Teaching Place Value

MOST classrooms start the year learning about place value. This can either be a huge drag OR you can make it super engaging and a valuable time for your students. Below are a few of my favorite place value ideas:

Place Value should have a PLACE in your classroom

I am completely obsessed with having a huge place value chart in the classroom. This giant chart is super easy to print and post. We find ourselves referring back to this place value chart long after our place value unit has ended. I am such a stickler for students reading numbers properly and I love watching their eyes flit up towards this chart as they read a number.

Link to place value chart

Make it a Game

If teachers came with tag lines, mine would probably be: Just turn it into a game! I have found that students LOVE a good challenge and when students are engaged, their work product and accuracy improve dramatically. Below are a few of my favorite digital and printable place value activities.

Click a product image below to take you to the activity.

Don’t Forget to REVIEW

Even though we typically hit place value pretty hard at the beginning of the year, a winter review is definitely necessary. Throughout the year I’ll host themed math review days. One of my favorite days is right before winter break when everyone is checked out and ready for a holiday.

This gingerbread math review covers a range of skills including place value. Students solve math problems, check their work and earn snowballs (currency) for correct answers. Once students have earned enough snowballs they can go shopping and purchase recycled materials which they use to construct their gingerbread house.

It is the absolute perfect end to the semester. We get in an extensive math review and students get to be hands on and creative.

Link to Construct a Gingerbread House activity

Extend Student Learning

One of my biggest teaching pet peeves is when teachers will not cover materials because it is NOT IN THE STANDARDS. Students can and will surprise you with how much farther they can go than JUST their grade level standards. Decimals were not a fourth grade skill. Did I cover decimals? Absolutely. Give it a try and see if your students don’t surprise you. In fact, while you’re at it, turn it into a game ;)

Click a product image below to take you to the activity.

Top 5 Classroom Transformations for Math Teachers

I absolutely LOVE a good classroom transformation. First of all, the look on a kids face when they walk into a classroom filled with black lights or decked out like a pirate ship? Priceless! Worth the extra work 1,000 times over. But the academic gains are also note worthy. I notice a huge increase in participation, focus, and perseverance on days we have a classroom transformation. Below are a few favorite math transformations. I’ve used this rating scale to give you an idea of how much work is involved in setting up the activity:

Classroom Transformation Rating scale:

EASY: Minimal prep. Not a lot of moving parts. You may already own a lot of the items involved.

MODERATE: Medium prep. Planning in advance is recommended.

HARD: Extensive prep. Planning ahead is a must.

Space Adventure: A Place Value Activity

Classroom Transformation Level of Difficulty: MODERATE

Click this link for Space Adventure Materials

This space themed activity provides the perfect opportunity to decorate the classroom in a space theme! Dimmed lighting, black lights and space music are encouraged :)

In this activity, students will take on the identity of a space agent hired by the Department of Space and Extraterrestrial Life. Troubling signals have been received from the Skylab Space Station and Mission X852 is on a quest to discover the issue. On the way, agents will encounter connection errors, alien forces, and more!

Students will work in small groups to solve general place value questions (up to thousand or hundred million depending on grade level), add whole numbers, and solve word problems.

Pirate Quest: A Coordinate Grid Treasure Hunt

Classroom Transformation Level of Difficulty: HARD

Click this link for Pirate Quest materials

Pirate’s Quest is a classroom transformation that I create in my classroom as a review of coordinate planes and ordered pairs. I transform the classroom by hanging ship sails (white bed sheets that have coordinate planes drawn on them with sharpies) from the ceiling and decorating the classroom with pirate paraphernalia. I get the students excited a day in advance by sending them home with entrance tickets that they must present before entering the pirates cove the next morning. On the day of, I give each student an eye patch and play pirate themed music in the background. Students battle it out to be the first team to find the buried treasure!

Fishing for Decimals

Classroom Transformation Level of Difficulty: EASY

Click this link for Fishing for Decimals materials

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish! Pair these decimal task cards with a fishing themed classroom transformation. For this activity, I fill a baby pool with a small amount of water and add in colored balls that are the “fish”. Students use toy fishing nets to catch for the colored "fish". For each colored "fish" they catch they must answer one question of that color.

Pro Tips for this activity:

1. A little water goes a long way in the baby pool. You’re setting the mood and adding a little excitement you definitely don’t want to flood the classroom!

2. Always refer to the colored balls as “fish” unless you want all the boys in your class to absolutely lose their minds.

