3 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a New Year (EP6)

3 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a New Year

Hey there, and welcome to another episode of Elementary Math Chat. Today’s episode is the sixth and final episode in our back-to-school series, and it’s also the first one of many to come where we are going to talk about math.

I do want you to know ahead of time that most of my future episodes will be focused on upper elementary topics, especially the content-specific episodes, but today’s episode will have a little bit for everybody because I’m going to share three common mistakes math teachers might make at the beginning of the year, and what to do instead.

So, let’s jump right in with mistake number one. 

Mistake #1

The first mistake you might make at the beginning of the year is not incorporating fluency activities into your routine. From the start, students are pretty rusty when they come back from break. So, it is so important to implement these from the beginning.

In third grade, this could mean reviewing multiplication facts with twos, fives, and tens, since those are most likely taught in second grade. You can also practice skip counting or counting by multiples of a number as well.

In fourth grade, you definitely need to be working on all multiplication facts. They will struggle mostly with the six, sevens, and eights. So, the more time you work on those, the better. In fifth grade, your focus should also be on six, sevens, and eights along with the twelves, and it may be a good idea to also include division facts.

When you incorporate fluency into your routines, these should be quick, I mean, five to 10 minutes max, because you’re having to cover a lot of content in the beginning of the year. Because of that, I always found it best to implement fluency as a warmup activity.

One of my favorite ways to practice multiples is with the Kagan engagement strategy called Rally Robin. Rally Robin is a very simple activity where students work with a partner. It’s a really good one for practicing multiples. So, if they’re counting by fives, one person says five, the other says ten, and they go back and forth until you say stop.

You can even make a fun game out of it and try to see who gets the highest multiple each round. I always did that. So, every time I said stop, I would go around and try to figure out which pair had the highest multiple, and then the next round, they would try to beat that number. That always made it a little more exciting.

Now you can also do this Round Robin style where they go around their table or around their group and they name the multiples that way. So again, instead of going back and forth with a partner, they would name the multiples around their table. These are really quick. So again, you can do this as a warmup activity every day and you can do a different multiple. It’s one of my favorite fluency activities.

Another Kagan strategy that works well as a fluency activity is called Quiz-Quiz-Trade, and this one’s perfect for multiplication or division flashcards. Quiz-Quiz-Trade is one of my favorites because it gets them up and moving around the room and interacting with each other. It’s also one that doesn’t take more than five minutes, and it’s a great way to practice multiplication facts.

If you’re not familiar with Kagan strategies, or you want to know more about it, I will put a link in the show notes to a blog post I wrote about it. I go through my five favorite strategies and I explain how I used them in the classroom. I’ll be recording an episode pretty soon about Kagan strategies because they are a great way to add engagement to your lessons, so stay tuned for that one.

Kim Sutton is also a great resource for fluency. My favorite activities of hers are probably drill donuts and drill commands, but you will have to purchase these materials. So, talk to your administrators if you don’t already have Kim Sutton resources.

Another suggestion for a fluency activity is Xtra Math. I’m sure you’ve heard of this. It’s a free program for teachers and students, and they can practice at school and at home. At the beginning of the year. I required my students to do at least one session a day, and they took about five to ten minutes depending on how fluent they were. They could do these sessions in the morning, during math centers, or during RTI time. They just had to get one in each day.

What I love about Xtra Math is that once a fact is answered correctly within three seconds, it won’t ask them that fact again. So, every student has an individualized practice session, and I really liked that. I’ll also put that link in the show notes in case you’ve never heard of Xtra Math and you want more information. And again, that’s free.

My final suggestion for a fluency activity is to give your students weekly multiplication or division fact fluency quizzes. I actually never really call them quizzes. I just called them fluency checks because I didn’t want them to think I was taking a great on them. Some of them get really anxious when it’s a timed quiz like that.

But what worked well for me was to give one every Friday, and then we would go over the answers together so they knew how many they got correct out of 50. Then they would shade how many they got correct out of 50 in a bar graph. This was a really good way to track their results and their progress without feeling like they were being graded on it.

