I've been a slacker

So you know the school year is in full swing when....

• You wish there were more than 24 hours in a day, just so you can keep those "home", "work", "personal" plates spinning in balance
• They know you by name at Starbucks
• Your hands are chapped from all the papers you are grading, and passing back
• You've been called "mom" or "dad" by someone other than your child(ren)
• You know when there's a full moon outside, or a front blowing through without having to consult weather bug.

And my favorite....

• You love the smell of freshly sharpened #2 pencils....

I hope you all have been having a great start to your year so far! I have been super busy with a couple new classes I am teaching this year, but I am in love with my school and my students, so I feel super blessed.

This past Friday we had a test review in my class, and since my classroom is "flipped", the students came in with the test review knowledge and we are then able to play a fun game or something. Since I also teach speech, I thought it would be the PERFECT opportunity to incorporate some aspects of public speaking into the lesson! :D

I divided the 20 question review among my students (since my 1st period has only 10 kids - yes, I know it's small.... I teach at a private Christian school....) and I gave each group of 2 four questions to master and then after 10 minutes, I had each group go up and teach the rest of the class how to do them.

It was great, not only for them to build confidence in what they are learning, and to take ownership, but also so that they can build math fluency. I always tell my students that math is like a foreign language, and we need to learn how to correctly speak it. To be able to explain your process to another shows mastery of the content. And they did SO good! I am so proud of them!!!

What sorts of things do you do to build math fluency??