Setting the Foundation for Success with Beginning of Year Math Assessments

As educators, we know that a strong foundation is the key to success in any subject. When it comes to math, building upon the essential concepts from the previous grade level is crucial for students to thrive in their current grade level standards. That's why I'm so excited to present to you these Beginning of Year Math Assessments for Grades 2, 3, and 4.

These assessments not only provide teachers with an immediate baseline of their students' abilities but also serve as a valuable tool to reinforce essential skills while establishing rules, routines.

In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of using these assessments and shed light on the importance of focusing on foundational concepts and classroom dynamics at the start of the year.

Baseline Assessment:

Understanding where your students stand at the beginning of the year is vital for effective planning and instruction. These Beginning of Year Math Assessments serve as a comprehensive tool to evaluate your students' grasp of the previous grade level's Common Core Math Standards. By identifying areas of strength and weakness, you gain valuable insights into your students' needs, allowing you to tailor your teaching strategies accordingly.

Strengthening Foundational Concepts:

These Beginning of Year Assessments for Grades 2, 3, and 4 specifically target the essential skills and knowledge from the previous grade level. By revisiting and reinforcing the concepts that students struggle with, you can solidify your students' foundation in mathematics and make learning current grade level standards go quickly and smoothly. In my classroom, I like to use the first few weeks to review previous grade level content I know students need extra support with, build strong number sense, and strengthen classroom procedures and routines.
After administering the assessment, you're provided with Small Group Planning sheets that specifically target what extra support your students need based off the questions answered incorrectly. This is a great way to begin small group instruction in your classroom and building those routines and expectations.

Establishing Rules, Routines, and Procedures:

The beginning of the school year is an opportune time to establish a positive classroom environment and set clear expectations for your students. Focusing on rules, routines, and procedures lays the groundwork for a productive learning atmosphere for the rest of the year. Our Beginning of Year Math Assessments can be seamlessly integrated into your classroom routines, allowing you to incorporate essential review activities while emphasizing the importance of structure and discipline. By dedicating time to these foundational elements, you create a solid framework that will support your students' progress throughout the year.
Want to read more about routines and procedures? Check out this blog post.

Parent Collaboration:

Effective communication with parents is vital for student success. With our Beginning of Year Math Assessments, you can engage in proactive discussions with parents, providing insights into their child's strengths and areas that may require additional support. By sharing assessment results and highlighting specific skill areas, you enable parents to be active partners in their child's education. This collaborative approach fosters a strong home-school connection, setting the stage for continued support and growth throughout the academic year.

These Beginning of Year Math Assessments offer teachers a valuable resource to assess student abilities, reinforce foundational concepts, and establish a positive classroom environment. By utilizing these assessments, you can gain valuable insights into your students' needs, develop targeted instruction plans, and collaborate effectively with parents. Remember, a strong foundation sets the stage for success in mathematics and beyond. Start the year right with our comprehensive assessments and unlock your students' full potential.

If you'd like to start your school year off on the right foot, you can purchase your Beginning of Year Assessments here OR save this post to come back later.

Aloha,

What are the SMPs (Standards for Mathematical Practices)?

Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a parent say “Why is math so difficult now?!” or “This isn’t the way I learned math. It’s so complicated and confusing now.” 

Chances are that if you’re an elementary teacher, you’ve definitely heard this or maybe even thought this yourself.

The Common Core Math standards can not effectively be taught without a focus on the Standards for Mathematical Practices (SMPs). Understanding the SMPs will enable you to better be able to shift your teaching practices from a focus on content (the standards) to a focus on application and true understanding. The SMPs are actually the heart and soul of the Common Core Standards.

You might be thinking:

Think of the SMPs as the process which one must take to learn their content standards. In order for students to be truly proficient with their content standard, they must be able to apply, communicate, make connections, and reason about the math content. This differs from how you (or your students’ parents) learned math because back in the day, proficiency was measured by a correct answer or one's ability to carry out a computation (based off of rote steps). 