Some of them were a little discouraged at the beginning of the year when their graph was a little bit low, especially if they saw that their neighbor had something really high. But each week as they went up, they got more confident, and it did motivate them to keep going and keep practicing. I only did this for a nine week period, but I definitely saw a lot of growth in their fluency and in their confidence.

If you’re interested in trying this, there are a ton of free multiplication fluency graphic templates on TPT. Mine came within a big bundle I purchased. Otherwise, I would share it with you. So, no matter what grade you teach, make sure you are incorporating fluency activities into your daily routine.

Mistake #2

The second mistake you might make at the beginning of the year is rushing into pulling math groups and implementing math centers too soon. I know you are anxious to get things up and running. But you have to take things slow. My suggestion is to implement one part of your math workshop at a time, and do this during the first week or two of school; whatever you can manage, and here’s how I did this.

After one of my first math lessons, I had students partner up and they completed a partner activity. But before they started, I went over my expectations and then walked around to each group to check on them. I also made sure to give positive feedback and a lot of encouragement during this time to reinforce the behaviors I wanted to see.

The next day I reviewed these same expectations, but this time I had my students play a partner game instead. 

My expectations for all partner activities were:
1. Find a place to work and stay there.
2. Use materials appropriately like dice, spinners, or dry erase markers.
3. Use inside voices when talking to each other and make sure your conversations are on task.
4. Support each other through challenging work.
5. Put away all materials when you are finished working.

I wanted them to know that working with a partner was a privilege, and they had to meet my expectations if they wanted to continue having that opportunity.

Another activity I introduced that week was how to use Boom Cards. This was something they would be doing at least once a week. So, I wanted them to know how to access the assignment, how to answer the different types of questions, what to do if they got stuck, and overall just become familiar and comfortable with Boom Cards.

Most of them were familiar with Boom Cards, but some had never used them before if they were new to our school. So, we completed about four to five questions as a class, and then I gave them time to work on a set of Boom Cards on their own. During this time, I walked around and helped as needed.

My expectations for Boom Cards were:
1. Do their best to answer every question and at least attempt every question.
2. Ask for help if they are stuck. 

The last thing I wanted them to do was to sit there for 20 to 30 minutes if they were stuck on a question. They have so many resources they can pull from. So, this was the time for me to remind them of that.

They could ask for my help if I was available. They could ask a friend or they could look back at their math workbook or notebook, depending on what we used for the lesson. They could also use anchor charts that were posted around the room or watch a digital anchor chart video, which I will share more about in a future episode.

During the pandemic, I ended up turning all of my printable anchor charts into digital form where they would click on a link and watch me work out the question, and so that was something else they could do to help them if they were stuck. So again, simple expectations. Do your best and ask for help when you get stuck.

Now, once they finished their set of Boom Cards, at this point they didn’t have choice boards. So, I gave them a few activities they could choose from. One activity they could do was finish coloring their math notebook covers, or their science notebook covers, or really any notebook cover that they needed to finish. It could be from reading or social studies. I didn’t really care.

I also had a few Greg Tang math puzzles and math games out that they could do as well. Keep in mind that your students are going to be on information overload. So, keep the activities simple and light until you get into the full swing of things.

So far, you can tell I’m taking one day at a time and one part of my math block to introduce at a time. So, after I finished my lesson, I then went over my small group expectations, and I only did this small group activity with half of my students. The following day, I worked with the other half.

I liked splitting it up this way because then I didn’t feel so rushed to get everyone in, and it also gave me a chance to get to know them a little bit better. You know, this is like the third fourth day of school, and so having them at my small group table a little longer gave me a chance to make a connection with them.

My expectations for small groups were:
1. Bring a growth mindset.
2. Ask questions.
3. Keep conversations on task. 

I always told them that I never expected them to master a concept right away. But I did expect them to work hard, and I expected them to keep going when things got tough.

