Teacher Hack: How to Gamify almost any Activity

My 6th graders LOVE playing games as a class, especially board games. At first I begged off playing them in class because I struggled to find content specific games, but the unfair game showed me that almost any worksheet can be used as the basis for a game you just need to have a framework for gamifying it.

For the unfair game it was a chance spinner and a selection of prizes.

To create board games for my class all I needed was a game board and dice. I invested in a set of game board clip art to project, although I could also print them off for partner work, and some dice (my students like to use 12 sided dice and a game board with a lot of spaces). With these two items I’ve been able to turn almost any supplemental activity into a giant board game.

Sometimes I incorporate in games I already have like AdSumMuDi, but other times I use a straight forward math worksheet or generic reading comprehension questions. I’ve also used a deck of playing cards or even exercise cards.

Cooking in the Classroom

As a high schooler my mom cautioned me to never let anyone know I can cook, or I'd never stop cooking.
Well, she was right.

When I got my first (and only) teaching job I used my cooking skills to carve out a spot for myself in my school. I made whole wheat waffles for my students at the end of every month, and we made crockpot hot chocolate after every unit test. As a coworker, I was always the first one to volunteer to make staff birthday cakes.

    

When I moved to 6th grade from 2nd, I inherited the Family Thanksgiving Lunch, where each student picks a dish and we cooked lunch for the adults that love them. (Please note, I teach in a tiny town where all of the employers are aware of this tradition and give time off for adults to participate in this event as well as the lower elementary's father involvement breakfast.) Before we get off for winter break, we take over our school's home ec room and make cookies for an upper elementary cookie exchange.

This year, while attending a local cultural healing event I was handed a food ability survey, and two questions jumped out at me. One question I haven't had a chance to do something about, but the other question asked if I didn't purchase new foods at the store because I didn't know how to cook with them.

Personally, I love cooking with new foods, and will purchase things I'm unfamiliar with specifically so I can learn new recipes. However, it's a learned behavior. As a child growing up in small Alaskan village, lettuce, celery, carrots, frozen veggies, apples, and the occasional banana or kiwi was the extent of my exposure to fruits and veggies. I was a senior in high school before I had spinach, and I was a freshmen in college before I had an avocado.

Because of this I'm a firm believer in early exposure to a variety of foods, so I approached my principal about using part of our donation budget from our local AC store to purchase and have the kids cook with unfamiliar foods. He thought it was a great idea, and the managers of the store jumped in with both feet. Now we cook weekly in the classroom with a variety of fresh fruits and veggies.

Here are some simple classroom cooking recipes for anyone who'd like to try out cooking in their classroom. A crockpot is all most of these recipes need; although, a blender or a food processor is needed for a few.

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

The Importance of Well Stocked Backup Supplies

I pride myself on being able to teach a lesson in such a way that my struggling students can understand and benefit from it, my on-level students can learn from it, and my above level students get something from it, other than a review.

However, there are times when the gap is too great and teaching the same lesson to all my students just won't hack it. I've come across one of those instances with division this year.

I'm a little bothered to admit Ii walked right into iit. It never occured to me 6th graders wouldn't know the basics of division, so I was floored the first day of the chapter when I executed a beautiful lesson on division of multi-digit whole numbers and 75% of my class looked at me like I'd been speaking Klingon. To their credit they did a great job of trying to play along, which I wanted them to never do again because if it had worked they would have been stuck trying to do an assignment they didn't understand.

Once I realized, I paused the lesson and we talked it out as a class. Then, I headed for my resource cabinet, where I keep  3 grade levels worth of math and reading resources organized by topic and sub-organized by degree of difficulty, and pulled out my division folder. After a quick check with the kids I asked my neighbor to keep an eye on the kids while I copied a worksheet to get a feel for where the 75% was at.

When I got back I let the kids know they could choose to do the assignment on the board from the 6th grade book or they could do the worksheet I'd shown them. I also let them know the worksheet I'd copied might not be exactly what they needed but it would give me an idea of what they really needed. Before handing out the worksheet, I did a short lesson on how to use a multiplication table for division.