These practices can’t be learned in a quiet math classroom filled with drill and kill activities/worksheets (think back to when you were in school). This level of thinking must be developed in classrooms filled with thoughtful conversations and hands-on explorations about math concepts. Your ability to ask thought-provoking questions is what will truly be the change in your math classroom.

Let’s take a look at Standards 1-4:

Standard 1: Make Sense of Problems and Persevere in Solving Them

In short, what is expected is exactly what the standard says. Students will be able to understand the problem-solving process and know how to navigate the process from start to finish. They have a variety of strategies and know how to go about solving a problem. Last but not least, students don’t give up at the site of a challenging problem. They have the tools in their “toolbelt” to power through and figure it out on their own. 

How do I get my students to be able to do this?

• Focus classroom activities and discussions on students’ thinking rather than on the correct answer

• Do not rely on oversimplified methods to teach concepts, such as keywords (I saw the word altogether so I added).

• Pose students with problems that push students to apply their understanding of math content and allow them the opportunities to explain their process of solving.

• Provide students with opportunities to explore complex problems that include multiple approaches to solving. Allow them opportunities to share all of these different approaches. 

• Praise student efforts, put value on their persistence and process on solving rather than praising the correct answers.

• Create a supportive and nonthreatening classroom environment where discussions of confusion points are encouraged. Openly discuss these confusion points and include insights on ways to simplify problems and move through confusion. 

• Acknowledge the efficiency of particular strategies but also celebrate individual, reasonable approaches. 

Standard 2: Reason Abstractly and Quantitatively

Standard 2 addresses the importance of building a strong understanding of numbers. When students are given a problem, they are able to represent the problem using numbers, symbols, and diagrams (abstractions). Students must see the connection between the problem situation and the abstract representation (equations). Once the equation is solved, students should refer back to the context of the problem to evaluate if the answer makes sense. 

How do I get my students to be able to do this?

• Ask students to identify and describe the data in the problem.

• Model building appropriate equations to solve problems.

• Use diagrams to model math situations to make it easier to see what is happening in the problems. Can students draw a diagram to show a word problem for 3 x 5?

• Frequently ask “what operation makes sense?” or “How should we build an equation to match this problem?”

• Ask students to write a word problem to go with a given equation.

• Consistently ask students to explain equations or diagrams, connecting them to the problem scenario (e.g., What does the 6 represent in our equation 6 x 3 = 18?)

• Ask students to label answers by referring back to the problem to determine what the quantity (solution) represents. 

• Ask students if the quantity makes sense when referring back to the problem (e.g., Does 3.5174 buses make sense?)

• Discuss building appropriate equations to solve problems (are there more than one equation that could be used to solve this problem?) 

Standard 3: Construct Viable Arguments and Critique the Reasons of Others

This standard means that students are able to come up with a correct answer and also explain WHY it’s correct. In addition, they’re able to listen to the justification of others, or even look at how a problem may have been solved, and identify any misconceptions or misunderstandings that the person may have had. They are able to communicate their thoughts to others. 

How do I get my students to be able to do this?

• Don’t just accept an answer from a student, follow up with questions such as “why?” or “How do you know?” 

• Encourage students to use math vocabulary in their justifications

• Use probing questions such as “Does that make sense?”, “Why is that true?”, “Does Ronald’s way to solve this problem also work? Why or why not?”

• Give students the opportunity to listen to their classmates' reasoning. Rather than the teacher asking clarifying questions or correcting a misunderstanding, allow the students to do this. 

• Create a non-threatening classroom environment where students feel safe to share their arguments and know how to ask clarifying questions, and how to respectfully disagree with others. 

• Provide students opportunities to work with error-analysis problems. 

Standard 4: Model with Mathematics

This standard encourages students to create models or visual representations of abstract math ideas. When students create models of problems, they are able to see the problem clearly and then work towards a solution. When you ask students to create math models, you are challenging them to represent their math understanding- to get it out of their heads. The power of this is that as students share their own thinking (Standard 3) and view the models of others (and listen to their thinking) they are able to gain new insights and strengthen their own understanding. 

