Using Foldables and Games to Review Numeric Expressions and Order of Operations

I love being able to teach math first thing in the morning!  It is a great way to start my day.  I use my morning work time to have my students cut out or color in their interactive notebook foldables.  Then when we are ready to start our day everything is organized and ready to go.  In this way I have a full 45 minutes to teach math, and not worry about the few slow kids who are always the last ones done cutting.

Today I wanted to share a few resources for reviewing numerical expressions and order of operations:

1) Foldables Foldables and Foldables-  Have you started to use foldables and interactive notebooks?  I started using this several years ago and it has really changed my teaching. It's NOT about cutting and gluing!  Used correctly, foldables are a great study tool for students who need the kinestic touch to study.  They provide parents with the needed vocabulary to help their children, and a great way to teach students about organizing notes and their thinking.

I used three different foldables with this section of my Expressions and Equations unit to help organize vocabulary and give my students a reference point for justifying and explaning their answers.  One reviews basic operations.  We created a four door foldable and put words that can be found in questions and word problems on the inside.  It's basic, but it gets the point across.

My students cut and colored the front during morning work.  Then we completed an activity where students had to sort key operation words.  These went into the inside.

Here is an example of the inside when they finished.  This was great for teaching them about how to "speak" math.  We refer to it a lot throughout the year when we learn how to correctly justify or explain our thinking in words.

The second is for exponents.  I use this foldable for vocabulary as well.  My students need to learn the different ways an exponent can be written.  They always have trouble with this.  They can never remember that the exponent tells how many times the base is used as a factor.  They also have trouble remembering that the expanded form can also be called product of the same factor and repeated multiplication.  Those pesky test creators always use different names for this and it throws my students off.

The third foldable I use is for Order of Operations.
The PEMDAS explains the order that needs to be used with these numerical expressions.  I really stress the way that I have students enter information in this foldable.  My kids always forget that you can multiply OR divide which ever comes first.  The same with adding and subtracting.  So I always put a lot of emphasis on this section.

You can find these foldables {HERE} if you want to use them in your classroom.

I also include examples foldables in our notebooks. Here, we made what I call finger foldables for numeric phrases.  I like to keep things color coded. So when we complete these foldables I have students circle key words using the same color they used in the operations foldable I mentioned above.  If addition was green, then all the addition words are circled in green, etc.  I believe this really helps make the visual memory connection in vocabulary.  After we circle the key word and write the operation on the inside of the foldable we translate the expression.
Here is an example of the finger foldables.

2) Fun Videos

Have you seen Ron Clark perform his Order of Operations song? It is perfect to get your students up and singing about the Order of Operations. My students love it, and I love when I hear them singing or humming it during an assessment!  There is a great link from an Atlanta news station which shows the group dancing on desks and performing.  ***You have to watch about 5 seconds of an ad before you can skip to the video **

http://www.ajc.com/videos/news/ron-clark-academy-the-algebra-song/vdKst/

Here is another great video source that I use in the unit from Flocabulary.  There are tons of resources that Flocabulary has to offer.

I found it on YouTube

3) Interactive Games

My students love to play math games... I mean who doesn't like being able to work in a group and talk... and when the talking is about Math-- HOLLA!

Try this Order of Operations Freebie. It really gets my smarties thinking because those placement of numbers is important to win this game!

We also have loved playing Exponent Dominoes to practice making the connections between exponents, numbers in expanded form, and standard form numbers.  I printed these in yellow, orange and white cardstock to give them a Fall theme because I teach this unit in the fall.  But they work just as well any time of year. 

Have access to IPads?

You may also want to try this IPad game.  It is perfect for centers.
5 Dice- Order of Operations Game
This game is similar to my Order of Operations Freebie.  Students are given a target number and five dice.  They must create a numerical expression that is as close to or equal to the target.  You can set the game to use just addition and subtraction, or all four operations with grouping symbols.

I hope these resources are helpful!  Have a great day!

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Squared Away on a Sunday: Candy Corn Dominoes and Halloween Figurative Language

Happy Long Weekend Friends!  I know many of you have an extra day off on Monday to celebrate Columbus Day.  My students have the day off, but I have a PD day Monday.  Boo Hoo!  I don't always mind PD, but I'd rather have an extra day in my weekend!

We just finished our first quarter of school.  I can't believe how fast it has gone by.  I'm currently trying to prep a few small group activities for my math and ELA time.  I wanted to share a few with you.  Honestly, the math isn't Fall or Halloween related.  I mean, I teach sixth grade, we don't have pumpkins in our curriculum, but I try to do a few things that make the month fun, AND get in the curriculum.
So here is what I've squared away on this Sunday:

1) We have been studying and practicing exponents.  My smarties have struggled and struggled with this concept.  I created a game for them called Exponent Dominoes.  You play this game similar to the way you would play any dominoes game.  To make it work for "October/FALL/Halloween"  I printed the pieces out in white, yellow and orange.

Yep, now we are playing Candy Corn Dominoes!  The winner gets a small packet of candy corn when we play at the teacher table.  My students get the extra practice with exponents and they think it's a Halloween activity.  Boo- Yah!

2) We've been working like crazy to review Figurative Language.  I like to spiral this throughout the year.  I begin with reviewing the basics, practicing and assessing each type.  I take each one a week at time.  Usually we will do some sort of visual activity, use a mentor text to practice identifying the type, practice with sentences and then assess.  Over the past few weeks we have covered similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia and alliteration.  I LOVE this washi tape that I found at Office Depot for our Onomatopoeia week!

