This week was a tough one. The first week back from Winter Break is always tricky for students (and their teachers…haha). Before break I decided to wait until after vacation to give our module 2 math test. I didn’t want to rush it. So, it was Monday afternoon and math was going downhill fast. Everyone was losing focus and I was starting to sweat. You know when you can see it in their eyes that they are zoning out, but you HAVE to get through what you are teaching. We needed to get ready for the math test, and this year my class was really struggling. It was a hard math test that covered a lot of different skills and the class was just not into it. Nobody seemed to care.
I had to do something, so with some quick thinking, I think I saved the day. I grabbed this empty juice jug from up in my cabinet. It was a 2 quart pitcher. Then I passed out a pile of unifix Cubes to everyone. Suddenly they all perked up with the hopes that come with using manipulatives. I was still processing a plan in my head but I knew I had got their attention. I projected some review cards on the board, in this case they happened to be boom cards. I like to use these as a whole class review. I had my students take out their white boards and their markers and their erasers. Then I told them that if they could fill the juice jug with unifix cubes before the end of class they would earn an extra recess (you could use any incentive you would like…my class this year is really physical and benefits from movement breaks).
Everyone looked at me, curious about what the directions were going to be. I told the class that I was going to project each question on the board and they would have a few minutes to answer it on their whiteboard. I emphasized that they would need to show their work and any strategies they used to solve it. Once they had the answer, they had to flip their white board over on their desk. I then told them I’d walk around to check, if they had the answer right they would put a cube in my jug. The class got really excited because now it was a “challenge.” As they did the first question and I walked around, they were frantically writing on their boards, eager to see if they could get it right and add a cube to the jug.
This was a huge motivator for my students who are basically falling asleep on their desks just moments before. If I got to a student who had the wrong answer, I would raise my eyebrows and smile and say not quite and keep walking. This gave them the opportunity to fix their answer in order to be able to put a cube in the jug. This worked really well for the kids that typically just wait for somebody else to have the right answer. It caused them to realize that their answers were important too in the overall collection of the unifix cubes. You would think it would take a long time to walk around and check each person’s answers and have them put the cubes in the jugs but I’ll tell you the kids were so excited as I was walking around they were encouraging each other and offering up strategies rather than answers to their peers.
As each question was answered The Jug slowly began to fill. The class was very excited and almost squealing with delight as they got closer and closer to a whole class prize. It was amazing to see how kids who might not typically participate or who might wait for other students to answer for them we’re now engaged and excited to add to the pile of cubes. I made sure to pick a jug that would take many cubes to fill. I wanted to make sure that everybody’s answer was going to be part of the whole class prize that they were going to earn. The class was “all in” and they were so excited when they finally earned the extra recess. Sometimes you plan your lessons at home, in your plan book, written out step by step. Sometimes the best ideas come to you in a pinch, on the fly.
I used these Boom Cards to review for the Eureka Math (Engage NY) Grade 3 Module 2 math test, but you could use any that you want. To grab these in Google slides format for FREE, be sure to sign up for our newsletter and get access to our FREE Resource Library!
Happy Teaching
~Heather
