Friday, January 22, 2016

5 FREE Math Websites


I do math rotations in my classroom. (Hands down the best way to reach all the needs of my students) I do four rotations, Teacher Time, Lesson Work, Tech Time and Game Time. I teach 1:1 and one of top tips I would suggest is MIX THINGS UP! My third graders can get "bored" quickly... so I keep rotating my Tech Time websites. So these are approved and tested in my classroom daily!

The first website I would like to showcase is FRONTROW. This website is common core aligned and you can assign a math concept to your students as well as they work on their independent levels.  It differentiates without us, the teacher, having to do ANYTHING!!!
 Ms. Idealistic insisted that Prodigy is the hottest thing in the wizard-math game realm. I was very skeptical about signing my kiddos up to battling math wizards with graphics circa 1986 Zelda. BUT MY KIDS BEG...I MEAN....LITERALLY BEG TO PLAY! As a teacher, you can set "battles" aka math challenges.  I also suggest setting up a profile for yourself because my students love to "battle" me.
MANGA HIGH is my hands-down my favorite and the kids love it too! It is aligned with the common core state standards and it is very user friendly. It has fun math games and my kids enjoy it. They do have a Premium version but FREE option is what I use in my classroom.

Sometimes you need your students to step away from the "gamified" websites and kids need simple. XtraMath is a great website where kids can build their fact fluency.
TenMarks is a site for teachers and students. TenMarks allows teachers to differentiated with a click of a button. And they have a huge database of test questions, so making that last minute quiz/assessment is easy to do!

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Teacher Hack #2

rugs that curl, corners lifting

I don't know about you but I love my $14.99 IKEA rug in my library.... but I have the dreaded case of extreme rug curl.  Does this happen to your rugs in your classroom??? My third graders are constantly tripping over it.... (Uh-oh... #teacherfail)

I have a huge chevron (white and navy) rug that I love as well... but I have taken the blue painters tape and taped it down to my carpet.  Have you ever done that??? The problem with that is it is ugly and the tape comes up as the kids walk on it.

So I decided I was going to fix this horrible rug curl.  Of course, I went right to Pinterest and found all these expensive options.  YouTube came to the rescue!!


I went to Home Depot and bought these peel and stick flooring tiles for .25 cents each and put them on each corner of the rug. 
Instantly no more rug curl for the low, low, low price of $1.08! If that is not a teacher hack... I do not know what is!