This past week we worked on alliteration.  I used a Halloween theme, and had my students create extreme alliteration with tongue twisters about a Halloween topic.  They did a great job! 

Closer to Halloween we'll have finished up with all the types I review in the fall semester.  Then I add in Halloween Figurative Language Centers to the mix.  This is a task card sort with all the types of figurative language.  Students sort the cards, or they can also play concentration/memory with them. Finally, I have two different formative assessments that I give to make sure we are keeping up with our skills.  I can differentiate these as needed, and they go right into our interactive notebooks.

So what have you Squared Away on this Sunday?  Do you also "trick" your students and "treat" them to fun activities that aren't really Halloween or Fall based?  I'd love to hear your ideas!

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World War I: Learning about Militarism

Last Friday was a half day for my Smarties.  We had professional development in the afternoon, so in the morning, my teammate and I switched around our team schedule and had our students play a game to learn about militarism.
We've been learning about the MAIN causes of World War I.  When we teach this, we use the acronym MAIN:  Militarism, Alliances Imperialism, and Nationalism.
We found a great game that showed our students how the different Allies built up their forces.
Students each cut out the game board and pieces so they could take it home and play in the afternoon.  We paired everyone up and gave them about 40 minutes to delve into it.  It was a great way to spend our short day!

I'm looking for a few picture books to help teach World War 1 and World War II.  I'd love to hear any suggestions you have.  Thanks!

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Express 'Yarself Matey! A Summative Review for Math

Earlier this week my smarties began to prepare for a Topic 1 Summative test that they are taking at school today.  We have been reviewing our numerical and algebraic expressions.  Hopefully all of the extra time we have put in will pay off on our summative.
To help keep the wiggles out of my smarties this week I set up a Task Rotation for them to practice all of the skills we need.  I used a new game that I created over the summer:  Express 'Yarself Matey.

They had so much fun playing this game, some of them even came back during our study hall and asked for the pieces to play again.  I LOVE when that happens.  I heard some really great comments too.  Since the game is played similar to war, I think they liked it because there was critical thinking involved.  You had to figure out how to throw the best card to beat your opponent.

They also practiced Order of Operations by playing my Order of Operations Dice Game:

Again, critical thinking involved.  My smarties want to be treated in a more mature way.  I think my critical thinking expectations help them to really assume that role.

Another math teacher made some cards for the task rotation that practiced algebraic expression word problems, and I added the 2 sets that are part of my Wacky Wordies Algebra Task Cards set:

I love when things come together like this.  Creating items for my classroom that I actually see results with is such an awesome feeling!  I hope my smarties do well on the assessment.  I know they had a great time getting their wiggles out and reviewing!

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Critical Thinking with Order of Operations Review FREEBIE

Late last week I was able to finally start teaching math.  We always have so many things the first few weeks of school, it amazes me that it takes me almost a week before I can actually start teaching math concepts.  We had to set up our Interactive Math Notebooks, take baseline tests, go to assemblies, and well, just figure out what Middle School was all about.  I was able to begin a little of my Math Workshop concept using a launch, mini lesson, work time and reflection model.  It will be slow going for awhile.  I was also able to teach my smarties to play 31-Wonderful, and an Order of Operations Game.
This Order of Operations Game is quick and really reinforced critical math thinking.  I used dry erase boards and markers with my class so we could play more than one time.  I will bring this game back out again when we have work time within the workshop model as we work through our Expressions and Equations unit.

I put the directions and a center worksheet up in my TpT store as a FREEBIE.  You can find it {HERE} if you would like it for your classroom.  Please leave me a little love it you like it... My class sure did!  They came back during study hall to borrow dice to play with friends!

Sorry for the wonky pictures, but I had to show how they found the flash dice on my smartboard.

  That kicked the fun up to a higher notch! LOL

One of my bloggy Buddies Molly at Lucky to be in First hosts Fabulous Freebies on the Fifteenth of each month, so I'm also linking this post up there.  Stop by and visit her and see what other Freebies you can find.  Leave the people a little love if you find something great!

Enjoy your week!

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Group Problem Solving is 31-Wonderful!

One of the first activities I tried with my students this year was a card game that I found on Sarah's  blog:  Everybody is a Genius   If you teach grade 5 math or higher, this is definitley a blog to follow.  Sarah does a great job of sharing her ideas, and her math notebooks with the blogging community, and I am super grateful for that!
Last year, Sarah wrote about a game she played with her classes called 31-Wonderful.

This photo is courtesy of SARAH at Everybody is a Genius

It is a card game of strategy where students need to create a 5x5 array using 25 cards of their choice.  The rows and columns must add up to 31.  It involves strategy and problem solving which really made it interesting for me on the second day of school.  I gained a HUGE amount of insight as to what my sixth graders were capable of, and how they worked together.  We have our work cut out for us this year mathematically, but it was really nice to see most of the groups get along and work collaboratively.

This week we are finishing up our baseline testing.  We use AIMS Web, so my students had to take a baseline for M-CAP and M-COMP. We will also begin using our Pearson DIGITS program as well.  I spent time last week setting up the basics of my Interactive Notebook for math, so we are ready to launch our math workshop model.  That will be an interesting addition for me this year.  I am really hoping to make it work within the 42 minutes I'm scheduled for math.  Keep your fingers crossed for me!  I'd love to hear your tips and tricks for launching!

And speaking of needing work as a community, I'm taking a moment to reflect a little on the importance of September 11th with my class today.  It is amazing to think that these Smarties were not even born when our country was faced with this adversary.  Why not show kindness in your community and Pay it Forward today?

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