Independent Game Time

Over the past couple days, I have been doing a lot of teacher teaching...with a science training on Tuesday and a math training on Wednesday, I feel like my creative juices are flowing.

FIRST, yesterday my school district did a training on our new textbook. During the whole training, I was actually a little put off. Our district is giving us a consumable student textbook (that they will replace every year) which would be great...if I didn't want to do anything exciting in my classroom. It has everything you need, parts for a mini-lesson, guided practice, independent practice, and center activities/games (which really didn't look like games to me but more of worksheets in disguise). I am an advocate of a student-centered classroom, so seeing the district pushing more of a teacher focused classroom with this textbook.

MY CHALLENGE FOR THIS YEAR IS TO TURN THIS TEXTBOOK INTO STUDENT CENTERED AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES.

Starting with taking the independent practice into time where students play a board game, like I have done during extended learning time. Students will grab a board game and solve the independent practice problems and every time they get an answer right, they will get to roll a dice and move. If they get the answer wrong, they have one more chance to get the answer. If they get the answer right the second time, students will get to roll but take away two spaces from what they roll. If this is confusing to you, make your own rules and have the students play.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS...during this time, I will pull a small group for intervention while kids are playing. To make sure students are being responsible and following instructions, I have created game board job cards. Each student group will be leveled by achievement and in groups of 4. Since there will be groups of four, there are four jobs. I have created these job cards and included them here as a freebie! I hope they can help you out.