Graphing in all Four Quadrants--Coordinate Graphing Activities--Math Intervention

How can my students practice coordinate graphing?

Coordinate graphing is usually a topic that my students caught onto pretty quickly. It was a lesson that could be hands on and those lessons are the ones that students caught onto more quickly. 

However, in the year of COVID-- a lot of students were remote during the coordinate graphing lesson and missed that hands-on lessons. As we progressed throughout the year, I realized students were still not getting how to graph so I created this activity to help reinforce the skill. 

I pulled students into groups of 5 or 6 and had expo markers, the cards, and a poster-sized coordinate graph that was laminated. My school had a poster maker so I could make the coordinate graph poster size. If I didn't have a poster size coordinate graph-I would print several copies of the graph for students to have access to. 

First I had students work in pairs. I gave each pair a card and had them work together to find their ordered pair based on the instructions. I asked each student pair to explain how they found their ordered pair. The expo markers were helpful because I asked students to trace the path they took to find their ordered pair. I ask them to to the same thing when they are taking a test. It is a more concrete way to learn this concept. 

Overall, this was an easy activity to prepare and got students talking about finding their ordered pairs. Any activity that gets to students to talk about their thinking in math is a win. 

Get the activity here.  

If you need more activities to teach coordinate graphing, you can find them here. 

Students Talking in Math: Activity to Get Students to Talk about Math

My favorite thing about teaching is hearing students talk about math. It is what brings me joy as a math teacher. But believe it or not, math is not a student's favorite thing to talk about. 

Why should students talk in math class?

1. Students want to talk! I want to give them as many opportunities to talk as possible-and keep it on topic as much as possible. 
2. When a student says something out loud, it helps solidify it in their brain.
3. When students hear their classmate say something out loud, they remember it better. 
4. Speaking about math helps students clarify what they are thinking until they understand it. 
5. Students will be more engaged when they have opportunities to talk to each other. 

Unfortunately, most students don't come to math class knowing how to talk about math and need scaffolding to get where we want them to be. 

One of the activities I have used to scaffold conversations about math is a True/False response. Each student gets a red and green card. They could also have different colored post its. Two colors are better so you can easily see the responses from the class. 

Before starting the activity, explain to students they are going to read the statements and determine if they are true or false. BUT, they cannot tell the class. Instead, they will turn to their neighbor or group and share their response. If students disagree, they will explain to each other why their answer is correct. If they change their mind, great. If they don't change their mind, great too. They don't have to be successful at convincing each other, the most important thing is talking. 

You put up a prompt--this can be done with any topic. I have an example below. 

Students talk with their neighbor group. When you are ready--give 1-2 minutes-tell everyone to hold up their red card for false and their green card for true. (Or whatever colors you have chosen)

These are low-stakes conversations. Students don't have to talk long--but any talking about math is a good start. The more confident they feel in their skills, the more they will talk. 

Click here to access a free True/False activity about integer operation models. 

Interested in other math activities? This has warmups for several 6th grade math topics that encourage students to talk about math. It can be used for STAAR review but also works throughout the year. 

Using Algebra Tiles to Teach Solving Equations

How to use Algebra Tiles?

I was first introduced to algebra tiles the year I taught 6th grade math. The Texas standards had just changed and all Texas math teachers were scrambling to learn the new standards. What I had learned in 8th grade advanced math, I was now going to be teaching my 6th graders. 

8th grade math is where math got hard for me. I was very good at following steps exactly like I was told with problems exactly like the teacher showed--any variation and I was lost. Because I didn't actually understand the what, why and how behind math. It actually took me until college algebra to really understand algebra--and I was a good student! 

Algebra Tiles are great for taking an abstract concept like solving equations--and making it more concrete. Even middle school students need concrete examples--and algebra tiles are great. 

After you teach students how to use algebra tiles to solves equations and inequalities, you can use this free resource for them to practice reading the models and using them to solve. 

If you aren't familiar with algebra tiles, I would definitely recommend checking them out. There are tons of videos on Youtube that can walk you through how to use them to solve equations, inequalities and integer operations. 

Here are some other Algebra Tile resources.

