Must-Have Fact Fluency Apps for the Classroom

It's me, Matt from Digital: Divide & Conquer, to share some of my favorite math apps for improving fact fluency (and making them more fun for the kids). I have a small bank of iPads in my room, and when they're not being used for break time to play mine craft, math fact fluency practice is the big agenda item. 

Below are some of my go-to math fact fluency apps. These are the apps that keep my kids engaged, motivated to learn, and are extremely easy to use. I've been using most of these for a couple of years.

OPERATION MATH
The James Bond of math games. The time and number of problems are the villains.  Speed is your friend. Games last only a minute, so my students can get in quite a few in a short time.  I love this game.  $

 

MATH HEROES
Surprisingly simple and easy to use. My students and own children love it. They seem to really enjoy the ninjas fighting (go figure).  Lots of levels to choose from, about 10 problems in a level, and it moves quick.  It's perfect and my students will play it forever.


OPERATION MATH SQUAD 
This is the team version of Operation Math. Kids compete against the time and even against other students. Four kids can play at a time, but it's really engaging for them. Plus, if students miss a certain amount they get locked out of the game, until the next round.  These games are about five minutes long.  Just be ready for the kids to get loud when they play.  $


SUSHI MONSTER
Monsters and sushi. The kids eat this up, no pun intended. It's from Scholastic and fun and easy to use. It's new to me, but my students are quick to use it.  It'll be on our iPads for awhile.


MATH VS ZOMBIES
Exactly what it says it is, math and zombies. Knock out the zombies with math facts. It's gone through a few updates and keeps improving.  They've also added more number sense and counting to the app, which is definitely a plus.  $$


YODEL OH!
Made by the same company who did Operation Math, it reminds me of the Price Is Right game with the yodeler. Same great music too. It's awesome.  $


These are my six go to math fluency apps. Most can be changed for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They're also game based, which is pretty important for the kids because math facts can be pretty boring. I don't blame them. Sure, most of them cost $2.99 --but based on my bad math it averages out to about three cents a week.  I'll take it.

The Power of Do It Again

Hi friends! It's Haley from My Silly Firsties. I'm sitting at the Detroit airport after a fabulous weekend with my sweet sister. I flew up to surprise her for the Aaron Watson concert and some sister time! We had a BLAST! I am definitely excited to be home to my sweet husband, puppy, and my 19 little monsters that I missed today! 

Here's a picture of my sister and I! Please excuse the eyebrows...whoa, hahaha...

Anyway, I thought I would do a short little post about one of the most powerful tools I have used this year! If you try it, and give it time to work, I promise it will make a huge difference in the way your classroom runs! 

So a little background...our summer reading from my district was the book Teach Like a Champion. 

If we're being real here, I will tell you this book is NOT my style. I am not the kind of teacher that shoots out commands...to be honest, when I first started reading it, I felt like a drill seargent! BUT...implementing it wasn't optional, so I figured I would do my best to use it in my room. There are tons (49 to be exact) strategies to implement, but these are some of my favorites. I do feel like this book is geared towards older kiddos...especially middle school and high school. BUT some...like the ones below...are applicable in absolutely any classroom. 

No Opt Out means a kiddo can't say "I don't know." They can ask for help...they can ask a friend. But ultimately, they should give the correct answer. The way I implement is a kiddo can say "Can I get some help?" and I call on another friend to answer. THEN (and this is super important) I go back to the original student and ask them to restate the correct answer. 

100% made me go "yeah right...come on..." when I read it. The expectation is that 100% of your students comply to your directive. To be honest, this year, I have a sweet little friend on a BIP and sometimes he just does not comply, hhahah. But he is a special circumstance, and my kiddos KNOW they all must "do it right or do it again." 

What To Do is giving very specific and understandable instructions. 

"Class, take out a pencil and your math notebook. Then put your head down and sit at a level 0." It tells them EXACTLY what to do and HOW to do it. 

