Your first and second graders are learning their math facts, and it all starts with addition! Practicing addition facts can be fun for your students with these different activities! Check out these ways to practice addition facts for instant recall and mastery for 1st and 2nd grades!
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Education
January 14, 2021
Ways to Practice Addition Facts for Instant Recall and Mastery for 1st and 2nd Grades
Your first and second graders are learning their math facts, and it all starts with addition! Practicing addition facts can be fun for your students with these different activities! Check out these ways to practice addition facts for instant recall and mastery for 1st and 2nd grades!
January 13, 2021
Martin Luther King Jr Must-Do Activities for Your 3rd and 4th Graders
On the looking for some Martin Luther King Math activities? Then you're in luck! This post is full of great ideas you can use with your 3rd, or 4th grade classroom and homeschool students! Use them as review, for math center or stations, with small groups, for whole group lessons, and more! Your students will be so engaged they won't even know they're learning!
My class is getting ready to celebrate the great Martin Luther King Jr. Our shelves are full of great literature. Discussions are beginning. How else can we bring Martin Luther into the classroom? With Martin Luther King Math, Activities and Songs, of course!
Art Hub
Rise Up Song
Martin Luther King Jr. Multiplication Color by Number Math Activities
Multiplication Color by Codes are alway a huge hit with my students! My kiddos love coloring and practicing their facts for fact power. They usual get so fixated on the colors that they don't realize that they are reviewing their multiplication facts for mastery and fluency. I use these sheets for morning work during check-in, early finishers , math centers of for homework.![]() |
Want even more Martin Luther King Math resources, book ideas, and FREEBIES? Check out this blog post! |
November 29, 2020
Introduction to Measurement for 1st and 2nd Grade Students
Identifying Centimeters and Inches
Understanding the basic units of measurement for length in both metric and customary measurement systems will help your students learn how to use a ruler and have a concept of length. To begin, help your students learn how to identify centimeters and inches by using engaging lessons and practice materials. First, the measurement contains practice pages to help students identify inches to the nearest half inch as well as centimeters. In addition to reading a ruler on the page, students make their own markings on an actual correctly scaled ruler. Next, practice identifying inches to the nearest half inch. Not only is this a great way to practice beginning measurement, your students also get a foundation for rounding skills. One reason I love using the introduction to measurement practice pages is to take students from sharing materials. Of course, it's difficult to keep multiple rulers cleaned! That's why I use practice pages with actual rulers! Then students can do all of their work on paper without worrying about spreading germs!
Labeling Inches and Centimeters
In addition to identifying inches and centimeters, your students will also learn to label an ruler with inches and centimeters. This shows a deeper understanding of the units of measurement. Labeling activities are ready to go and print on the introduction to measurement practice pages!Comparing Inches and Centimeters
Going back and forth from customary to metric measurement can be confusing! Use the introduction to measurement practice pages to have your student practice comparing inches and centimeters. First, have your students compare inches and centimeters to decide which measurement in larger. Next, use the practice pages to have students find which measurement in centimeters or inches is smaller. This comparison activity helps students with problem-solving and critical thinking skills!Drawing and Measuring Lines
Finally, help your students put together everything they've learned about inches and centimeters and draw their own lines! Students draw lines given a certain measurement. In addition, your 1st and 2nd graders can measure lines on the paper and then draw a line that is additional centimeters or inches or a shorter length. These activities are ready-to-print and use on the introduction to measurement practice pages!Extension Activities for Introduction to Measurement
Have your students extend their learning by using their paper or actual rulers to measure things in the classroom or around their own home. Of course, to keep social distancing, students can measure their own materials in their area or even their hands or bottoms of shoes! In addition, ask your students to measure things at home. How long is their bed in centimeters? In inches? Measure the cover of a book or a spoon in the kitchen. The possibilities are endless for students to extend their measurement learning! This introduction to measurement for 1st and 2nd grade students will help your students get the foundation they need for measurement instruction! Count on the introduction to measurement practice pages to help your students get started with measurement in the primary math classroom!November 10, 2020
Measurement Conversion for 4th and 5th Grade Students
Measurement Conversion for 4th and 5th Grade students
Measurement can be a confusing concept for upper elementary students, especially when it comes to measurement conversion. Whether you are teaching customary measurements, metric conversions, or both, your students will need practice understanding and applying measurement conversions. Having cheat sheets of conversion formulas and patterns can be helpful, but the way my students learn best is through practice! Here are some ways to teach measurement conversion for 4th and 5th grade students.Use anchor charts.
Eventually, your students may have measurement conversions memorized, but start by having anchor charts with common conversions posted online or in-person for all of your learners to see. These charts will help your students understand conversions for customary and metric units.Make Measurement Conversion Relevant.
You can use anchor charts and cheat sheets all day long, but until you help students connect measurement conversion to real life, it doesn't make a lot of sense! Measurement conversion is one of the most important math concepts for your students to learn. Of course, measurement conversion is used in cooking! Start by having your students convert recipe ingredients from cups to ounces. Another relevant use for measurement conversion is understanding distance. I have a lot of students who love to run! Track and field events are often measured in yards. Have your students convert yards to feet and then miles to see the distance they are running. Measuring short lengths is also important too. Making scale models for class or building things at home is so much easier when students understand how to convert customary and metric lengths.Practice measurement conversion.
