Instead of my weekly round-up of assorted math freebies, this week I am sharing a new discovery of mine: Math Salamanders! As a middle and high school teacher, I know where to look for extra practice worksheets (such as Kuta Software). I have not always been aware of or familiar with, however, resources and practice for elementary math classes. But now that I'm teaching my little ones, as well as tutoring a third grader, I have been on the Keep Reading...
Understanding Data with Mean, Median and Mode {FREE Lesson!}
Gathering data and then knowing how best to analyze and summarize that data is an important mathematical skill. In this lesson, students use a handful of pennies to explore different measures of center (mean, median and mode) and discuss what might be the best for their data set. All you need for this hands-on math lesson is a large sample of pennies from varying years, or if it's easier for you there are different sets of data included in the Keep Reading...
Expanded Numbers Puzzles {FREE!}
It's often difficult for students to make the connection between the numbers 0-9 and place value. At first, children learn to count and everything has a single value, i.e. 6 race cars. But eventually, as they build on that knowledge and begin to consider larger numbers, they must understand place value. Then, suddenly, they can have 6 tens or 6 hundreds and it's not simply the number 6, but a much larger value. One way I have begun to teach my Keep Reading...
Time For Spring! {FREE Telling Time Practice Worksheets!}
Are you ready for spring?? I know we are here at our house! To celebrate the coming warm weather and all the blessings of spring, I've put together some fun, spring themed worksheets to work on telling time! I've been working on telling time with my daughter, so I created these to work on skills with her and thought you might enjoy them too! This set includes a page for telling the correct time to solve a spring-themed riddle, a page to Keep Reading...
Integer Practice: Fun {Free!} Math Game!
Looking for a simple and fun way to practice integer operations? These adorable Peeps Matching Cards can be used for a variety of games to help kids practice adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers. *Please Note: This post contains affiliate links which support the work of this site. Read our full disclosure here.* Could your students use some extra practice adding and subtracting integers this spring? This Easter Peeps themed Keep Reading...
Exploring Volume: FREE Lesson!
To continue with my study of 3-D shapes, I have created a lesson to begin exploring volume. Like surface area, this is something that is often rushed through, and students are told to just "plug it into the formula." But I have seen this lead to many unnecessary mistakes because students never actually understand where the formula comes from, and therefore they end up "plugging in" the wrong things. Understanding WHY the formula for prisms Keep Reading...
Surface Area Practice Worksheets
Since I posted some lessons to help students learn and understand surface area last week, I thought I would add a couple of practice worksheets to go with it! These are simple and short, but I hope you find them helpful! The first has various prisms and cylinders, while the second covers pyramids and cones. I tried to use fairly simple examples so that they would be appropriate for middle school or high school, so if you are looking for more Keep Reading...
Fun New Resource: Kidoku by Krazy Dad
How do you provide time for mathematical thinking, logic and problem solving outside of the textbook? How can we encourage students to think logically and problem solve, rather than simply memorizing facts? There are always ways to encourage higher order thinking in the math classroom, and I love it when I find resources that can encourage this kind of logical reasoning with my kindergartener! :) This week I have discovered a fun twist on Keep Reading...
3-D Shapes Worksheets! {FREE Printables!}
One Geometry topic that is introduced at a young age and then explored in more complex ways as kids get older is 3D shapes. Obviously, the first thing young mathematicians learn is to simply recognize the shapes, learn their names and discover them in the world around us. As kids get older, it's important to help them learn and understand polyhedron nets. Understanding what these shapes look like "flat" helps with spatial sense and reasoning and Keep Reading...
The Importance of Math Vocabulary
Some of the most common errors I have seen teaching algebra occur because students simply cannot accurately "translate" words into mathematical models, or because they do not understand math "jargon" such as evaluate or simplify. I think this problem could easily be avoided, however, if one or two days were spent focusing on these skills. We cannot expect students to walk into class with a clear understanding of "math words" if they were never Keep Reading...
