Test prep and review season is upon us! Maneuvering the Middle’s test prep unit literally saved me for the 4 years I used it, so I thought I would share what’s included with some ideas for using it in your classroom.Hopefully, these components will help streamline your test prep for state assessments and keep students engaged at the same time. What's Included There is SO ...
Grouping Students in Math
Grouping students in math can be a very complex process. If you take all the factors that are necessary for a group to function…personality, math ability, and ability to work in a group together, then you may find that no perfect combination exists. Here are some reasons you may decide to group students: You may group students because you believe that students can learn from one ...
Teaching Math Vocabulary that Sticks
For math to be accessible to students, math vocabulary must be taught! Let's talk about teaching math vocabulary in a way that sticks! Let’s see how important math vocabulary is to understanding and solving this problem. Could you solve this problem? I covered up a vital piece of information needed to solve this problem to emulate what a student might experience without knowing ...
5 Statistics Activities for Middle School
Data and statistics is such a fun topic to teach in middle school math! The relevance and hands-on nature of analyzing and displaying data made it engaging for my students and myself! Data and statistics usually fell to the very last unit in my scope and sequence which meant I was tired, and the amount of creative energy I had to put into my lessons was waning. Just me? So I thought I ...
How to Prioritize Your To Do List
Prioritizing your to do list can be a challenge when your to-do list is never ending. Just when you feel like you are ahead, something goes wrong. Teaching has so many variables that Murphy’s Law will inevitably come into play. With that said, there are some things that we can do to manage and prioritize our to-do list, so that we get what we need done, done. Have a Weekly Meeting ...
Time Management for Teachers: Productivity Tips
This month has been all about time management for teachers and organization for your planning period and your email inbox. Today we will tackle a macro system - the 5 things I do each week to keep things running smoothly. Tip #1 - Start with a Clean Slate We all know how impossible it is to start a task or be productive when you are working on top of a mess. For me, I can’t start ...
Email Organization for Teachers
Does your email inbox make you feel overwhelmed? Every year around the new year, I attempt to get my inbox under control. Here are some email organization tips that I found to be practical and doable. This month we are tackling everything organization and time management! If you didn't read last week's post, check it out: Time Saving Tips for Your Planning Period and be sure to check ...
Time Saving Tips for Your Teacher Planning Period
A teacher’s planning period is sacred (or it should be), but it never feels like enough time to complete the 62,000 tasks a teacher needs to do each day. This is why teachers so often work nights or the weekends. Let’s talk about some ways to improve the efficiency of this time. Note: No school is the same, you may have one 90 minute planning period or two 45 minute planning ...
Strategies for Teaching Math Concepts
Let's discuss strategies for teaching math concepts using the CRA framework. Remember that the CRA framework has proven to help students grasp difficult math concepts. If you are scratching your head asking yourself, “What is the CRA framework?” be sure to go back and read this post. What is the CRA? I like this definition best. “The CRA is a three-stage learning process where ...
Concrete Representational Abstract Sequence
The CRA framework is an instructional strategy that stands for concrete, representational, and abstract; it is critical to helping students move through their learning of math concepts. To fully understand the idea behind CRA, or concrete representational abstract, think about a small child learning to count. They may learn counting to 10 by memorizing a song. Then, these numbers ...