One of the best ways to teach students geometry vocabulary is to simply look around our environment. For example, if you want students to understand parallel lines, pair them up and hand them an individual white board and take a stroll around the school. Have them write down all the parallel lines they see. Here are two examples of parallel lines in our environment. Check out all the parallel lines in the door, the windows, the bookshelf, even the light…
This is a super fun activity I did in first grade. I glued a magnet on to a plastic fly my kids had in their insect collection. Then I read the story The Fly on the Ceiling to a group of first graders. I used my plastic fly to plot the points on the grid as I read the story. But the best part was when I had students create points for each other to plot. They absolutely LOVED that!
Here’s a GREAT way to teach long division in a way that uses estimation skills and number sense. In addition, it helps solidify the relationship between multiplication and division. If we can provide our students with a variety of strategies to solve math problems, then math becomes accessible to more students. CCSS: 4.NBT.6; 5.NBT.6
I used a bunch of left-over stickers I had to make the cards. The first time I played it w/ them, I had only 4 rows and 6 columns. They need to say the letter first followed by the number (getting ready to read the X axis and the Y axis). If students win a pair, they hold on to it and we move on to the next student. Super FUN! .
Here’s a fun, super easy way to get students to find the factors of a given number. All you need is inch graph paper and stickers. If you like, you can have students create all the rectangular arrays for a given number using tiles then transfer the arrays onto the graph paper using the stickers. CCSS: 4.OA.4