I love making MATH relevant and finding a way to tie it into current events. Back in October, we celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month with a math review game! They learned some facts for their scavenger hunt, and they got to find math problems hidden around the classroom. I made this a little challenging for the students by using Spanish numbers around the classroom.
Last year, the school I was at had a subscription for ST Math. I am a believer in the effectiveness and usefulness of the ST Math program by Mind Research! It was not my teaching curriculum, but it was a tool in my tool belt that allowed me to give my students the time and chance to apply the skills that I taught. The program gives immediate feedback to the students and amazing visualizations of the major skills that they are expected to know. I used the following spreadsheet to track all 4th grade students at my school last year. I used the data to show me who needed more time on the program and to project where they would most likely be at the time of our high stakes testing, the DC CAS. The goal was for students to reach 75% syllabus progress in the game by the time of the test. I taught all but 11 of these students in math, and for those that needed more time on the program, I would tailor their instruction time. That being said, I would ensure that they received a math lesson each day, as well as some time to apply the new skill. Then, I would send them to the computers or iPads, and have the other students work on an advanced lesson. I would even have the students that were further along on ST Math to coach their peers, helping them think to get to the answer, rather than just telling them the answer. I would also send this spreadsheet to my colleagues each week, so that they could see who also needed more time on the computer program and allow them to log on to the program when appropriate.
This was the final ST Math wall at the end of the school year. The majority of the 4th graders had reached 100% completion. Even more exciting was the fact that all but one of the students on my roster reached 100% completion.
My students love our review games, and one of the most popular games we played this year was the American Revolution game. Our reading theme for this instructional window was the American Revolution, so I thought of a way to incorporate that theme into a math game. What resulted was a way for us to potentially “rewrite history” with a battle between all of the sides that had a stake in this “New World”. In our game, we had the British, the French, the Colonists, the Native Americans, the Enslaved People, and the Freeman’s Bureau (free blacks). Each student was placed on one of the six sides. Each side had a Commander/General and a 2nd in Command, which were made up of our weakest and strongest students. We played this game in my classroom with all of the fourth graders at one time to maximize our instructional time and encourage the peer tutoring. This was a game where all students had to have the same thing written on the boards for their teams, and points were awarded for teams that worked well together. Teams could spend as much time as they needed on each problem because early finishers were given “sneak attack” opportunities, which were additional problems the teachers would give finished teams to work on while the other teams completed the problem. Teams could earn additional points if they were called on to explain how they arrived at their answer. This meant that the higher students needed to make sure that the others on their team knew the content and could tell someone else how to do it. One student, who receives special education services in reading and math, was so thankful for his 2nd in Command (a higher student) because he really showed him how to do the problems!
Select slides from this game are displayed below.
At the end of our Fractions and Decimal Equivalence unit, we played a new math review game inspired by the March Madness tournament. I created this game so that all teams had an opportunity to work at their own pace and review the content. The rounds were fast, and there were at least 2 teachers in the room to make sure everyone was on task. I had my 3 highest students that knew the content solidly to grade the work from the teams, so that the teachers could focus on monitoring the student teams and peer coaching. These high students were also responsible for adding points to the score board each time a team correctly answered problems.
We did not have any issues of student engagement during this game, as all teams really felt they had a chance to win the game. As papers came in, they were quickly graded, and the team points were constantly going up. All of the teams had mixed ability levels so that there was equity. In addition, each player had to write, so this necessitated the peer coaching. While points were tallied up, players had a chance to make shots in the room on the mini basketball net.
The final part of the game was our elimination rounds. These rounds were quicker than the qualifying rounds. In the end, only one team won. In both sessions that we played this game UCONN won, and 2 or 3 weeks later, it was such a joy to see that the men and women’s teams at UCONN won the real March Madness!
Finally, a few weeks after we played this math review game, we organized a March Madness basketball tournament the Friday before our high stakes state testing started to let the students relax and get rid of stress and anxiety. There was no content whatsoever in this game – just teams of 3 and their b-ball moves!
Below are some of the slides from our March Madness Math Review game.
One of the ways I love to review math content and encourage my higher students to coach/tutor the other students is to create math review games , where I form teams of mixed abilities. One of the first games we played as a grade level this year was the B-Ball Challenge. The original intention was to incorporate the basketball net, but time escaped us. Still students had the ability to review multiplication and division concepts in preparation for the first benchmark test of the school year. I chose the basketball theme since I know so many of my students love the game – as do I! The teachers were the refs for our game, and we each wore our black and white stripes. In addition, I brought out my voice amplifier for the real surround sound effect, and the kids were besides themselves!
Here’s how we played the game. The highest 5 students for the grade level were given the role of coach and given a tie to wear. All of the others students were assigned a player number for their respective teams. Coaches could only coach students to the correct answer, but could not actually answer any questions or a foul would be called. Coaches would also send up players for each “play.” These players would have a set time limit to solve or answer the question on their boards. Correct responses earned a point. Incorrect responses could be “rebounded” if someone from their team had correctly solved the problem on their board on their “team’s bench”. In addition, if a player did not know how to solve the problem on their board and they were on the “court,” they could ask their coach to call a “time out.” Then the coach would be able to coach the player to help them get to the correct answer. Coaches had up to 4 player strips for each player, 3 time-outs, and 2 rebounds, so they had to use their strips strategically. Since all players were writing on their boards and coaches were always coaching, we had maximum participation during each play. Teams got a point for correct responses.
