Create Your Own Math Homework

Hello friends! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you with the math homeworks - I was crazy busy at the end of this week making sure everything was ready for this week's tests, and then yesterday I got some not so great news, and that kinda threw me for a loop. Then this morning I ran an 8K race (and in under an hour, I was very happy with myself!), but I am exhausted because of it (I actually have had a headache for most of the day - I hope it's not running related, because it's feeling really good to get back in the habit of running).

 Anyway, I went ahead and uploaded the homework packs to Google Docs as Word documents instead of PDFs (links below; example problem above) so that way y'all can download them and edit them how you need. Y'all are already going to have to do a bit of editing because of the dates on each homework set, but hopefully you won't have to change too much. Again, these homework questions are geared towards the skills and standards for third graders in Texas, but I think they should work for most any third graders (and, with some tweaking, could also work well for other grades!). If you end up using this for homework or otherwise, please let me know by leaving a comment! It really does give me a thrill every time I see via comments and blog posts that someone has used something I've created. I've been seeing my font pop up on lots of people's creations recently (it was especially shocking/surprising/amazing to stumble upon it when I clicked on this link via Joanna Goddard's blog, A Cup of Jo, because her blog has a HUGE following and has nothing to do with teaching), and it absolutely blows my mind that nearly 13,000 people have downloaded my font from dafont.com - I honestly thought when I posted/shared it that only my teacher friends and followers would have any use for it. Crazy to think that many people are using my handwriting to create things - it really boggles my mind!!

Our third graders will be hard at work on their reading and math state tests this Tuesday and Wednesday, and then I'm leaving right after school on Thursday to head to New Orleans with my boyfriend for a wedding. I hope to share some of the things we did to review and prep for our STAAR test before I go out of town, because as tired as I was last week, I'm really pleased how everything turned out. Have a great week, y'all!

Create Your Own Math Homework #1

Create Your Own Math Homework #2

Create Your Own Math Homework #3

Create Your Own Math Homework #4

i'm.so.tired.

so, i know i'm supposed to use a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence, but when i type, i've always preferred not to. (shhhh, don't tell my students!) although i usually give in to convention, today i am so.dang.tired. that i can't even muster up the effort it takes to press the shift key to give you all the courtesy of capital letters. at least i'm still using apostrophes, commas, and periods. you're welcome.

this week has totally wiped me out. i think (and hope) my kids have enjoyed the the camping themed review, since it has meant we have had fun treats and two pop up tents in our classroom, but i am so exhausted from getting everything together that i can barely even think straight. yesterday there was a PTA meeting at 6:30, and because i don't live super close to my school, going home before the meeting and coming back wasn't an option. at 7:30, i looked at the agenda and realized we weren't even half way through the meeting, so i had to leave - i hadn't eaten since my lunch time at 12:30, so i'm sure they were glad i left, as my stomach was making some pretty loud and obnoxious noises. then today, we had a staff meeting 'til 4, i worked out, and then i got to get started on prepping for tomorrow...only i didn't really get to because i had so many papers/piles/messes to sort through/clean up. but, now i can see the top of my guided reading table, so at least the table is prepped for tomorrow...

anyway, the real reason i wanted to post today was to see if any of y'all would be interested in seeing/using the DIY math homework my kids have been using these past few weeks. in preparation for our STAAR test, i wanted to be sure my kiddos were still reviewing/practicing the skills they've learned this year, but i wanted to avoid giving them too much "to the test" type work because (a) it's boring, and (b) i didn't want them to become so tired of seeing/doing that kind of work that come test day, they are burnt out. so, in an effort to make things a little more fun and engaging BUT still meaningful, i came up with the idea of having my kids write their own math problems. each week, they must come up with 4 questions, but they have to follow a specific set of instructions as to how to create/write each problem (i.e., what numbers/operations to include, pictures to draw, etc.). they also have to come up with 4 answer choices. then, on fridays, instead of me grading their work for them, they have to get with a partner and trade homework, and they answer each others' questions! i do, obviously, still grade their work, but the conversations i overhear when my kids are answering each others' questions is SO worth not having a one size fits all, easy to grade with an answer key type of assignment. i also love that these assignments are totally self-paced - the kids who feel comfortable playing around with bigger, more complex numbers do, and at the same time, those who feel more confident sticking with smaller, easier numbers are able to do so without being penalized.

so, if you think you'd be interested in seeing and/or using these homework assignments, please let me know by leaving me a comment. i know some of you might want and/or need to tweak things to make the questions correlate with your grade level/state standards, so let me know if you're interested and i'll email you the files!

have a great rest of your week, y'all!

Fact Family Spiders

Looks like I'm finding out the hard way that blogging about teaching is somewhat hard to keep up with when you're actually teaching - it's been over a month since my last post! In these past few weeks I've finished up with all my parent/teacher conferences, I've had a few days away from school (and no I don't mean days off - I wish!), and I've had several projects going on at home that have kept me very busy. I still want to show y'all my classroom and share how I stay organized, but until then, I thought I'd show y'all a super cute idea I came up with on a whim when trying to figure out a fun way to incorporate our fact family lesson with something Halloween-ish.

At first, I was toying around with the idea of students writing their facts on to strips that would fill in the bristles of a witch's broom, but then I thought that would take too long and/or be too complicated. Then, I thought about trying to figure out a way to make a haunted house with opening doors/windows that, on the outside, would display the three numbers used, and on the inside, would display all four related facts, but then I took a big fat leap away from that after thought about how much time it'd take to create something like that. Then it hit me - spiders! Not only do they already have eight legs (meaning it's perfect for displaying exactly two full fact families), but I had just seen this tutorial from Dana about how to make a yarn spider web, and that sealed the deal. A cute project AND a cute display? Done and done!

 

I made the web loosely based on what I remember reading in Dana's tutorial, and, the night before, I pre-cut circular bodies, strips of paper for the legs, and created a quick and easy block of eight circles for the eyes on word. Then the day of the lesson, I asked my students came up with two of their own fact families. After I checked for errors, they picked up their supplies and got to work! I know it's hard to see, but they wrote each fact in white crayon on the legs. I'm so happy with how they turned out - I love that some of the girls added bows and eyelashes and one of my boys even added a red hourglass on the abdomen to make his spider into a black widow! And, the best part was, it was self-challenging - I had a few kids make their problems using triple digit numbers! Yay!

Happy Halloween y'all!