Making Math Fun!

MATH... Oh, how I love thee! I am super excited to be linking up this month with some fabulous bloggers to bring you tons of fun math strategies and games.

I love to teach math. I am always looking for new ways to engage my students and get them to embrace the new ways of the Common Core strategies and how to explain their thinking. This can be so difficult for so many students. They can tell you that 10+2=12 but they can't tell you why. Well, those days are over in my classroom! I always tell them, I don't care what your answer is, I want to know HOW you got it. PROVE IT!  

1. MATH CRAFTIVITIES:

Anytime I can incorporate math and a craft, I DO IT! We just finished up our addition and subtraction strategies unit. I wanted my students to PROVE they learned the strategies I taught them. I used this little craft to bring fall into our classroom AND have them review their addition strategies. 

You can use this template to incorporate whatever math strategy your kiddos are working on at the moment. Students can show how to make 10, fact families, arrays, skip counting etc.  It just brings a bit of fun into your math lessons. The kids don't realize they are working on math and they tend to be more focused and proud of their work. 

Click the picture above to grab your {FREEBIE} copy of this activity to use with your students too.

2. INTERACTIVE MATH NOTEBOOKS

One of my favorite math strategies, that is always a home run with my students, is to use INTERACTIVE notebooks. My students squeal with delight when we work in our interactive notebooks. I don't think they actually realize they are using their math knowledge when we are creating pages in our notebooks. 

I love the activities because they are perfect for independent practice during math centers. During center time, I always have my students review concepts I have previously taught. This gives them a chance to review and practice what they know. 

We also use our notebooks to  work on problem solving skills. Each problem solving page asks the students to identify what is being asked in the word problem, draw a picture to show their thinking, write a number sentence and the answer. However, what is MOST important about the word problem pages, is an explanation of HOW they solved the problem. I love this part because it makes my students think and explain. When they can do that, they are more likely to understand and retain the concept being taught!

Are you ready to get started with interactive notebooks? Check out this FREEBIE sampler with a few activities that will get your students engaged and excited about math.