There are a lot of things that I do to help students better understand key concepts, however, I just cannot reach everyone at the same time.  Since math is such a procedural subject, having additional teachers helps.  Well, we know that finding additional teachers is not always an option, but there are often several students that get “it” just a little quicker than others.  In DC, we use this amazing program called ST Math, which allows students to apply and practice math concepts without words.  Each student should be at 100% completion of the syllabus by the 2nd week of June, but by the time of our high stakes state testing, they should  be at 75% syllabus progress.  We had one student at 100% before the Christmas break, and then a few others joined her before March.  As students reached 100%, they became tutors for the other students.  Before our testing began, I had a total of 11 tutors, which was truly impressive and well above any other grade level at our school.

I informed my tutors that I would be taking them to H&Pizza, a local pizza restaurant, once the DC CAS started and they would get their own pizzas with whatever they wanted on it!   This field trip did not require the students to bring any money because this was my compensation for their tutoring services!  I tried to make sure that all of my 100%-ers could make it as well, even calling a parent on the day of the trip to come in and sign a permission slip so that her son, who had really been one of my best tutors, could go on this reward field trip.

When all was said and done, this trip became an incentive for other students to work towards – students who weren’t quite at 100%.  This was open to all 4th graders as well, and not just those on my class roster.  The kids had a great time and all of them had plenty of food to take home with them!