Math Fact Friday: 3 Card Games

My students’ favorite Math Fact Fridays are always when we get to play games.  Any time I see playing cards (especially themed) in the Target “1-spot”, I buy them.  Something about that 1-spot has me addicted! (See what I do with the file folders here!)  I’ve also found plain playing cards and a set of six dice there!  I now have Hello Kitty, Cars, and plain playing cards.

Playing cards are easy resources for math games because they are so cheap and versatile.  You can write the directions on the board or print a hand out for each student to keep in their binder.  These math games can be used as a warm-up, a treat for the end of the day on Friday (which is what I usually did), or a station. 

4 Tips to Finish Your Math Homework Faster

Most students dread the time they have to spend to do their math homework.  What if I told you there are strategies you can follow to finish your homework in almost half the time?  If you follow these 4 strategies, you may be able to finish all of your homework at school and have the whole afternoon to yourself!!

Math Fact Friday: Lap books

Lap books have taken homeschooling by storm.  Just type in “Lap books” into Pinterest and you will see what I mean.  There are lap books for almost every topic and grade level.  The most handy pre-made math lap book is for math facts.

If you don’t know what a lap book is, it is basically a mini, interactive, presentation board.  The basic lap book is made from a file folder with foldables and graphic organizers glued on.  The students I’ve used them with LOVE them because it is theirs to keep.  I’ve used them with graphing, factoring, fraction operations, and math facts.

Online Tutoring

For those of you who don't know, I'm moving to Oxnard, California mid-February.  My husband is Navy; so moving is part of my job description as a "Navy Wife".  I have six tutoring students in San Diego that I work with and I was struggling to find a suitable replacement tutor for myself.  I have several friends that I trust to hand them off too; however, they were too busy to take on six tutoring students.  This led me to start to look into the world of online tutoring.

Wow!! There are a LOT of websites that offer online tutoring.  The initial research steps were extremely overwhelming as most of the sites that popped up were for students looking for online tutoring.  I'm not willing to work for another tutoring business since I already have a few steady clients. 

Math Fact Friday: Khan Academy

 If you would like to know more about why I do Math Fact Friday, please see my first post on it here.

Another great resource for Math Fact Friday is Khan Academy.  When I was in the classroom, I had a class set of netbooks and headphones (very important!) I could use and had students practice their Khan Academy for 5-10 minutes for Math Fact Friday.  It was great because students could practice lessons at THEIR LEVEL.  It was the definition of differentiation in the math class.  Khan Academy has practice lessons from basic adding all the way through calculus.  It also has videos and hints to help struggling students.  As a teacher it was great because from my teacher account I could see what the students were working on and how many problems they got right or wrong.  When I used Khan Academy for Math Fact Friday, I would let students choose any lesson they wanted to work on or math video they wanted to watch.  This fosters a curiosity about math for students instead of a fear of hard math.  You’ll notice the less confident students working on extremely easy problems, which in turn helps build their confidence.  You’ll also see confident students attempting calculus problems when they are in Algebra 1!