Ten Things for Students to Do While You're Teaching Math Groups

With the variety of skills students come to you with Mathematically, it's important to meet the needs of ALL students. Teaching Math in small groups is a great way to come closer to meeting their individual needs. The big question: 

What do the other students do while you're teaching math to small groups?

Here are some of the things that students can do when the teacher is busy with other students.

1.Independent Practice

Do you have a math series with workbook pages or practice sheets? This is where they fit in... but only if the children can perform these tasks on their own. Some of your more challenged students may need to be practicing skills that are more appropriate for them. They all love this, and it's a great way to build that number sense. (and easy to differentiate!) 

• Count to 1000 booklet

2. Working with a partner

Children are social beings and absolutely LOVE when they get to work together! For those children who are a little insecure in their skills, having a partner might help them build a little confidence. Plus, working with a partner leads to those rich conversations that help internalize learning.

3. Playing math games

Children love games, and will play them over and over again! That means they'll be practicing the skills over and over! Try some of these popular Math games: 

• Three Digit Card Draw
• Twenty One
• Base Ten Block Trading Game

or try this collection

• Sports Themed Bingo Math Games

4. Writing math stories

Some children LOVE to write! Here's a chance to let them do what they love while practicing math. Once they've written the math stories, they can share them with classmates for solving! 

5. Facts practice

If students spend 5 minutes a day practicing math facts, they will develop math fact fluency in no time at all. Here are a few posts that tell more about building math fact fluency.

• Drill and Kill: Do Students Still Need to Memorize?
• Making Addition and Subtraction Facts Stick
• Developing Multiplication and Division Fact Fluency
• Five Minutes a Day to Fact Fluency

6. Explore math manipulatives

They do love those manipulatives, don't they? In order to learn with manipulatives, they need to KNOW the manipulatives. My favorites are pattern blocks and Cuisenaire Rods. Read about these here:

• Number Sense with Cuisenaire Rods
• Learning Math Facts with Cuisenaire Rods

7. Digital task cards

I'm a HUGE fan of Boom Learning Digital Task Cards, and so are the kiddos! Here are a few favorites:

• Math Basic Concepts Second Grade Review
• Digital Fact Fluency Addition & Subtraction Levels 1-10 Bundle
• Digital Fact Fluency Multiplication & Division Levels 1-10 Bundle

Another option would be a digital math program. I've had much luck with Happy Numbers. It's a research-based individualized program that is easy to use and adapts to the mathematical needs of the students. Plus, teachers can see a record of how each child is doing! It's easy for the teachers and fun for the students. 

8. Practice with a teacher assistant or a parent volunteer

Some students need the assistance of an adult. I often refer to these adults as a "guest teacher." Sometimes, These adults have specific directions for their time with the child, and I'll let the child choose. 

9. Math puzzles and brain teasers

I'm sure you have plenty on hand, and the children love these! Here are some examples:

• Tangrams
• Sudoku
• Magic Squares
• Dominoes

10. STEM activities 

Who doesn't love a good STEM activity? This is a good time for children to work on a STEM problem that's already been introduced and needs more time, or one with easy directions, since the teacher is unavailable during this time.

Looking for some ideas on organizing these math activities?

Try this link!

Looking for some similar ideas for reading groups? Try this link!

What do your students do while you're teaching math groups?

Drill and Kill? Do Students Still Need to Memorize?

The words "Drill and Kill" refer to rote learning. 

They imply that rote learning will kill a student's motivation to learn.

With today's technology and all the improvements in the world, do we really still need to include rote learning in education. Don't we want to get the children thinking beyond the basic information?

Well, yes, we certainly do want them to think above the basic information! We want children to learn how to learn, and think beyond that learning! In fact, here's a little reminder of Bloom's Taxonomy:

 

Of course, we want our students to get to those upper levels of the triangle, but before they get there, they have to do some remembering and understanding. 

The remembering part is where rote learning comes into play. These are the building blocks for our learners.

Here are some examples of things that primary students need to learn by rote:

• the alphabet
• letter sounds
• numbers
• math facts
• sight words

Here are some example of things older learners need to learn by rote:

• A football players needs to learn the plays and drills.
• A musician needs to learn the notes and chords.
• An actor needs to learn his lines and movements.
• An airplane pilot needs to learn the purpose of all those buttons.
• A grocery store manager needs to learn what products are sold and where they are located.
• A pharmacist needs to know the names of the prescriptions and dosages.
• A physical therapist needs to know the muscles of the body.
• A member of the clergy needs to know the Bible.

I'm sure you can think of plenty more! 

But memorization doesn't have to be painful or miserable for the learner!

Here are some ideas that will help learning basic information be a little more valuable, as well as more fun and  motivating:

Five minutes each day is much better than a half hour, once a week! Research shows a little bit each day is best!

Saying it out loud really helps the memory! If it's a math fact, recite the entire fact, not just the answer. Remember when we learned spelling words we were told to "Say it, spell it, say it?" They were right on track! I've often told my students to say it "out soft." It's not a real expression, but my students know it means, "loud enough to hear yourself, but not loud enough to disturb others!"

Humans need socialization. Learning information tends to "stick" better when students are talking about what they're learning! Quite often, they share tricks that help the learning! 

If I want my students to remember something, I'll repeat the phrase over and over in a rhythm the children will remember. Most often, they will join in with me. The next time it comes up, I'll repeat the phrase with the same rhythm, and they'll remember it. If necessary, I'll add some movement as well. It never fails!

