Math Warm-ups are Awesome!

Middle School Math Warm-upsEvery day when my students enter the classroom, they have a set of 5 warm-up problems awaiting them. The first 5-10 minutes of each class period are spent working on these problems, checking them, and getting some mini-lessons in along the way.

There are a number of important reasons that I love to start out each math class period with warm-ups.  In this post I will share with you how I use warm-ups, why I like them so much, my student work expectations, and the strong impact that I believe warm-ups have had on my state test results.  I will also explain the system I use to implement my warm-up program. [Read more…]

The Rewards of Repetition

At the beginning of last school year I was in a discussion with my principal about how to raise our state standardized test scores.  I told her that I knew how to raise the scores.  It was simple, really.  As math teachers, we just needed to continuously have students practice the key math concepts covered by the all-powerful state test.  It was all a matter of repetition

Now I am not a big fan of teaching to the test but if my boss (the state) has determined that 7th graders are responsible to know a certain body of mathematical knowledge before they leave my classroom, then by-golly I am going to try my best to get them there.

As I shared my keen insight with the principal, she looked at me and asked if I had been talking to our math department chairmen.  I hadn’t.  It turns out that we had just decided to purchase a rather expensive daily warmup program to use with our students. 

What would this warmup program do?  [Read more…]