I've been wanting to do mental math Mondays for a while now but I just found the best resource ever!
This is my plan for next year: Students will have a binder with a little zip up pencil pouch inside of it. (I know they will have it because I'm providing it). I'm going to print out this mental math answer sheet front to back with a coordinate plane on it (that could come in handy randomly throughout the year). Then I'm going to laminate it, cut it apart, and give each student one to keep in the pouch. (They will also have a dry erase marker, eraser, pencil, and pen in the pouch).
I made a powerpoint of mental math problems for every Monday, 36 in a school year, from this site. (Under Resources for Mathematics: Grade 8 under Weekly Essentials) The site has other great resources as well.
I plan to print out the slides in handout form for myself. I will write the date of each Monday on it so I can keep up and I will read the problems aloud one time only. The students can use their dry erase marker and laminated answer sheet to write down their answers. Then I will display the answers for that week on the corresponding powerpoint slide.
Students can check their answers, erase, and store it in the pouch for the next Monday.
Again, I did not create any of this material. I merely copied and pasted it into a nice powerpoint.
This is one-fifth of my bell ringer plan for next year.
To be continued...
Hi Elissa. Funny, the Mental Math page is the only page I don't use from their website! I shared the site also on my post about warm-ups http://fawnnguyen.com/2012/04/02/20120330.aspx
ReplyDeleteBut now that I see it on your post, I really want to include it as one of the days. Maybe take out my "Fun Fact" day. Mental math is important! Thank you.
Fawn,
ReplyDeleteThat is so funny! I haven't been reading many blogs but how clever that if you put our posts together, you get the complete resource. Have you used any of the resources under Classroom Strategies? There is some good stuff there. I really like your patterns idea so maybe I will steal some of your ideas too. Thanks :)
I'm interested to know how Mental Math Monday went for you this past school year. I am considering using this resource this coming year. Thanks so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteKim, I loved it! It took longer than my other bell ringers but the investment was totally worth it. It reviewed old concepts that students don't use as much and sometimes it even reviewed concepts we needed that day (purely coincidental!). Since I did not allow calculators, some students challenged themself the rest of the week to not use the calculator either. Some students just forgot about using them, I guess because we started each week with not using them. Overall, I felt I saw an increase of mental math and number sense in my students and with very little effort on my part. This also helped to improve listening skills because I read it one time and one time only. Students could repeat it for others but I didn't repeat any part of it.
DeleteI will say that students said the sheets I made were too small to write on with a dry erase marker. So I'm thinking I'll make one that goes inside a page protector in their binder with more space on it. And I didn't use the graph at all like I thought.
Thanks for asking!
Hi Elissa,
DeleteDoes your students keep up with their scores to track their improvement? I have students that are weak in math so I would like for them to track their progress.
Hi Terrell,
DeleteMy students sit in groups and so i recorded their weekly table total and we celebrated their all time bests.
The link is correct, they must have taken the site down in the past 5 years. I don't have any other information for the site.
ReplyDelete