Ideas for a 6th Grade Math Teacher
Sixth grade mathematics can be a confusing time for many students. Making the transition to pre-algebra and geometry after learning basic math skills is tough for many students, making it difficult for teachers to capture and retain their interest. Through imagination and review, many teachers find that students absorb more information and retain it more adroitly.
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Warm-up
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According to Jennifer Yount, a 15-year veteran sixth-grade teacher in North Carolina, having students complete warm-ups as soon as they walk in the classroom will help them review what they previously did and prepare them for the day's lesson. Yount says the warm-up should contain about six problems --- at least one word and one unit review problem --- and ideally should take the students about five minutes to complete. She says a large part of the warm-up is to provide feedback to the students, whether it's quickly walking around and checking papers or taking them up and grading them.
Stations
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During an hour-long class, many teachers employ stations to draw in students of all ability levels. During stations, students can do problems, work with hands-on material and even create problems of their own for their peers to solve during class.
Yount recommends using an ActivBoard if one is available to you to get the students participating more.
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Interactive Boards
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There are many ways to create an interactive board. Yount says her favorite way is graphic organizers and sticky notes. She developed a three-column "tree" on number sense in which there is a column for each of decimals, fractions and percentages. With five single-answer rows and the rest on sticky notes, the students would put the stickies where they belong on the board. Having the students make the boards themselves for a class "game day" would involve the students and make them think even more.
Online Resources
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There are hundreds of online resources for teachers and most schools now have Internet access in the classroom, making it even easier for teachers to access these resources. Rubistar.com can be used to create grading rubrics so students and the school administration can see what you expect in your classroom. Using Jeopardylabs.com is an interesting way to create reviews for students prior to testing by creating Jeopardy-like templates that can be used online or in the classroom.
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References
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- Photo Credit apple for teacher image by max blain from Fotolia.com
