Saturday, March 23, 2013

Don't Get Zapped - Integer Operations


This is a really neat idea that I saw on an elementary school teacher's blog at http://swampfrogfirstgraders.blogspot.com/2011/01/dont-get-zapped-addition-version.html
and I think it could be adapted for my middle school students.



I thought it would be a great way to practice integer operations, fraction operations or any other operational skill and could be used for an independent game idea. I would like to plan to work in a 3 station group next year. As I am planning for the Common Core Curriculum, I am taking a tip from the reading teachers and creating a three groups (Red, Green and Blue). They will be working through rotating stations. One station will always be a skill self-check station... so I believe this game would work perfectly!

Basically, you put problems on popscicle sticks and place 30 of them in a container along with two "Take another Turn" sticks, two "Give Another Player a Stick" sticks and one "Zapped" stick which means you have to put all the sticks you collected back into the container. You keep a stick if you get the problem correct. I think I will number each problem and have an answer key handy so kids can check each others' responses. The student that wins is the student who has the most sticks when their time is up at that station.

I am very excited to start working on these games, but plan to use a PRINGLES container instead since my family devours these on a regular basis.


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