Multiplying Whole Numbers Color by Numbers-Free Math Worksheet for Homework

How to practice multiplying in 5th grade?

Sometimes you just need to quick assignment for sub plans, homework, extra practice, etc. 

This no-prep activity is a way for students to practice multiplying whole numbers. 

Download the activity here. 

If you want more color-by-number activities, you can find more over in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

Mystery Item Free Classifying Matter Group Activity

 How to Teach Classifying Matter?

Classifying matter has always been the first unit I taught in 5th grade science. The students need all year to practice it! In this unit students are not just identifying the properties of matter, they are classifying objects based on their properties of matter. Students continuously need practice identifying the properties of objects and putting them into categories based on their properties.

If you look at the STAAR test, there are a lot of tables classifying matter based on their physical properties of matter. My students in the past have struggled with reading those tables and figuring out what an object is based on three or four given properties.

This activity gives each group a box of items where they will pick one item and classify it based on the properties given on the sheet. 

Each group will pass their box of items and their classification for the mystery item to the next group. The group will have to use the table the previous group filled out based on the physical properties of the object to guess what the mystery item is. 

Download the free activity here. 

I have included a list of potential items that you can place in the box. I went through the last several years of the 5th grade science STAAR test to see which items they use in their questions.

Here are some other resources I have to help your students practice classifying matter. 

Classifying Matter BUNDLE

Order of Operations Error Analysis Math Activity--Free Order of Operations Activity

 How to Practice Order of Operations?

Students love finding mistakes, especially mistakes the teacher or their peers make. I always had a tally on the board of how many mistakes that I made in math class. Finding mistakes is a higher level thinking skill because students have to understand the concept enough to be able to find where something went wrong.

One of my favorite activities for order of operations was having students look for errors when it came to solving the expressions. You can do this with little prep as long as you have a few order of operations problems and some dry erase markers like in this post. 

I also put together this presentation for 5th grade math. Each slide has an order of operation problem solved with two different answers. Students have to find which one is correct and you can take it a step further by ask him to find what mistake did someone make to get the wrong answer.

Now students are quick to find mistakes of their peers and their teachers, but when it comes to finding their own mistakes it can be a struggle. But however if we continue to expose them to common misconceptions and common mistakes and point them out hopefully they will remember them when they are solving problems on their own.

Here are some other resources for order of operations that you might be able to use. 

Order of Operations Error Analysis Task Cards (6th Grade)

Order of Operations Color by Number (5th Grade)

All my order of operations resources

Fractions as Division Lesson-Introduction to Different Representations of Division

How to teach Fractions as Division?

One of the first lessons that I taught in six grade math was fractions as division. Getting students to understand that a fraction is also a division problem is a year-long struggle so introducing an early is necessary so that we can keep practicing it over and over and over again. 

I will admit that at the beginning of my career for teaching math, I was not too big on emphasizing math vocabulary. It’s one of those things that I will regret not doing well with my first class. For this lesson, emphasizing the vocabulary for division problems is super important to help students keep what number is what in a division problem. 

I start the lesson with this PowerPoint presentation. 

Remember from this post, that the best math lessons have students connect with the new learning with something that they already learned in the past. So we discuss vocabulary and look at the division representations that they already know using the division sign and the “house”. I have my students repeat over and over again which number in the problem is the dividend and which number in the problem is the divisor. Then we look at a fraction and students learn how the numerator is the dividend and the denominator is the divisor.

As we are setting up 3 representations of division, we repeat the vocabulary again. By the end of the lesson they are sick of saying the words dividend and divisor but repetition is key here.

   
This presentation is a jumping off point for a fraction as division lesson. From here I would continue to give students real world examples of division and have them write a division representations for those examples.

What are some common misconceptions with fractions as division?

One common misconception that students have is that the bigger number must always be the dividend. This is something that an elementary school teacher probably told them as an easy way to get them to remember to put the bigger number inside the house. This is a habit that middle school teachers have to help students break.

What is next with teaching fractions as division?

I have some other fractions as division resources available in my store. 

• Here is a free puzzle where students need to match a real-world situation with the 3 division representations. 

• Notebook pages with extra practice

• Fractions as Division Math Color by Answer and Riddle