Guest: Ms. Fultz Corner

Christi makes me think. A LOT! So often we have our own preconceived ideas about what we should be doing in a classroom that we find ourselves in a rut, focusing only on our favorite areas, our strengths. But our students need us to be well rounded. Christi has challenged herself to focus on her weakness and increase both her and her student's abilities.

What are your area's of weakness? What do you need to spend more time focusing on next year?
 



Hi, everyone! It's Christi here from Ms. Fultz's Corner and I am so excited to be guest blogging with Misty here at Think, Wonder, and Teach today. For those of you who don't know me, I am a third grade teacher in Indiana. 



 
If you know me, you know that reading and writing workshops are my favorite times of the day. I spend a lot of time blogging about those subjects and am currently sharing a series of writing minilessons over at my blog. 

However, when Misty offered me the chance to guest blog, I immediately knew I wanted to write about math. Why? Because I made it my personal goal to increase my excitement about math this year in hopes of also increasing my student achievement.

I've been reevaluating my resources and looking at Common Core math standards. I've been creating more interactive lessons and games. I've been networking with other math bloggers and searching the internet for new ideas. And I've noticed something...

I'm starting to get exited about math! Guess what else?? I've noticed that my students are starting to get more excited about math too. I love that!

That brings me to my promised freebie. Solve N Slide is my most recent math game board with task cards. It uses word problems and number sentences to practice multiplication and division problems. Many of the word problems require students to eliminate extra information or use addition and subtraction too. Because it's a board game, the students are incredibly engaged and get more out of the lesson than they do when we use worksheets to practice the same skills. 

Are worksheets easier to create or find? Of course. But do they produce the same results? Not even close. 

The downside is that these games are time-consuming to create, but many are available on the internet for a few dollars and several are free too. 

In honor of this guest post, you can grab your free copy of my game here. I use it with my high-ability third grade math group. It's challenging for them so it would also work well for higher grade levels, depending on their ability.
 

 
You might already be excited about math, but I would encourage you to reflect on your own teaching. Are there subjects that you just aren't as excited about teaching? What can you do to change that for yourself and your students? I promise the extra effort will be worth it, and you'll be so glad you did it!

For classroom organization tips, literacy resources, reading strategies, writing minilessons, math games, freebies, and more follow my blog, Ms. Fultz's Corner.



Thanks, Misty! Keep Learning! Christi =)