing winter break and a fabulous New Year's!  

And a HUGE thank you for all who entered our giveaways a few days ago!  What a fun way to start the new year!

I wanted to share something that I use with my kiddos during Guided Math.  It's something that I just learned about last summer.  As soon as I heard about it, I knew it would be perfect for my early finishers!

It's Math Menu!

Am I the only one that had never heard of this?!

If you're new to Math Menu, it's pretty easy.  When my kids finish their specific assignments during Guided Math, they go straight to Math Menu.  They are allowed to pick any game from the list.  Each game is something we've discussed and I've modeled.  They also help review some critical concepts in a very fun, hands-on way!

Here's a look at the games included in our Math Menu:

1.  Race to 100

Each player starts at 1.  You take turns rolling the dice and moving your chip.  The first player to 100 WINS!  You could also use a 120 chart.

2.  Race to 1

You guessed it.  :)  It's the the opposite of Race to 100.

3.  Ten Frame War

It's played just like War, but with our Ten Frame cards that came with our new math manipulative set.  

4.  120 Chart Puzzles

These are super easy to make!  Print out a 120 (or 100) chart, cut it apart, and then laminate it.  The kids can use a completed 100 or 120 chart if needed to put the puzzles together.

5.  Bump!

My kids LOVE these Bump games from Denise!  They're two player games that can cover either addition or multiplication.  I know - PERFECT!

My kids love Math Menu!  I'm hoping it can be a fun and engaging way for your kiddos to practice their math skills and stay focused during Guided Math!

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Snow Much Fun {with Multi-Digit Addition}

Hi friends!  It's Amanda from

I've been MIA lately, mostly due to the fact that my student teacher has been teaching for the past six weeks.  However, I'm excited to say that I will be teaching again on Monday!  Just in time to implement one of my favorite activities in math....Snowball Fights!

My students would practice mutli-digit addition and subtraction ALL DAY LONG with this activity!  I've blogged about it before, but I've created a new, quick file that will make it even easier and I thought I would share it with you today.

Basically, in the past this is how it has worked...

I let each student write a number in LARGE, NEAT print on a piece of white paper.  Then, we crumpled the papers up to look like paper snowballs.  Students were divided into two teams.  Each student was given a partner on the opposing team.  One team was placed on each side of the classroom and threw their snowballs at a given signal.  Then, students scrambled to pick up a snowball and headed back to meet with their partner.  (I always toss in a few extra snowballs because there are always a few "lost" during the game.)  Partners opened up their snowballs to reveal numbers and independently created and solved addition problems.  Partners compared answers.  If their answers matched, they took their snowballs back to their sides, ready for the next throw.  If answers did not match, students worked together to figure out the correct answer.  I also walked around and monitored to help in the rare case that partners' answers matched, but incorrectly.

Seriously, they could do this on repeat ALL DAY LONG!

A couple of minor problems I've had with this in the past is that sometimes student numbers were hard to read by classmates (imagine that?!  sloppy second grade writing), students would turn some numbers upside down (is that 81 or 18?), and there was no way for me to ensure numbers that required "no regrouping" or "regrouping".

So, I created a very simple file of print-friendly numbers to use for this game.  There's a set for "no regrouping" and a set for "regrouping".  Just print, pass out, and you're ready to go!  You could also collect them at the end for reuse.

I hope you'll be able to use this file and bring a little snow fun to your math class!

**OPTIONAL DROPBOX LINK, IN CASE THE GOOGLE DRIVE LINK HAS MAXED ITS DOWNLOAD LIMIT IN THE GIVEN TIME FRAME - https://www.dropbox.com/s/67pubu3wlh6xjfc/SnowMuchFun.pdf?dl=0 **

If you're looking for more practice with mutli-digit addition and subtraction, you might like my new "Start Your Engines" centers.  I realized that I didn't have very many centers for this concept AT ALL.  So, I created a set of 10 "any time" centers revolving around just these concepts.

If you're not familiar with our "any time" center sets, they include 10 centers all revolving around one unit with a theme that can be used any time of the year!  What more could you need?  Click below for a closer look.

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Estimation Jar: A lesson in reasonableness

Reasonableness is an important skill to incorporate into your lessons.  One easy way to do this is through an estimation jar.  I have organized estimation jars different ways.

Method #1: Students-in-charge:

• Star student is in charge of supplying materials to put in our estimation jar.
• Math Wizard is in charge of supplying materials to put in our estimation jar.

Method #2: Teacher-in-charge:

• Set up an estimation jar that is part of our bell work.  For a week, I put the same thing in the jar but a different amount each day.  I begin with things that are similar size and shapes like unifix cubes and wooden cubes.  After doing similar shapes for a couple of weeks, I put in something that is smaller, like the small base-10 unit cubes.  We discuss if the unifix cubes is bigger than the base-10 units, on Monday of last week our estimation jar was half full and this week our estimation jar is half full, what would be a reasonable estimate for how many base-10 units are in our jar?  Would there be more or less than last week?  Remember our cubes this week are smaller so will more fit in the same amount of space or less?  What is a reasonable estimate? 

You can easily add a seasonal twist to your estimation jar.  I got these Halloween colored plastic rocks at Hobby Lobby.

Some shapes are more challenging than others.  Do you have a really bright class this year that needs a challenge?  Add feathers to your estimation jar.  They are fun to use at Thanksgiving and they will give your students a challenge.

Are you looking for some new estimation jar lessons?  Click HERE to download my FREE Lesson in a Jar packet.

Sources to make my blog post graphics can be found HERE.

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Have you heard of Ten Marks?

Hi all! I am Jessica Hursh from The Teacher Talk. I am a new 'owl' here at Owl-ways Be Inspired. I am beyond excited to be joining these bloggers - little do they ALL know... I have been in awe over them ever since I've began my blogger & tpt journey - so, the fact that I am joining them & get to collaborate with them... I am just beside myself. 

Now, have you ever heard of Ten Marks? I hadn't!! When a colleague of mine told me about it and told me that it was totally free... my jaw about hit the floor! "What do you mean I can assign in class work or homework to students that is directly correlated to the standard I'm teaching... &... I don't have to grade it .... & it tracks their progress?" That exists? OH. YES. IT. DOES.! It's called Ten Marks.

I am using this webpage to assign homework to my students once we grasp a skill in the classroom. 

Here is a peek at Ten Marks:

Each time I assign a homework assignment, I send home these little notes:

Grab them free here:

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