As I told them, it wasn't perfect, but moments like this are exactly why I have a file cabinet of backup work. When the planned lesson just isn't working and can't work it gives me the flexibility to support my students until I can take a moment and figure out what they really need.

Tips to Help Students Struggling with Multiplication

 Every year I have a few students who struggle with multiplication, be it remembering their multiplication facts or understanding how multiply larger numbers, and it's not just a 6th grade problem. I once had a jr high teacher storm my room demanding to see our math book for proof my previous class had covered multiplication, and another jr high math teacher declared to her class I must have skipped that chapter (they were totally kidding and the kids totally didn't get it... SO MANY parent phone calls that night...).

This past year I got a crash course in multiplication intervention thanks to a sweet young man who started our first math lesson off by SHRIEKING "I won't do it!!! I WON'T!!" as soon as he saw multiplication problems on the board. Over the next few days I learned "won't" meant "didn't know how to" and had bad experienced heaped on bad experience that we were going to have to wade through.

He wasn't the first.  I doubt he'll be the last, and I'm not entirely convinced he'll remember any of what he learned when he walks through the door of his 7th grade math class next year.

1. Reteach: I always start the year with a whole class lesson reteaching the "standard multiplication algorithm." This is a great way for me to assess where students are at with multiplication so I can adjust instruction from there. I do a repeat of lesson the following day and provide scaffolded algorithm worksheets to those that struggled the previous day. Sometimes that's all it takes, by the time we move onto decimal multiplication on day 3 they're sailing right along. However, sometimes they need more.

2. Reset: The "dream catcher method" has been my go to reset method since I first started teaching 6th grade. Also called lattice or the Japanese Method, it focuses on the basic facts and looks nothing like the standard format, which can be the most important thing for a struggling student. Below is a video going over it in more detail.

3. Review: Multiplication facts are the foundation of more mathematical processes than I care to try to count, so fluency in those facts are critical for mathematical success. Because of this I put a year long focus on multiplication facts and display them in several formats around the room to get as much exposure
as possible. I display the multiplication fact families as posters at the front of my room, which were created by To the Square Inch and can be viewed at this link. I use a math reference sheet including a multiplication chart as the back cover of my student math notebook, which was created by Teaching on Lemon Lane and can be viewed at this link. At the frustration of one of my students I also added a column style multiplication fact family reference sheet to my room this year. I have them printed double sided and stored in a pocket chart at the front of my room. The game Multiplication Squares, which was created by Claire Lambert and can be viewed at this link, is a year round feature in my classroom and students are encouraged to play it a an early finisher activity.

Note: 2 & 3 are interchangeable in my book, and it 

4: Refer: If a student is still struggling I refer them to our Title I aide with a daily fluency practice to work on for 9 weeks and reassess. My go to fluency practice is the 36 Weeks of Math Fluency Practice made by Wife Teacher Mommy. I typically have students start with the 4th grade fluency practice, and after completing 5 worksheets in a row at 80% or more they move on to the 5th grade fluency practice. I usually remove them from Title 1 once they've completed 5 5th grade worksheets in a row at 80% or more. These fluency practice sheets are also a great pre-assessment to help determine where students are struggling.

I hope my process for helping students struggling with multiplication will be of use.

Gettting to Know Myself

I remember the day I realized I was on the spectrum. I eight, maybe, sitting out in my dad's office while my rabbit stretched his legs on the floor. My mom had been watching a today show special that focused an autistic boy boy and his family, but she'd changed the channel as soon as she noticed me watching it. So I'd asked to take my rabbit, Luke Skywalker, to the office and turned it on out there.

And I saw parts of myself reflected in him. I tried to talk to my mom about it later and asked her if I was like the boy on tv. Her response was a hard no and outrage that I would even think that.

But that moment stuck with me. I learned something about myself that day.

I never talked about it again with my parents, but I thought back on it frequently over the years, often after people had teased me for being different.

I grew up in a small Alaskan village in the 90s, and although there were several of us that would grow up to realize we were on the spectrum we were never called autistic. We were simply "different." We weren't put in special classes or seperated in any way from our peers, but we were often encouraged to "fit in," to be more like the other kids.