Once students have the formulas and conversion charts available, it's important to practice! I love to have students practice in a chart form where they can notice the patterns in the numbers. Many students may be able to see that multiplication is the operation that is used to go from smaller units of measurement to larger units, while division is used to go from larger units of measurement to smaller units of measurement.Customary Length
Customary Weight
Customary Capacity
Metric Length
Metric Mass
Temperature
Customary Length to Metric Length
Mixed Review
Measurement Word Problems
True and False
November 9, 2020
Thanksgiving Math FREE Fun to Entice Your Third Grade Math or Fourth Grade Math Students
Gobble! Gobble! It is almost turkey time. That means it is time to integrate Thanksgiving FUN with math. The days leading up to the holiday can busy and hectic. Why not take that time to brush up on multiplication facts. Knowing multiplication facts with instant recall is so important for numerous other math topics including greatest common factors, least common multiples, multiplying integers, and multiplying fractions. I even use multiplication myself for long division as I think of the inverse operation to help me solve division problems. Full disclosure: I know my multiplication facts faster than my division facts. Ssssh, don't tell my students.
So grab your brightest and most colorful crayons and let's get started! What a GREAT way to have your Third Grade Math students, Fourth Grade Math or even your Fifth Grade Math students review their multiplication facts for fluency and accuracy than with Multiplication Color by Number Activities? My students love coloring and I love the quiet and calmness it seems to bring in my classroom. I have even been known to play relaxing Enya or slow jazz while children work in small groups or independently on these worksheets.
Don't believe me? Try it yourself. I created this Thanksgiving Multiplication Worksheet just for you.
CLICK HERE to download this Thanksgiving Multiplication FREEBIE
If your students enjoyed practicing their multiplication facts with the freebie above, check out these Thanksgiving Multiplication Color by Number Activities on TPT. Each page focuses on a different factor. So some of your students can be brushing up on their times 2 or times 10 facts, while other students can be focusing on more challenging facts like times 8 or times 12. I say differentiation is key to mathematical confidence and success.
October 11, 2020
How to Build Home to School Connections

Make Sunshine Phone Calls and Send Positive Notes Home
If every time parents hear from you, it’s a negative thing, those home to school connections get broken easily. Yes, you will need to make phone calls or send notes home for the tough stuff, but it’s also vital to reach out to families when things are going well academically or with social-emotional well being. In addition to notes or emails, you can also make positive phone calls home. I call these “Sunshine Calls”, and it’s best to make one early in the year. Give yourself a few minutes a day to call home during the first few weeks of school. Think of a specific, positive thing you can say about their child to start building home to school connections.Emphasize Reading at Home
Don’t wait until parent-teacher conferences to tell parents about their child’s reading progress. Send home reading conference forms with specific skills and progress, especially for K-2 readers. Focus on the student perspective and what they worked on with you that day. The forms are easy to understand and give the child a chance to talk to parents about what they read and what skills they are working on. In addition, let parents know that it’s not always about what their kids are reading at home but really that they are reading! Sometimes, parents want to focus on reading levels since that’s what we do in school to monitor progress and provide interventions. However, encourage parents to have their children read what they love at home. The very best readers spend time reading for pleasure. Also, invite parents to become partners in their student’s reading routine by suggesting titles they may want to enjoy together. Build the home to school connections by sharing resources for free books with parents. Let families know how they can access the school library, public libraries, and electronic book resources provided by the district or school. Finally, make sure you are communicating with families in the language they speak at home. Even if a student speaks English well, it doesn't mean their parents are receiving the information. My reading communication forms are available in both English and Spanish.Fix the Math Mindset
In my decades of teaching elementary math, nothing hurts more than when I hear a parent say, “I’m not a math person” in front of their child. Everyone can be a math person! The fixed mindset of “I can’t” that comes with math often passes on to children. Communicating about the how and why of math in the classroom will help parents understand that their child can meet and perhaps even exceed expectations in the math classroom. Share math skills that you reviewed with your students and what they can work on at home with these math assessment forms. Because the forms are focused on multiple skills, they help with differentiating instruction for all your K-2 math learners!Prepare for Testing
A lot of getting ready for state or national testing is not about the content students are studying. Many test taking strategies are about study skills and coming to school ready to take a test. This includes getting a good night’s sleep and eating a healthy breakfast. Parents are partners in test taking preparation as well. Share these test taking communication forms with families as test time gets close. Building home to school connections is key when it comes to test time. Relationships are key when it comes to classroom management and even getting your students to buy into content. However, it’s not just about getting to know the kids in your classroom. Parents and guardians are partners in their children’s education, and we count on each other. These parent communication resources will help you to build home to school connections with your families this year!July 1, 2020
Entice Your Beginning Multiplication Student To Practice Their Facts with Math Games