3. If you have time, I recommend laminating the task cards since water is involved.

Magic Math Potions

Classroom Transformation Level of Difficulty: MODERATE

Click this link for Magic Math Potions (order of operations)

Click this link for Magic Math Potions (subtraction)

Click this link for Magic Math Potions (variables)

Channel your inner Potion Master and keep students engaged in learning around Halloween with this magical math potion-making activity. Students will create a potion and *magically* conceal the potion recipe amounts using order of operations, subtraction, or variables. Groups will swap recipes and solve the math to successfully create another group's potion!

Order of OPERATIONS

Classroom Transformation Level of Difficulty: MODERATE

Click this link for Order of Operations materials

Teach the order of operations (PEMDAS) in a unique and engaging way! Every year, I decorate the classroom like a hospital room as a play on the word "operation" and tell the students we are heading into surgery! To save the patient, students must solve the expressions on their task cards and partner the cards up with their matches.

Do you love classroom transformations, too? Have you tried any of these? Let me know below in the comments!

Top 5 Ideas for Back to School

Back to school is busy and stressful but I alway try to make it fun and exciting for my students. Here are my top 5 EASY ways to make this back to school season your best ever:

Countdown to the First Day of School

Send your students some mail before they even get to school on the first day! This is as simple as printing out a pre-made countdown, or designing your own, and mailing one to each student. Kids always love to hear from their future teacher before the school year starts. This small step definitely helps to build up anticipation for the first day back. Click this link to download this simple back to school countdown!

First Day of School Challenge

A few years ago I spent about three weeks preparing my classroom and prepping for the school year ahead and completely neglected preparations for the first day back!! I was so thankful to have this activity on hand. I printed the pages on bright paper, placed one on each student desk and called it a day :)

This back to school challenge is such a great way to ease into the school year. I enjoy walking around and meeting each student. Their work product also gives me an idea of their academic abilities right from the get go. This activity is perfect for grades 3-5. Click this link to take you to this back to school challenge!

Classroom Jobs: HELP WANTED!

Teachers can ALWAYS use an extra hand. I love to farm out small tasks to students at the beginning of the year. They love to feel useful and involved in the daily operation of the classroom and it takes these tasks off your plate! Definitely a win-win situation.

Since each job involves a small amount of training I have students read summaries of the jobs and apply for their top three. We go through this process twice a year: once at the beginning of the year and once after our winter break. Because students hold these jobs for months at a time they get to know it VERY well and can even help train their replacement come January :)

My biggest mistake my first year teaching was switching out jobs every week. It was SO much extra work and students weren’t able to complete their jobs properly because we didn’t have time for proper training. I highly recommend the twice-a-year method to control the chaos!

Download these classroom job classifieds here.

Back to School Games

These back to school games are perfect for that first week back as students are getting to know one another. Rotate your students through these four stations: This or That, Tic Tac Toe, Ring Toss and Paint your Self Portrait. Use the self portraits and this or that pages to be the first teacher on your hallway to have a bulletin board decorated! Download these games here.

Back to School Escape Room

In between assigning classroom jobs and reviewing routines and structures for the year, this is a perfect way to dust off the cobwebs and review math skills from the previous school year! No prep is involved in this digital activity.

In this escape room, your school's data system has been breached and all information from last year has been erased. Students will work through a series of math questions that will provide them with the secret codes necessary to break through digital walls and restore the school's data!

Students will work through slides that are designed to look and function like a video game. If students can answer all the problems correctly they will escape the game and win! Click this link to watch a preview of this activity or to download this back to school escape room.

How do you make the back to school season exciting for your students? Let me know below in the comments!

My Favorite Classroom Management Tip

Picture this scene from my first year classroom:

Thirty third graders, excited about an activity, *speaking* VERY loudly at each other, there was probably a kid under the table at some point (face palm). I, the poor first year teacher who introduced a fun activity without laying down some ground rules, surveyed the chaotic scene in front of me, picked up a small responsive classroom management chime (that I was told worked like magic….) and tapped the chime very gently in the hopes of regaining control of the classroom. Obviously, it didn’t work or I wouldn’t be telling you this story.

So, here is what I WISH someone had given me instead of a little chime my first day of teaching:

Call and Response Cards: Why I love Them

Call and responses are exactly what they sound like: the teacher calls out a cue and the students respond. I start the year with some favorites posted on a prominent wall in the classroom. These become our go to call and responses throughout the school year. Then below those I add “Special Call and Responses” that are seasonal and change throughout the year.

I swear by posting these up in the classroom for a variety of reasons:

1. My memory is terrible and if I don’t have call and responses posted on the wall I revert to tired ones that everyone is sick of hearing.

2. Kids LIKE to be able to see them and will get so excited about new seasonal call backs. They will even make requests or ask to lead them!