I also explained that small group time was their opportunity to get that extra attention when they needed it, and that’s why it was important to keep our conversations on task. You know, they’re only with me for five to 10 minutes. So, we don’t want to get sidetracked and start talking about other things. And just like with the partner activities and the Boom Cards, I gave them a lot of positive feedback and encouragement during this time to help reinforce those desired behaviors.

The following day, I introduced the final part of my math block, which was choice boards. I always did this on the Friday of that first full week, and I did not teach a math lesson that day. It would have been way too much for me and for them to teach a full lesson and go through choice boards. Number one, I was exhausted. And number two, I think they were just on information overload and could only handle one thing at a time.

So, we went over the different activities they would have on their choice boards, where they could find the activities, which ones were printable, which ones were digital, which ones were partner, which ones were independent, and how I graded them. I mean, there’s just so much to talk about when it comes to choice boards. So, that’s why I felt it was important to not teach a math lesson that day. That basically was my lesson for the day.

So again, I did that on the Friday of the first full week. Because I took things one day at a time, and one step at a time, all I needed was one week. That meant the following week, we were ready to put things in action. Was it perfect? Absolutely not. They still needed reminders, and I still had to revisit expectations from time to time. But things got smoother and better every single day, and after a few weeks, things were running pretty smoothly.

Mistake #3

And that takes us to our third and final mistake you might make at the beginning of the year. This is a mistake that I personally made, and this one is assuming that your higher students understand and don’t need your help. More than likely those students are going to do really well. But there may be a topic or two that they struggle with.

Here’s a little background in the situation that happened with me. I had a student who according to state testing was in the top, maybe 3-4%, and she was an incredible math student. But for some reason, she really struggled with subtraction, and that totally caught me off guard. I did not expect her to struggle with this.

The year she was in my class. I tried something new where I leveled my math groups. I had never done that before, but I decided to try it, and of course I put her in my high group. So, when her group arrived at my teacher table the first day I taught subtraction, they had a much more challenging activity than the other groups.

I realized pretty quickly that she was struggling with subtraction and she should not have been in that group. She really needed intervention. She did not need enrichment. So, I learned a big lesson that year, and it was to never assume anything about my students. 

This goes for both ends of the spectrum. I also wouldn’t want to assume that just because they’re in the bottom 5% of their grade level that they’re always going to struggle. So, I really needed to be using data from daily formative assessments if I was going to continue leveling my groups.

Here’s the good news about this. There are activities that will collect this data for you. The two that I use the most were Boom Cards and Google Forms, and my kids loved Boom Cards. Those were probably their favorites. 

I think they really appreciated getting feedback after every single question, so they would learn from their mistakes as they went through the deck. They also love the interactive and game-like features, so they’re actually fun for students to complete.

If you want to try a few sets of Boom Cards, I will put a few links in the show notes to a few of my decks. These are going to be preview links, so you can sample the first four questions of each deck.

All right, to recap the three common mistakes that math teachers often make in the beginning of the year. Number one, not incorporating fluency activities in your daily routine from the start. Number two, rushing into pulling small groups and implementing math centers too soon. And number three, making assumptions along with generalizations about students and their understanding instead of relying on data from formative assessments.

Teaching Tip of the Week

All right, it is now time for today’s teaching tip of the week. This one is a fun tip for your parent newsletter. My recommendation for your parent newsletter is to include a section called “Ask Your Child”, and give them three to five questions that they can ask their child throughout the week.

I’ll give you a few examples of questions that I would put in there when I did this. Monday’s question might be, “Can you show me your behavior note for the week?” Or “Can you show me your planner with this week’s homework?” Another question might be, “Have you studied for your science test on Friday?”

Sometimes they were subject-related questions like, “Can you tell me the difference between a prime and composite number?” Or “What are the factors of 12?” Then on Friday, instead of a question, we would have a prompt, like “Tell me something you accomplished this week,” or “Tell me something you are proud of.”

This is a really fun way for parents to interact with their child and stay connected and in touch with what’s going on in school. So, definitely give that one a try.

Well, that is all for today’s episode. Thank you so much for joining me. Have a great week and I will see you next Tuesday,