Format Matters is SOO important. My sweet friend Christina Decarbo is the QUEEN of oral language, so I am so not the go to for this! But, I have tried really hard to have my students answer my questions in complete sentences. The right answer is great...but the right answer is a complete sentence is better! 

So...now on to "Do it Again." Like I said, the expectation is 100% compliance. SOO...if we are walking down the hall, and 2 sweet friends start jumping over the white squares becaause they are lava...they do it again. Sometimes the whole class does it, but usually the few students who need the extra practice do it again. 

At the beginning of the year, I believe you should explicitly teach and practice routines over and over...like so many times you want to punch something. But that is the way to ensure our little guys know exactly what is expected of them. If they don't do it right, I don't take away a point or anything like that...the consequence is "do it again and do it better." If they don't do it better, they do it again. Here are some times I implement it a LOT because it's times that I need their focus and attention so we can transition smoothly. 

I believe Do It Again works for several reasons. I truly believe that consequencces should be as natural as possible. If you break something, you have to fix it. If you hurt someone, you write an apology note. For things like walking down the hallway silently, it's hard to come up with something "natural," but I think "do it again" is pretty close! 

I present it like "oh...I think we forgot how to walk. Can we do it again so our bodies get even better at it?" It's all about muscle memory and practicing the RIGHT way over and over. 

I wanted to share one thing that has worked REALLY well this year. Each time we transition, we have a very specific way of doing it. 

I call out each step, and we ALL do it together. If we don't, we do it again. :) 

I hate talking about consequences...like really hate it. I try very, very hard to teach my kiddos WHY I ask them to do things and show them the correct way so I don't have to do it very often. But when I do, I always try to give consequences that aren't humiliating or ruin their entire day. I truly believe that "do it again" is the most powerful and EASIEST consequence I have ever used in my class! :) 

I'm curious if any of you have read Teach Like a Champion!? Comment with your favorite strategy if you have!  

Get the most out of Partner Talk and teach your kids how to have effective Academic Conversations

Now that's a title for ya'...quite a mouthful right?!!?  Are your administrators training you in academic conversations or having you encourage your students to 'talk' more?  
It's Vicky here from Teaching and Much Moore sharing my thoughts on this.  My district implemented this a few years ago and I do believe I'm a better teacher for learning about it and using it.  At first it felt awkward and I was afraid I would 'lose' my class       ( especially those classes with tough behavior ).  But through the years and a grade change as well I have become so comfortable with it and it has become second nature to me.  More importantly it has become second nature to my students.  

In our district they were having us focus more on having the students respond to our direct teaching rather than giving them prompts which I think both are important.  It sounds funny but part of having the academic conversations includes teaching your students how to 'talk' to each other.  For instance when responding put part of the question back in the text.  
My friend Christina and fellow Chalkie has a wonderful resource that can help your students with this exact concept.  You can check it out { here }

I love this ~ especially as an introduction to the whole shift in getting little learners to talk more.

I created an anchor chart that reminds my students about key ideas: * building on others ideas means you are being a good listener
* repeat or paraphrasing is a great life skill and shows you are a good listener.
*asking questions is always important too

I think it's important to start small when introducing this and I always make sure that my students understand it's EQUALLY or even more important to be a good listener.  Listening and paying attention to their peer is very important so that they can respond properly.  One way to reinforce this is something my friend Tammy came up with called the TALKING STICK.  I'm sure it's been on the web before but she created these and we laminated them and gave them to our students.  When you have the talking stick it's your turn to talk and the one that doesn't have it just has to look at the person and listen.

I love how another awesome Chalkie friend Meg provides prompts in her pack on this very topic:

You can grab her pack { here }

This one is great because it's for older learners ~  Meg's pack offers prompts on a variety of high interest topics that is helpful to get the students practicing this all important skill.

The main idea here is to get your students to collaboratively talk to one another.  Sharing their ideas and responding to text helps them to sort out their own thinking processes.  Listening to another peer helps them form their own opinion on a topic, do they agree with their classmate on this topic or not and why?  They begin to form their own thoughts and opinions and they will learn to voice it in an appropriate way with lots of modeling by you and practice.  This is a very important 21st Century life skill for sure!

