Creative Teaching Strategies

[DNordlander]

My 4th grade Math team uses a lot of creative ways to keep the students interested. We rarely use pencil and paper worksheets. I am looking for any other suggestions of ways to make doing a worksheet fun. Here are some of the things we currently use:

-Easter Eggs: Cut up problems and put them in Easter eggs. We hide the eggs around the room. Students find an egg, work the problem, and then re-hide the egg for another student.

-Battleship: Students work with a partner. They are given problems to work. They start by working the first problem. When they have both reached an individual answer, they check to see if they're correct. If so, they get three trys to sink their partner's ships. We don't use the game from the store, as that would be costly. Instead, we have reproduced a game board onto paper.

-Rubber Ducks: The teacher cuts out blue butcher paper in the shape of a pond. In the pond, there are a number of rubber ducks. (We use rubber ducks from the dollar store.) The student chooses a duck, looks at the bottom (where a number is written), and that's the problem they work on from their worksheet. **This is just a way to get them up and moving...a fun spin on a worksheet.**

-Casitas/Offices: We have casitas that we use when students are testing. We also use these in the classroom for a fun activity. We put three problems inside of each casita (one on each flap). Each casita at the table has different problems. We play music and do sort of a musical chairs movement. They walk around their table. When the music stops, they stop at the seat they are closest to. They then choose one of the problems from that casita to work on. We give them 4 minutes and then re-start the music.

These are just a few of the ideas that we use on a daily basis in our classrooms. I am just looking for other ways to make doing a worksheet fun. Any alternatives to the boring pen-and-paper routine would be appreciated. And if you would like any further ideas of things we use, let me know.

As far as games and other activities are concerned, a majority (at least 80%) of our day has to be made up by problem solving. We aren't able to use a lot of time for computation activities. Do you have any creative spins that we could put on our day-to-day worksheets?

Dana

[scrivener]

Hi Dana, and welcome to TTC!

I have loads of ideas, but they're almost all for Alg I and Alg II students, so let me think about how they might be adapted for younger learners.

I'm curious. How do you calculate 80% of a school day? And what constitutes problem-solving? If you say, "I'm very upset with you and I want you to guess why," or "The bathroom door is locked and if you want to go, you're going to have to figure out a way in," would that count? :) I'm kidding, sorta. I'm just asking because it seems to me that almost everything is problem-solving.

By the way, have you seen this thread (http://www.theteacherscorner.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2791)? :)

[scrivener]

Okay, I thought of one. I'll explain how I do it first, then suggest how you might use it with younger learners.

I've done several variations of activities inspired by the television show The Amazing Race. I like it because it can be done in parts, over the course of several days, or it can be done in one longer day. Or you can just take a piece of it and make that the whole activity.

I get several lockable boxes (at least one for every group) and lock a prize in each box, or lock the instructions to the next activity in the box. I give students a variety of problems and activities designed to give them the combination to the lock. For example, in my computer class, I'll give the student a list of answers to find on the World Wide Web, such as "the ZIP code of Aloha, Oregon," or "the number of points Chris Bahr scored for the Oakland Raiders in 1981 (go Raiders!)." Students collect the answers, put them in the labeled spaces on their worksheet, and then do a series of calculations with their graphing calculators to arrive at an answer. The answer, if correct, is the combination to the lock. Since students are racing each other, there's a certain element of desperation that I like with this activity, as if nothing in the world at this moment is more important than the number of eggs called for in Emeril Lagasse's recipe for chocolate creme brulee.

The whole point is that they solve different problems to arrive at some number at the end, and that number either pays off with opening the lock, or it sends them back to the drawing board. Sometimes, I give each group a "gimme" card and a "hint" card. They can use the gimme card to get a free answer or they can use the hint card to get a free hint.

If the students are particularly game, I sometimes fill the box with a hundred small pieces of crumpled-up paper, upon one of which is written the clue for the next part of the game. That cracks me up. But then I'm a mean ol' high school math teacher.