How many of you know all the words to The Brady Bunch theme song? Probably most of you! Now how many of you worked hard to learn those words? Probably none of you! Music is magical! If you put important information to a tune, it helps the memory! (Remember Schoolhouse Rock? it works!)

Working with information over and over until it is remembered isn't a whole lot of fun, but teachers know how to make it fun! I'm a big believer in playing games! 

Did you realize there are 200 basic addition and subtraction facts to be learned? You can't just give all 200 to the kiddos at once! Give a few at a time, then when those are learned, add a few more. We want them to have success, not be overwhelmed! 

Rote learning, or memorization, is an important part of learning, but please remember it is only the beginning. These are the building blocks. Once the basic information is learned, children need to grow from that knowledge and develop a deeper understanding with motivation to learn more and process that information. Rote learning only covers the bottom step of Bloom's Taxonomy. It is our job to bring the children much further!

Here are a few resources to help with some of the information that needs to be memorized:  

Addition and Subtraction Facts: Fact Fluency System for Addition and Subtraction: The Bundle 

Addition and Subtraction facts for distance learning:
Fact Fluency for Addition and Subtraction Boom Learning: the Bundle

Multiplication and Division Facts: Fact Fluency System for Multiplication and Division: The Bundle 

Multiplication and Division facts for distance learning: 
Fact Fluency for Multiplication and Division Boom Learning: the Bundle

Sight Words: Fry Sight Word Phrases The First Three Hundred Bundle

Sight Words: Dolch Sight Word Phrases Bundle

Spelling: Research-Based Sight Word Task Cards for ANY Words

or you can get the whole bundle at a huge discount:

Practice, Practice, Practice Bundle

Developing Multiplilcation and Division Fact Fluency

Developing Fact Fluency can be quite a challenge. 

In fact it can be overwhelming for students!

Why? Well, to start with, there are 100 multiplication facts, and 100 division facts!

That's a whole lot of facts to learn! Take a look at this:

There they are, all 100 multiplication facts.

And the 100 division facts.

It just doesn't work to just hand these lists to the kiddos and tell them to learn them all! 

Here are some ideas to help ease this heavy load!

Before the children start to work on memorizing facts, it's essential they understand what multiplication and division are! I like to spend plenty of time with manipulatives, as well as making and drawing arrays. I make sure they understand that 6 x 5 means 6 sets of 5. They use manipulatives to show six groups of 5 (as in the picture: 6 rows of cups, with 5 cups in each row), and draw an array with 6 sets of 5. When they have done a whole lot of this, and have a deep understanding of what it all means, then they can move on to fact fluency.

As you can see from the list of all the facts, it's just too much to assign them all at once! It's best to break them down into smaller groups, and best to create those groups by patterns. I recommend starting with the "x1 facts," which would be anything with 1 as a factor, and the related division fact. 

Research on learning has taught us that this is how the brain learn best. 

Each family has a total of 4 facts that can be created with the same combination of manipulatives. (Doubles only have 2 per family.)

This can be seen in the visual below:

The upper left shows 5 sets of 6. (5 x 6 = 30) The upper right shows 6 sets of 5 (6 x 5 = 30) The lower left shows 30 sorted into 5 equal sets (30 ÷ 5 = 6) and the lower right shows 30 items sorted into 6 equal sets (30 ÷ 6 = 5).

Studying the fact families really makes the whole thing easier! If they learn one combination, they've got 4 facts!

Just for fun, here's how the doubles work. 

No matter how you turn the sets, it's still 5 sets of 5, so there's really only 2 possible combinations!

Research tells us that repeating the complete information orally helps the memory. They don't necessarily like to do this, but they'll admit it really helps them remember the facts!

If you've ever had to learn a new skill, I'm sure you've seen the value of practicing a little bit every day. Five minutes a day for 5 days will have more value than 30 minutes of practice once a week! Less time, more value! I work my fact practice into my math rotations in a variety ways: games, practice alone, practice with a partner, or practice with an adult.

Children develop their own tricks to help remember basic facts, and when they talk, they share those tricks! That makes everyone smarter!

Here's a trick I learned from my students! They've got plenty of ideas like this, that are worthy of conversation!

Most of the children will have a good deal of success with the above 6 strategies, but if they don't, don't let them fall through the cracks. I suggest doing some sort of assessment once a week, and keeping a record of how they do. Even when they don't show mastery, they should be showing growth each week. If they don't, something needs to be done. 

Here are some suggestions:

1. Limit the amount of fact families. One or two fact families is enough for some children.

2. Work one on one with that student: 5 minutes a day.

3. Assign an adult to work one on one with that student.

4. Send home a set of facts to be practiced with a parent.

The above would be in addition to your regular routine. 

Here's a freebie set of practice and assessments for the x1 Fact Families:

Fact Fluency System Level One: x1 Fact Families

 

It contains practice cards (with the answers to be printed on the back) 2 assessments, and access to Boom Learning Digital Task cards, which the children absolutely LOVE! And it's free!

If you're interested in just the Boom Learning format,that's a freebie, too!

If your students have success with this freebie, here's a link to the whole bundle: Fact Fluency System for Multiplication and Division: The Bundle

Here's a link to a similar bundle for addition and subtraction facts: Fact Fluency System for Addition and Subtraction: The Bundle

Plus, a chance to try out this system with this freebie: Fact Fluency System for Addition and Subtraction: Freebie

Want to read more about fact fluency and the brain? 

Here are a couple more blog posts with more information!

Making Addition and Subtraction Facts Stick

Ten Brain Tricks for Learning Math Facts