My academic conversation pack includes conversation disks which are similar to cards, it also includes conversation starters and a die to roll as well.  

If you are interested in my pack you can grab it { here }

Building their oral language skills and learning problem solving skills within their day is such an awesome ability to have in life.  Another important part of teaching this is THINK TIME.  It's important when modeling this to actually stop and be quiet in front of your students for a bit to show that you are using think time and that's perfectly fine.  We can't expect our students to learn this skill if they don't have proper think time to process how to respond etc.

Try this concept out in your class and tell us how it goes.  We can't wait to hear from you!

 xox, Vicky

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A Heartfelt Halloween Read Aloud with Printable Freebie

Hello friends! Christina here, from Miss DeCarbo's Sugar and Spice. Today, I am excited to share an amazing children's book with you: When Hairy Met Tallie by Stacie Carroll. When I sat down to read this book, I knew it would be sweet, but I had no idea it would touch my heart SO much!  

This book is based on the true story of a beautiful little girl named Tallie, who looks and learns differently than other children. Within the book, Tallie is teased a great deal, and she feels very alone. Then, she meets Hairy, a life-sized skeleton that soon becomes her best friend. Hairy teaches Tallie that even though we all look different on the outside, we are all the same on the inside. The skeleton makes Tallie so happy, and she gains confidence in herself. She loves knowing that beneath our skin and hair, we are all alike on the inside - we all have a skeleton made out of bones and a big, red heart! 

This message, which is so important for ALL children of EVERY age to understand and learn, is so beautifully and simply written in this book. As teachers, we want so desperately to teach our kids how to accept and care for everyone in our school family. I believe this book does just that! 

Today, Stacie Carroll, the author of the book and mother of Tallie, is sharing this special message to children and schools all over! If you would like to learn more about Tallie's story and get a copy of the book to share with your students,  you can order it on her website:

Hairy's Heart

Below is a little freebie page that you can use with your students after reading this book together. I hope you enjoy it! You can download it from Google Drive by clicking HERE or clicking on the picture below: 

Thank you for letting me share this precious children's book with you!

Have a wonderful Halloween week! 

Happy Learning,

Literature Journals

Aloha everyone it's Corinna from Surfin' Through Second!  Just a quick post today to share with you how I use literature journals to enhance reading skills in my classroom.

I stock up on composition books and use them quite a bit during our literacy time.

Essentially it's a place to keep everything together and students can go back and review lessons and skills learned. Here are a few examples of how we use them.

There are so many different ways you can use literature journals in your classroom.

-Recording Literature Circle Activities
-Recording Text Evidence
-Answering Text or Teacher Questions
-Enrichment Activities

I also have students cut and paste interactive activities from our reading series or items I have created or purchased.

Do you use literature or interactive journals in your classroom? Feel free to share how you use them!

Social Media in the Classroom

Hello everybody!  This is Terry here from Terry's Teaching Tidbits.  I'm so excited to be back on the Primary Chalkboard blog to share some great new ideas with you that I've been trying out in my classroom.

This year I have decided to step up my communication with parents in an effort to keep them more informed and aware of what is going on the classroom.  The results?  This has been the BEST year that I've ever had in the classroom.  The parents in my class have never been more kind, helpful, and reassured that what we're doing is going to be rigorous, fun, and educational.  On top of that, I, myself, have been more involved and motivated.  It's a win-win!

To become more communicative, I've been using the following types of Social Media/technology in my classroom:

1. Periscope
2. Facebook
3. Class Dojo
4. Kahn Academy
5. iXL

To find out more detail about how I'm using each of these in my classroom, head over to my {BLOG POST}.  

Word to the wise:  Don't be scared!  There are ways to use technology and social media without violating privacy.  I talk about this with Periscope and Facebook.

We live in a digital world now, so join me in adapting to our changing society and using it in a positive manner to help our students, parents, and ourselves stay motivated and involved in the classroom.