More Laptop Fun

I was really worried a few weeks ago about how I was going to integrate the laptops into my classroom.  Don't get me wrong - I was excited as all get out - but still anxious.  My school  administration has been very good about not putting a ton of pressure on us to use them daily (or even weekly for that matter).   The overall feeling has been, use them when you can and for lessons where it works - in other words, don't force it or stress over it.  I was trying to figure out how I could use the laptops in ways that I already teach - and I was coming up with very few examples - it was stressful!  Once they had the laptops though, I realized now I can do the lessons I wanted to do before, but couldn't because I didn't have the resources.  For example, now I can have everyone complete an online activity at the same time instead of as a station.  This is great because a lot of online activities require more time to complete than one station rotation.



Students working on their laptops - I had to rearrange my classroom for my pretty new SmartBoard (see it on the wall?!)

I already shared this website, but www.internet4classrooms.com is just awesome.  The more and more I go through it, the more pleased I am.  I found the website I used for my lesson a few weeks ago on percents with discounts, interest and tips on here.

I had students visit http://www.mathplayground.com/mathatthemall2.html.  The website calls this a game, but I would describe it more as an activity.  Anyways, the students select their character and visit different stores in a virtual mall where they solve all kinds of percent problems.  They have to calculate tip at a cafe, interest at the bank, and discounts at the toy store and gym. Even better is the students get to make decisions that create the problems - they chose what to order at the cafe, how much money to deposit at the bank and what toys to buy at the toy store. The activity breaks the problems up into parts (and my only complaint is that they never really give them a chance to solve the problem from beginning to end without breaking it up for them), but I really liked it as an introduction to how to solve these types of percent problems.  I followed up this activity with some additional practice that offered less guidance.

The Home Screen for the game - students can choose where to go from here.

The Cafe in the game - students can select what they order here - I put out a few options of my own as an example.



What are some websites you've found that are just great?

~Brittany~

Math Games with a Deck of Cards

Sorry it's been so long - I'm just ridiculously busy at school with department chair, our incoming one-to-one laptop program (which I'm now on the teacher committee for), and life in general.  Right now I am taking a quick break from cleaning out our fridge - which busted this weekend while I was out of town and resulted in over $300 worth of food being ruined.  (I am about in tears throwing out everything from our freezer - with the hubby out of town I literally had enough food to last me through Thanksgiving.) 

Anyways, I have been promising a post on all the math games that I teach students that can be played with a deck of cards.  Basically they are all just variations of the same game - war - just with slight modifications. You can play this game to practice multiplication facts, addition facts, integer addition rules or multiplication integer rules. 

To play, students divide a deck of cards in half and flip over the top card from their pile (just like the traditional game of war).  The winner of the two cards is the first person who calls out the product  of the two cards.  For example, if I flipped a 6 and Joe flipped a 5, the first person who called out 30 would win both cards.  I have my students play with face cards - Kings are 0, Aces are 1, Jacks are 11, and Queens are 12.  I know it's a bit non-traditional to have Kings be 0, but I am not really worried about students knowing their 13 facts, so I make it 0.  Sometimes, when I am working with lower grades or lower level students I have them take out all of the face cards.

A modification to this game if you don't want to focus on speed, is to have each student flip two cards, and then whoever has the greater product wins all four cards.  For example, if I flipped a 6 and a 3, and Joe flipped a 4 and a 5, Joe would win all four cards since 4 times 5 (20) is greater than 6 times 3 (18).   Of course, in either version of the game, if you have a tie you play war - three cards face down and then flip the next card (or two cards) and whoever wins that match up wins all of the cards. 

To play so you are practicing addition facts, simply have students find the sum instead of the product.  If you want students to play using integer rules, have them play the same way, but this time red cards are negative and black cards are positive.  When I first introduce this game with integers I usually have students take out the face cards - they are so focused on keeping the colors straight that I don't want to confuse them with the face cards too. 

These are such easy, simple games to practice very essential skills and the kids love them.  Sometimes I have them as a station activity, or if I finish a lesson early I know I have them as a back up to fall back on.

Do you have games in your classroom that are old faithfuls?

~Brittany~