Ninja Notes

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Math

How to Teach Students to Analyze Errors in Math

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When students understand how they make mistakes while calculating math equations, they can begin to prevent making them. We teach our students to analyze errors in math. Come see how we use this strategy to help students deepen their math understanding and grab a free activity you can use in your upper elementary math class. We use this activity with our grade four and grade five math students and all of them benefit from it.

Over the years, we’ve had students that don’t want to correct their math errors. Why do students need to know how they made a mistake? For students, it helps them understand where they went wrong so they don’t repeat the errors. For teachers, it helps narrow down how to support or teach the student. But how do you teach students to analyze errors in math?

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Mastering the Angles: Innovative Approaches to Teaching Geometry Concepts

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Are you looking for ways to teach geometry concepts in your upper elementary classroom? This is one of our favourite units. We teach 2D shapes, 3D objects and transformations with interactive math notebooks, task cards, Boom Cards and a huge project where we build an arcade. It's so much fun! Come see how we do this in our math class.

When we start talking about quadrilaterals, trapezoids, and parallel lines, many students get lost quickly. There are so many new and uncommon words introduced in our geometry concepts unit and it is especially difficult for English Language Learners. These are some of the ways we build an understanding of shape and space concepts in our classroom.

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Math Worksheet Games Your Students Will Love

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There are lots of different ways to use a math worksheet to help students learn to collaborate, reinforce skills, and deepen their understanding. Check out these activities that you can set up and use in minutes with the worksheets you already have printed. Save your time with these engaging activities.

We rarely use worksheets because they don’t align with our teaching style. We tend to use a lot of project-based learning or inquiry process activities, but every so often we find that our students need a little extra practice with computation in math. That is when we bring out the worksheets.

However, we don’t often just hand them out and expect our students to fill them in. Here are some ways we use a math worksheet in a less-than-traditional way.

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The Trouble With Task Cards and How to Fix It

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Do you think task cards are more work than they're worth? Maybe you're using them wrong? Or maybe you're using the wrong ones. Let us help you navigate the challenges and get you more bang for your time!

Do you need some convincing about how you can effectively use task cards in the classroom? Do you like the idea of task cards but don’t have the time to make them? All that printing, laminating and cutting can look like it’s not worth your time. Well, we have some solutions to get the most out of task cards for your students in the least amount of time for you. Keep on reading to find out how we use them and why we think they’re so valuable.

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How to Change Math With Interactive Notebooks

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Are you avoiding interactive math notebooks because they seem like too much work? Are you struggling to teach math because you worry about your own knowledge base? Never fear! We have the solutions! Let's get you teaching math today!

When a colleague told us we should try interactive notebooks in math, we agreed and then went on our merry ways and did math the same old way for another year.

At the end of that school year, she approached us again and DEMANDED we buy an Interactive Math Journal lesson plan set. We took a look, bought it and then went on summer vacation, never to think about math for a whole two months.

Near the end of the summer, we opened it up and it CHANGED OUR WORLD. We will never teach math the same way again. That being said, there are a few things we learned about the process and we wanted to share these tips with you so you don’t have to spend so much time figuring things out yourself.

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The Truth About New Math

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What is new math and why does everyone keep talking about it? Here is what we tell parents about new math (spoiler alert-math isn't new). Get some practical tips for debunking the math myths.

New math is ruining education. Or at least this is what we keep hearing people (like parents, the media, and politicians) say.

What is this “new math” of which you speak?  I see the memes on Facebook and wonder, have I been teaching mathematics wrong? Has it changed? Did I miss an email about this?

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