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Engage NY - Devil's Advocate

Engage NY Math is quickly becoming a hot topic across the country. NY Department of Education developed curriculum to support Common Core and published it online for free. Our district has adopted the math portion. I would like to play devil's advocate and see what everyone thinks about Engage. Pros:
~It is free online
~It dives deep into numbers, both composing and decomposing and makes our kiddos think differentlyCons:
~It is only available online which means everything must be printed, no materials can be purchased pre-made
~ Each lesson is an hour long of direct instruction
~ The first grade lessons include a lot of papers, typically three double sided pages each day if you do the homeworkQuestions:
~ Does it say anywhere that it is research based?
~ Why hasn't a publishing company picked it up? Post your thoughts in the comments.

Favorite Board Games For Math

I don't know about you, but I love board games! I grew up playing cards and board games and building puzzles with my family, and those are some of my favorite memories. You know that I also love technology, but sometimes, it's nice to unplug. Here are a few of my favorite games to use in the classroom for math. This list is constantly growing, so keep your eyes peeled for another post in the future. (Affiliate Links Provided)

Chutes & Ladders This is one of the first games I introduce in my classroom. Kiddos love the idea of playing "games" at school. Chutes and Ladders is setup like a hundreds chart and the perfect way to get kiddos familiar with the layout of the chart. Students learn to take turns and ease into math centers in my room.
Connect Four This is a great game to build your math center routines and procedures. Students are learning problems solving and creating strategies while cooperating with others. To add a little more math to it, use a p…

5 Steps To Help You Integrate Art Into Your Classroom

Choose A Time
Choose which subject you would like to integrate art into and what day. In my classroom, this is Math on Friday. I am not a "crafty" teacher by nature. My teaching partners are much better at including art projects into their plans. I decided on Fridays, after our lesson we would do a math related craft instead of meeting with small groups. Friday is an easy choice for me because it is jeans day, it's relaxed, and we are wore out from a busy week.

Create A Subject Overview
I created an outline of our math that includes the month and the topic for the week. This way, I knew that I needed a place value craft for October and a shape craft for December.

Pinterest
Pinterest is your best friend! I saved ideas that I found to a Pinterest board so that I could reference them later when I was ready to create or download if a template was available. Think of a variety of terms, to search for and sometimes less specific is better. Halloween Place Value Crafts m…

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