Made 4 Math Monday: New School, New Ideas, New Products!

I have switched schools! I moved counties and went from teaching 8th grade and Math I to teaching 6-8 enrichment/remediation. I have no curriculum, no guidelines, just freedom for creativity and to target exactly what these kids need. I actually get to differentiate and be creative? WOAH! Crazy!

I'm still doing a mastery based method, but not like I had done in my previous school. 6th and 7th started off with adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers. 8th started with the real number system.

Monday--Teach
Tuesday-Thursday--Games, task cards, teacher time, AM
Friday--Fast Fact Friday and quiz

Fast Fact Friday is similar to multiplication facts. For 6/7 I used Super Speed Math Fractions from Whole Brain Teaching. They are given 100 fractions and have to write them in simplest form in 2 minutes. For 8th grade I gave them fractions with denominators of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 20 and they had to memorize the decimal equivalent

Quizzes are only 10 questions. If a student receives an 8 they move on the next week. If not, we reteach. So this week, about half of my 6/7 graders will be adding and subtracting still and the other half will be multiplying and dividing fractions and mixed numbers. As I expected, 8th graders need more time with the real number system. Repeating decimals are just so hard!!

I created these products to add to my TPT store:

Whack-a-Fraction: Addition and Subtraction
Students deal all cards out to players (2-4). Players flip the top card at the same time in an "I declare war" style and solve their own problem. We played where the first person to correctly solve their problem (must be checked by all other players) won all the cards, but it could also be played with the highest or lowest value winning.

Find it in my store here

Fraction Sequence Addition and Subtraction Version

Students select a card, solve the problem, and place a marker on the answer on the board. The first player to have two sets of five in a row wins. Can be played with 2 players or two teams of two players. 

Find it in my store here

C.U.B.E.S. Problem Solving Strategy Posters

Posters to reinforce the CUBES method for solving word problems. There is one poster that spells out CUBES with the corresponding strategy for each as well as individual posters for each letter.

Find it in my store here

T.E.A.M Group Management and Group Jobs posters

Posters for T.E.A.M to help manage cooperative groups so everyone is on task and has a role to play in their group.

Find it in my store here

I will be adding multiplication and division versions of whack-a-fraction and fraction sequence soon.

PEMDAS War

We have spent the last two weeks reviewing 7th grade skills, and boy did we need it! As I expected, the kids cannot remember integer rules and think that multiplication and addition are always before division and subtraction. Sigh. I'm torn right now because they need A LOT more review with this, but I think we will have to spiral it in with everything else or I won't be getting into 8th grade curriculum until October.

In trying to use Math Workshop this year and pull away from worksheets and do more activities and games, I developed...

32 cards with all operations for integers and rational numbers. Some are easy mental math, and others are pretty challenging. I also made sure to include a lot of 4(-8) notation to get them used to it. 

The Rules:

Deal the cards between partners. Both partners flip a card at the same time. Students solve both problems correctly as quickly as possible. Whoever slaps the card with the higher value first wins both cards. The person with the most cards at the end wins.

This game can be downloaded from my TpT store for free here.