How do I get my students to be able to do this?

• Model the use of diagrams and drawings to represent problems

• Encourage the use of manipulatives

• Encourage students to create simple diagrams to show problems

• Encourage students to come up with multiple ways to model a given problem

• Have students justify why they chose to use a given model

• Ask students to interpret models of their classmates

• Have students share out about the models they created and why

I hope that this post was helpful in learning a little about what the practices are and why they are important.

Head on over to this post to learn about the last 4 Standards for Mathematical Practices.

How to Teach Rounding to 3rd Graders

Hey, there fellow 3rd Grade Teacher Friend!!

Whether you're new to the grade level or just need some extra tips on teaching Gr.3 Math, I'm here to support you with tips, ideas, and resources to best address your Math Standards!

Did you know that most of the math content taught in 3rd grade is brand new concepts for your students? For the first time ever, many students tend to struggle with math because they're learning everything for the first time! I'll be updating this blog frequently to share some tips with you on teaching these tricky math standards!

Before we begin though, I did want to share this important resource with you. Use this as a guide to know what your critical math content is and where you should spend the most of your time and focus on in instruction.

Let’s jump in and talk Rounding: 3.NBT.1.

 

First things first, Rounding is NOT a critical skill for 3rd Grade. I would not spend any longer than 1 week (max) focusing on this skill. Students WILL need to know and understand how to round in the 4th grade (they will round to larger place values).

Now, I want you to forget about all prior ways of teaching rounding you may have used in the past. 

• Rounding Mountain

• The Roller Coaster

• Any cute songs or poems about “5 or more raise the score…” or “underling the digit you’re rounding to, look next door”

ALL OF IT! 

What is Rounding?

Engage in discussion with students about what it means to round. They must understand that rounding means estimating a number's value by finding the nearest ten or hundred.

Then, you'll want to talk about instances when a student might use rounding.

Before Teaching:

Before teaching, make sure that students can skip count by 10s. Continue to skip count well into the hundreds so that students can see/hear the patterns (110, 120, 130, 140…..210, 220, 230, 240, etc). 

The Simplest Way to Teach Rounding:

Number lines are the best way for students to visually see and understand what a number will round to. 

I’ve created this number line that can be used for Rounding to the Nearest 10 and 100. Before teaching, all you need to do is print a double-sided copy for each student and place them in a sheet protector. Each child will have their own to work from. They can simply use an expo marker to practice and then erase.

1. Ask students what two 10s the number is in between. Label it on the number line.

2. Ask students what the halfway point between those two 10s is. 

3. Ask students where the number they are rounding falls on the number line? Is it before or after the midway point? Plot it.

4. Students can then visually see which 10 the number is closest to. 

You would follow this same procedure for rounding to the nearest 100. 

This method is so simple, yet so effective! Have kids hold their “boards” up so that you can do a quick scan around the room to check for accuracy. The best thing about this strategy is that eventually, students will begin to visualize that number line in their heads and will no longer need to draw it out! 

Guided Practice

Rounding is so easy because you can literally throw out ANY number for students to practice with. BUT, if you want something consistent and all the answers figured out for you, I’ve got a set of Rounding Task Cards for you available in print form OR a Digital Google Form (best thing about this is that it self grades for you!) If you want to save 10%, you can pick up both items in this bundle.

I also have these Quick Check Formative Assessments in my store for use with ALL of your Grade 3 NBT Standards.

For more tips, tricks, ideas and FREEBIES specifically geared towards 3rd Grade - be sure to subscribe to my exclusive 3rd Grade Teacher Email List! 

Unit next time! Aloha,

How to Teach Division to Your 3rd Graders

Does anyone else remember division being SO CONFUSING as a child?!

My teacher always used to ask questions like "How many times does 8 go into 48?".

I often found myself thinking, like what does that even mean?!

When I became a teacher, I "relearned" math from how I was taught so that I could better teach my students. I didn't want for my students to ever be confused and wonder "what the heck?!" like I often did as a child.

