Candace Teaching Things

Winter break is almost here!  It's around this time that I notice my students getting antsy and excited for the break to come. I don't know about your students but my students seem to have a harder time staying focused and engaged during our afternoon math block.  If your students are like mine, you've probably searched for fun and engaging math activities to do this time of year.  Here are some of my ideas to keep kids engaged during your math block. 1. Math Story Problem Mad-Libs Yes, you read that correctly - story problems. Story problems can be hard, but I have found that my students are more engaged when they get to make up parts of the story problems. I created these Winter/Christmas Themed story problem mad-libs so students could create their own story problems with some guidance. I like to use it whole class and in math centers so students get lots of practice.                    If you'...

December is always a busy and sometimes stressful time of year. So I always try to remember to do things to de-stress.  Laughter is a great way. In the classroom, one way we get lots of laughs is through reading stories. Here are a few of my December favorites: My students have always LOVED these stories and they alway giggle when I read them.  Even though December always seems to fly by, it is still a great time to learn and practice what we have already learned.  One of my favorite activities is Punctuation Practice. I have found that my students can always use more punctuation practice.  This packet is what I use to provide that practice opportunity: Here are the ways I use it in my classroom: Whole Class Sorting - we use the colored sentence strips and sort the sentences together as a class. We put statements under the period heading, questions under the question mark heading and exclamations under the exclamation point heading. Ce...