I've started having my students complete a daily "Number of the Day" worksheet using this FREE resource from My Teacher Toolbox. There are a few reasons I like this routine:

• Using a sheet that follows the same format every day allows all students to experience success, including those who sometimes struggle with the executive functioning required to complete novel tasks. 

• This activity takes only about five or ten minutes each day, but provides practice with many of the key skills we are working on in number sense: using the hundreds chart; identifying whether a number is odd or even; understanding place value; writing number words; using ten frames; building fluency with adding and subtracting ones and tens; and using the < and > "alligator mouth" symbols. Lots of bang for our buck!

• Students are asked to create addition equations, which allows some students to challenge themselves. For example, if the number of the day is 50, some students might create a simple equation such as 30 + 20 = 50, while others might opt to think of a more challenging equation that requires regrouping such as 36 + 14 = 50. 

At the pro-d session, Brian shared with us that it can be powerful for students to work on vertical erasable surfaces. Students' brains are more engaged when they're standing, and using an erasable surface makes it feel safe to make mistakes. 

Luckily, in our school, each classroom has one wall made of erasable whiteboard, so we have enough space for all students in the class to work on the room's vertical whiteboards simultaneously. This week, for the first time, I tried this out with my students. I gave them a simple to task: to write out the numbers from 1 to 100. They were so excited about this. Some students kept going  and wrote the numbers way beyond 100! This was much more engaging for them than just writing the numbers out on paper. 

Next week, I'm planning to have students write out the number words from one to twenty. Eventually, we'll do some more complex problem-solving on the large whiteboards. For right now, I'm just trying to get the students used to the routine of writing on the large board and to give them opportunities to practice sharing the space with each other, etc. 

This has been a big hit already and I can't wait to see where we will be able to take this routine over the course of the year! 

Brian suggested Peter Liljedahl's website as a source for engaging math problems. I tried out the "goody bags" problem with my students this week, which asks them to divide a range of items fairly among five bags. Before I even finished reading the problem out to students, their hands were flying into the air with suggestions.

 I had the students work in their table groups of 3-4 students each. To make the activity more concrete, I gave each table group five printed-out bag outlines and a printed copy of all the goody bag items. They cut out the items, sorted them among the goody bags with much lively discussion, then glued them down. 

Once all students had finished gluing, I had each table group share about the strategies they used. Though all groups had started with the same problem, they'd all arrived at a different solution. This was such a great way to show students that math has concrete applications in day-to-day life and that math is about THINKING, not just applying formulas. This activity was accessible for all students in the class, even those who don't necessarily have strong number sense skills yet. The whole lesson took about 40 minutes. I'm looking forward to trying more of Liljedahl's problems in the future!