A new look and Favorite ways to practice

I finally figured out how to add a cute banner and background to my page!  Yay!  

Sometimes we're covering a topic in class and it just requires a lot of practice.  I'm not one for just giving worksheets or book assignments.  For most students, it's just not interesting and really not very effective.  Here are some of my students' favorite ways to practice, as seen from their excitement when they see them on the day's Playlist.

Add It Up

I first came across Add It Up on Julie Reulbach's blog ispeakmath.   Students are given a set of problems - I usually use our workbook and one students does odds while the other does evens - and an add it up board.  Students write their answers on the board and find the sum of the answers.  When they have the sum, they hold up their board, and I give them a thumbs up if it's correct, or a thumbs down if it's incorrect.  If their sum is correct, they move on to the next pair of questions.  If their sum is incorrect, they must work together to check and correct each other's answers and find the correct sum.  I have been really surprised at how excited they get when they see this on the Playlist!  Their so excited to have me tell them if they got it right, they don't even notice they've done 20 questions.

Math-O

I have been using some form of Math-O in my classroom for the last five years, and students always love it.  It's a game, and they have a chance to win a prize (usually a small piece of candy in my room) when they get five in a row.  I use print-bingo.com to make my own cards with the answers from whatever set of 24 problems.  In past years, I have just written one problem on the board at a time, and letting students work the problems one at a time, but this year I've started giving them a page with the problems ahead of time, this way if a student is finished with the problem I've called, they can go on.

Here's a sample of what the cards look like.  I print 4 to a page to save paper.