3. It is so helpful for specials teachers or other instructors who push into your classroom to be able to see exactly what you do to get everyone’s attention so that they can keep your classroom management system consistent for your students.

Click this link for over 70 unique call backs to use throughout the school year!

Do you use call and responses in your classroom too? What are some of your favorites? Let us know in the comments below!

How to Tell Your Students You're Having a Baby!

First of all, CONGRATULATIONS!! This is such an exciting time for you and I’m sure you are eagerly awaiting the day you get to share the good news with your students.

I have a couple of fun ideas for you:

My Teacher is Having a Baby Reveal Word Search

This activity is SUPER low prep. Just print out the appropriate word search for your students, slap a poster up on the white board and watch their reactions unfold! BONUS: If you are having twins this is the activity for you! I included a special “My teacher is expecting twins!” word search just for you ♥ Click on this link to take you to this activity.

Unlock Your Teacher’s Biggest Secret Baby Announcement

This is the digital activity I used with my students to announce my pregnancy during COVID distance learning. I was so sad not to be able to see their reactions in person but they were very excited and shared their enthusiasm with me virtually! Essentially, students need to “unlock” your good news by solving a series of math problems. This activity is geared towards 4th-6th graders. If you are a fourth grade teacher and doing this at the beginning of the year, your students will need more support from you in order to solve these problems. ♥ Click on this link to take you to this activity.

Classroom Gender Reveal

Have you already told your kids about your soon to be bundle of joy? They get JUST ask excited to find out the baby’s gender! When we found out our baby was going to be a boy I gave my students this word search, a bag of pink and blue confetti and, since we were still virtual, had them solve the word search and then send me a video of them throwing the correct color confetti. It was SO MUCH FUN ♥ Click on this link to take you to this activity.

How did you tell your students you were pregnant?! Have you used any of these activities? Let me know in the comments below! ♥

How to Host a Glow Day in the Classroom

Glow. Days. Are. Awesome. I can’t stress this enough!! And after almost a year and a half of not being in the classroom in person with students what better way to start the year than with glow sticks?! It's an obvious no brainer :)

But, if you’ve never hosted a glow day before I can definitely understand how this could be intimidating. Before my first classroom glow day I spent a kazillion hours researching online for info and I just couldn’t find much. SO, here I am to share what I’ve learned along the way:

Make it Dark:

The first thing you need to tackle is to make your classroom as dark as possible. There are a lot of black out curtain options available online but my favorite, and likely your cheapest option, is heavy duty black trash bags.

Then of course, is the all important question:

How do I make my classroom glow? Black lights will make all neon, glow in the dark, and black light reactive materials shine brightly. A quick search online will show you that black lights are an expensive investment!! So let’s answer the next pressing question:

How many black lights do I need for a classroom? The simple (but not so helpful) answer is: it depends on the size of your classroom and how much you want things to glow. When I hosted my first glow day I used 4 of these black light bars. It definitely worked, my students LOVED it, and there was definitely a WOW factor. I invested in a few more lights as the years went on but I probably never used more than six black light bars in my classroom. I did, however, also invest in these cute black light flashlights. They are relatively cheap and my students loved having their own light to flash around. I use them for a little hide-and-seek leprechaun activity for St. Patrick’s Day.

Make it Glow:

There are so many things that glow with black lights and here are some of my favorites:

• Glow sticks

• Black light reactive tape

• Neon pipe cleaners

• Glow-in-the-dark paint

• Yellow highlighters

• Astro Bright neon printer paper (certain colors glow better than others)

Make it Educational:

I prefer to use glow days and other room transformation days for content review, and will often plan one of these events to help students prepare for a unit assessment or end of term exam. It is a great way to keep kids excited and engaged in what might otherwise be a dull activity. I have used task cards and QR readers to keep kids working hard throughout the glow day activity.

Make it a Competition:

I taught 4th grade for the longest time and if there is one thing I learned about kids that age it’s that EVERYTHING is a competition. So if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. I made a lot of my activities competitions. What did the winning team win? Eternal glory. #teachertip

Make it Fun and Relevant:

Simply ask yourself two questions:

1. What are YOU excited about?

2. What are your KIDS excited about?

If some of your students love golf…incorporate golf into your glow day! If you love basketball? Incorporate basketball into your glow day.

Make it Happen:

You’ll never know if you don’t try. I truly believe glow days are magical learning days. Students are so enthusiastic about working hard and that brings me so much joy as a teacher. I promise you will not regret it. An easy way to start is that first week back to school. The stakes are low because there is no educational content involved. Just a few kids and their teacher getting to know each other:

Have you tried glow days before? Share your best tips and tricks in the comments below!

