Quick Tip: Using different dice for math games

Go to your local game store and you’ll find a great selection of cool dice! My personal favorite is the 20-sided die. If you’re working on the “counting on” strategy and don’t want your numbers going higher than 4, there’s a 4-sided die. There’s also a “fate” die (pictured above) that has + and – symbols. I also have dice with multiples of 10. You can come up with so many dice games!

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Quick Tip: Use desks as white boards

Quick Tip: Use desks as white boards

Why use desks as white boards?

  1. The kids think it’s awesome. This is the only time they get to write on furniture.
  2. They’re free (for you). The school already has them.
  3. They’re already there. You can save yourself the time of passing out all the white boards.
  4. They’re big. Plenty of space to write on.
  5. They’re easy to clean.

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SOUND and SPELL: A Scaffolded, Systematic Approach to Early Decoding and Spelling

I love collaboration, because the best ideas sprout from them. I was talking to my principal about my student mentioned in a previous post, Andy, and how he finally made his first breakthrough. My principal showed me a few things to help encourage Andy’s progress. From that conversation, I came up with a totally new and different approach that I call Sound and Spell.

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Learning Sight Words

Sight words can be tough, because 95% of the time, it’s a matter of practice, practice, practice. Not all students get enough repeated exposure. Giving them worksheet after worksheet can get boring, unless you make it engaging. With that in mind, I created this packet for my struggling students. I wanted to pack in as much practice as possible but not use a ton of paper.

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