Every teacher knows that the teaching of division is no joke. But the great news is that it doesn’t have to be difficult. By using consistent language and making learning relevant, your students can learn division like that (audible snap).

I always begin my division instruction by asking students if they’ve had experiences where they’ve had to share something with a sibling, cousin, friend, etc. Inevitably, their answer is yes.

I then proceed to ask them if their parents would allow them to give their friend only 2 cookies but give themselves 5.

via GIPHY

This usually gets an astounding "NO", when I ask why, they tell me "because it's not fair!". We talk about the concept of fairness and I have the kids explain it to me. I then take that explanation and tell them that since they understand the concept of sharing and fairness (sharing equally), they already understand the concept of division!

I then jump into a read-aloud with the wonderful children’s book The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins.

This classic book tells a story that perfectly pairs with the concept of division, and the kids love it! While Sam and Victoria are waiting to devour hot, chewy chocolate chip cookies, some friends stop by. As the doorbell keeps ringing from more and more visitors, their hopes of eating lots of the cookies continue to dwindle.

Once we’ve finished reading and discussing the book, I hand out paper cookies to the students. We use these cookies to illustrate division problems from the book. Math concepts are so much easier when manipulatives are involved.

Since I know that many of you are currently using a distance learning model, I have also created a digital resource to go along with this book and lesson idea. Simply have your students complete the same activity by physically manipulating and moving the cookies to represent the division problems.

Emphasizing the connection between multiplication and division is so necessary to get kids to become proficient with this skill. Anytime students are required to figure out the quotient, I always ask them 8 times what equals 40? This gets students always thinking about division in this way so that they can quickly and easily figure out the answer. 

Continue to provide guided practice to students as they are just learning this concept by using the I do, We do, You do model. The goal of doing this is so that you know students are ready to go off on their own to practice independently. You DO NOT want students to practice the concept the wrong way and get that way stuck in their heads.

As you are practicing, ask your kids questions and begin to release the responsibility of modeling off to your students.

As you are ready to connect to division word problems, it's essential to practice alongside other word problems (at least multiplication, too) so that students are forced to think about the context of the problem and not just assume every answer will be division.

I love having task cards on hand to be able to provide my students with a variety of word problems at any moment. These multiplication and division task cards are perfect for providing your student guided practice and then following up as center rotation or independent work.

If you're interested in more ideas on how to use task cards in the classroom, check out this post. 

Literature is a great add-on to math instruction, and manipulatives always help make the learning stick. Whether 3-D manipulatives or online, young math students benefit greatly by using them. I hope that these tips for teaching division help both you and your students.

If you enjoyed the ideas in this post, be sure to follow me on Instagram! I will update you there when new posts are released :)

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Building Fact Fluency

Aloha, Friends! 

Today I'm here to share a tip with you on building fact fluency with your students.

I'm not sure about you..but my students always seem to struggle with their addition facts when they enter third grade. Don't even get me started with the subtraction facts either! lol. I also hear from the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade teachers at my school that it is a never ending battle. Each year the kids just DO NOT know their facts. 

As teachers, if we expect our students to know their facts, we need to allow them the time to practice their facts! In an ideal world, they would actually be practicing at home, but we KNOW this doesn't happen at home for most! 

In my classroom, each day of our math block begins with Math Drills. This seriously only takes about 5 minutes of our block, and I see improvements daily. Rather than making copies and having them pile up on my desk wasting a ton of paper, I print one copy of each drill and insert them into clear sheet protectors. 

Then all of the sheet protectors go into their math drill folder. 

The students use their dry erase markers to do their drills. I quickly go over the answers and the students correct their own drills. We don't log our grades anywhere. The students take a mental note of how they did for the day, and they are challenged to beat their scores the next day. 

I get my drills from this awesome site: math-drills.comhttp://www.math-drills.com .