Finally, in 3rd grade my mom realized I wasn't flourishing in public school and decided to homeschool me starting in 4th grade. With the pressure to fit in socially removed I flourish academically. My mom, a retired special education teacher, also worked hard to reduce my "differences" with mixed results.

By the time I returned to public school in 9th grade I was socially behind but academically advanced, but I learned quickly that because I had been homeschooled I was no longer considered "different." I now fit into the mold of "shy, smart kid."

Over the next four years, I made some friends and gained respect from the majority of my classmates as a quirky yet kind person who liked to bake.

By senior year I had made myself a name as a casual athlete, small business owner, and outstanding academic.

However, I wasn't one of those people who went off to college and found myself. I made a few close friends and had many others who would have loved to have been friends or who considered me a friend,  but I resisted, preferring to keep to myself.

I struggled with depression, anxiety, and unhealthy coping mechanisms as a result of years of child abuse (yeah I kinda glossed over that part since I wasn't abused because I was on the spectrum; I was abused because my mom has an undiagnosed mental illness, another post for another time) and suppressing half of who am.

After graduating college and at the suggestion of my dad, I moved back home to be there for my mom who had lost her mother the year before and was struggling with debilitating depression. It was hard going back home with the many unpleasant memories of not being able to be me, even in the privacy of my own home.

However, I was lucky to get a job at the local school, which I'd attended as a child, and with the help of several supportive coworkers who became friends I was able to continue getting to know myself and the person I truly am.

A few years later, when my mom was doing better, I took a teaching job and struck out on my own. There I found the acceptance and support I needed to continue getting to know myself.

I'm not sure if I'll ever be entirely comfortable in my own skin, especially after spending so many of my formative years learning how to not be myself, and I'm just now reaching a point where I can say "I'm the spectrum" outloud. But I feel each year I get closer to being "me."

Building Relationships with Students: Lunch with Teacher

 I've seen several posts asking about how to build relationships with students, so I wanted to share some of the things I've done for the past nine years to build relationships with my students.

Lunch with teacher is by far one of the most popular relationship builders I've done with students. Twice a month until I've made it through my entire class I randomly select 5 students to invite to lunch. I set up a time the week before for them to put their heads together and come up with what we're having and then I make it up over the weekend and pick them up after recess to join me for lunch either in our room or at a table in the cafeteria depending on their preference.

A lot of my students are impacted by food insecurity, and me making lunch for them has been a powerful connection. But it's also created an unexpected connection between my current and past students who love to pop in and see what the kids have decided on for the next lunch with teacher. Our principal will also usually drop in and have a slice of cake or something just to get a little facetime with the kids.

Here are a few pictures of things I've made for past lunches with teacher as inspiration (there are duplicates of each dish off camera, but I always stage a picture for them to see first thing in the morning the day of so they know I kept to my word).

                    

Creating Your Own Math Notebook

Over the past 10 years I've created notes for nearly a dozen different math, language arts, and science curricula, and I always start by looking at the structure of the textbook since most follow a consistent formula from lesson to lesson.

In the curriculum my school uses the first page of each lesson is usually an info dump or a think about it type of problem. With the exception of a few lessons this part usually isn't student friendly, leads to a lot of frustration, and has too much consolidated info, so I usually find the majority of the material for my notes on the second and third pages of each lesson in my book.

I try to limit what I put in my notes and spoken lesson to the 2-3 most important sentences from the book's lesson with blanks put in not for the bolded vocabulary words but for the smaller, yet still critical for understanding, words.

I've also noticed that a lot of curriculum give examples of how they want things worked out, and I love using these in my notebooks since I can highlight alternate ways to do the problems, have students compare back to the book, and have the kids use them for hints and answer checks.

                    

I've found that basing my spoken lesson off the notebook I've created for my students helps me to target my instruction and keep each lesson straightforward and easy to understand. 

The majority of my lesson and notebook is based off the book's examples with room for the kids to work them out themselves.