Classroom Digital Escape Rooms

Escape rooms are my new classroom obsession!

5 Reasons I Love Digital Escape Rooms:

1. They boost student engagement instantly

2. Little to no-prep is involved in setting these activities up

3. These games promote team building in the classroom

4. You can use these games for virtual learning, in-person learning, hybrid learning, home-schooling, and tutoring

5. Students enjoy doing math ♡♡♡♡!!!!

Lets take a look at how these games work in the classroom. All the images below are pulled from my Zombie Attack Escape Room for grade 4.

Step One: Set the Stage

Get kids invested in the game by setting the stage and placing them in the story:

Step Two: Throw in Some Learning

At this point the kids are invested and in-it-to-win-it! So throw in a little math and I doubt you’ll meet with much protest. You can boost the excitement even more by setting a timer and telling the students they have X number of minutes to complete the activity and escape the Zombies (or whatever else they are attempting to escape from).

Step Three: Ensure Success

There is nothing more defeating than getting something wrong and not being able to try again. These games allow students as many chances as needed to get to the right answer. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again and all that. It works. If kids are excited about a math activity and they want to play and win the game, they’ll have no problem going back and looking for their mistakes. #learning

Step Four: Leave them Wanting More

There are a couple of ways to accomplish this last step. You can leave them with a little bit of a cliff hanger like in this Zombie Attack game or you can tell them they did such a great job with this activity that there will be another! I would be very surprised if they didn’t ask the next day when their next escape room activity will be ☺.

Have you tried an escape room in the classroom? I’m interested to hear about your experience with it!

Video Game EDU

On a regular day in the classroom one of our goals as educators is keeping students engaged in their learning. We achieve this with funny accents, classroom decorations, educational games, student participation, group work, the list goes on and on and then BOOM! We’re hit with distance learning!

The first week of distance learning was like reliving my first year teaching! I struggled to find ways to keep my kids excited about learning from home where there are distractions I can’t compete with: group chats, annoying siblings, the kitchen fridge, and of course, video games.

I kept coming back to the idea of video games as a means to get students excited about school. So I gave it a whirl and created my first educational video game: The Wrath of Lord Fraction.

The engagement was off the chart! All my students wanted to escape the wrath of Lord Fraction and the only way to do so was to solve fraction problems.

A story line guides students through the game as they attempt to master each level.

And thus, Video Game EDU was created! You can check out all my currently available educational video games here.

If you have any requests let me know in the comments section below!

February Freebies

After approximately 131 days of January, I’ve never been more ready for February!! To celebrate, I’m posting about two activities we do as a class this month with links to these free products in my TPT store.

Multiplication Heart Craft

This super easy craft comes with four multiplication problems and is a perfect Valentine’s Day station or math center activity.

The plan is to make loads of these hearts and hang them from the ceiling in our classroom! Multiplication is definitely one of those skills we need to go back to and review often. Click here to grab this freebie!

This download comes with:

• Teacher instructions

• Student work packets (4 math problems)

• Student instructions

• Craft assembly guide (with images)

• Answer key

Enjoy and happy crafting!!

Valentine’s Day Cards for Students

Every year I go back and forth on Valentine’s Day cards for my kids. One year I paid way too much money to have fancy Valentine’s Day cards made with my name & class printed on them. Other years I’ve done nothing because I’m too swamped with lessons. This year, I figured I would mix Valentine’s Day with a math review lesson. Win-win, right?

Students will need to know basic math facts to solve this secret Valentine’s Day card message. Another great station or math center for February 14th!

This download includes:

• 1 Valentine's Day card

• Secret math message that reads: "Have a magical day"

You can download this freebie by clicking here!

Happy February!

Dress Like an Idiom Day

Dress Like an Idiom Day is by far one of my favorite school days!

As a class we study a whole bunch of idioms and post their meanings on the walls around our classroom.

We host a “Dress Like an Idiom” fashion show to celebrate all we have learned about idioms throughout the year. To get the kids excited, I give them a special all-access press pass that they need to present to get in the door of the event, because security will be tight ;)

You can grab these passes and entrance tickets for free in my TPT store—just click here!

Students pick their favorite idiom and create a costume representing the idiom’s literal meaning. We use our classroom stage as a runway and line student desks up next to the stage to create an audience gallery.

Students walk down the runway one at a time while their classmates try to guess and define their idiom.

At the end of the fashion show, students share their idiom + definition and the class self-grades their work. One point is awarded for guessing the correct idiom and one point is awarded for correctly defining that idiom.

We calculate points in the end to see who guessed and defined the most idioms!

All the materials I use for this activity can be found by clicking here. Let me know if you give it a try!