You can print addition, subtraction, multiplication an division drills. I begin each year with addition. At the start of this school year, most of my kiddos couldn't even get through half of the page (50 problems on each page). After about a month or so..almost the entire class was whizzing through the entire page-with accuracy! 

Now, we are currently working on our subtraction facts. Eventually, we will add in multiplication drill pages as well. I usually add in 4 different sets of each operation. This way we can change it up each day. The drills from the website are already labeled 'drill a', 'drill b', and so on. This makes for easy reference to which drill set we will be working on.

The best thing about is this is that it's easy and the kids WILL get their facts down! 

I recommend getting thicker sheet protectors, because they will last longer. I am still using the same drill folders from 2 years ago! 

I've also got a little treat for you today :)

I've created some labels for you to add to your math drill folders! All you need to do is print, laminate, and tape onto the front cover of the folders. I have included a black and white version to save on ink. You could easily print on colored paper for a pop of color. Also, there are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple labels in this file. 

You can pick these labels up in my TpT Store for FREE! 

If you decide to use these drill in the classroom I would love to hear about it OR see it!  Tag me in a photo (@teachinginparadise) on instagram so I can check out your math drill folders!! 

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Tips for Teaching Measurement to Third Graders

In the third grade, students are required to generate measurement data by measuring lengths using rulers marked with halves and fourths. In the second grade, students learned how to measure objects to the nearest whole unit.
For those of you who teach third, you know that this is often a difficult concept for students to get. In the beginning, they have a very rough time understanding and recording measurements to the nearest half (not as rough) and quarter inch. 
Today I'm here to share with you how I go about teaching this skill to my kiddos. It has made all the difference in the world in their understanding of how to use a ruler. We always begin working on this standard after students have had an introduction to basic fractions. If you teach the common core, third graders are also required to identify fractions on a number line….so this standard really helps out with measurement. 

When we first start, we take a quick look at the ruler and discuss that there are 12 inches that make up a foot/the ruler. We then put the ruler aside and work on creating 'The Giant Inch'.  Each child gets a piece of scrap paper. We begin by folding the paper in half and marking a line for the half.

 We fold the paper back in half, and then in half again (to make quarter marks). Open it up and mark those lines again. We have extensive discussions when going through marking the lines..I make sure the students understand that from 0 to the first mark (A) that is 1/4 because 1 of the 4 parts have been covered or measured. From 0 to the second marking (B) it is 1/2 because 2 of the 4 parts have been covered or measured…we then discuss how 2/4 is equivalent to 1/2 and when we measure we say 1/2. 
This activity really helps the kids understanding the markings on the ruler. I make sure that they understand it is a continuous pattern. To do this, we practice going through the markings on a ruler. The students also practice with this sheet...

Once I know they've got this down…we move onto activities with the Giant Ruler….

I have the students put all of the 'Giant Inches' together to make a 'Giant Foot'. We then use this big scale ruler to practice plotting measurements. Once we've gotten some practice in this way, and all students seem to get it…we move on to a partner activity.
Partners A will write a measurement on their whiteboard and Partner B goes to plot it. They double-check each other's work and then switch off.
With this standard, it truly just takes a whole lot of practice with measuring. Introducing measurement in this way though really helps my students to understand and be able to measure proficiently with their own rulers. 

A favorite activity is flying paper airplanes!

I sometimes invite some upper-grade students to our class to teach the kids how to make different planes. The requirement is that they each come prepared with a different type of plane to present to the class. The kids can then choose which 6th graders they would like to learn from based on the type of plane they present. This also serves as a great listening activity!!

There were other times that I assigned my kiddos to make a paper airplane for homework. They decorated a piece of scratch paper, then folded it up into a plane. 

The next day, we headed out to fly our planes and measure the distance traveled. 

                                

  
Students record the distance traveled on this recording sheet. To further extend this activity, you could have your students create a line plot to mark the distances traveled.  If you'd like to try any of these measurement activities out with your students, you can find them here in my TpT Store. 

I hope these tips and ideas were useful to you! Be sure to follow me on Instagram! I will update you there when new posts are released :)

Aloha,