Spiral Reviews- Setting Students up for Success

As we dive into school year, my focus has been on the concepts I want my students to learn and how I will develop their understanding of math concepts further.  I have used spiral reviews, or spiral learning in the past, with quite a bit of success.  I am definitely going to explore it a lot more this year, as it is such a great way for students to learn, succeed and even develop goal-setting skills.  I’d love to share with you some tips and tricks I have learnt along the way!

Spiral reviews, or spiral learning, are a great way for students to learn new skills, and then revisit them.  Each time they are revisited, or reviewed, more complex learning experiences are presented.  Students become masters in particular skills, as they return to the same concepts or skills throughout the school year (and beyond). 

So what do spiral reviews provide student?

Practice practice practice!

I don’t necessarily agree with the phrase, “practice makes perfect” because I don’t think you should place a ceiling on success.  However, practising and revising students is a proven way that students can more easily understand a topic or skill.  These skills will assist them in their schooling life (and beyond)!

Independent work and self-assessment learning experiences

Each time a concept or skill is revisited in spiral learning, it should be learned at a deeper level.  This can be done using individual learning experiences.  Students, when reviewing the topic, will be able to determine what topics they could be provided even more challenging learning experiences with.  They can also identify which areas they need more assistance in.  Because they are reviewing the concepts again and again, individual learning experiences will allow students to improve at their own pace.

Opportunities to succeed

Revising skills and topics can help students achieve throughout the school year.  Some students may get it straight away which is great!  However, for those students who need to review topics to fully understand them, they have more than one opportunity to succeed.  This will improve students’ self-confidence and encourage them to push themselves further. 

 

I think one of the best things about spiral reviews is that they can be used in so many subject areas.  Wanting students to learn and revise treble note names in music?  Spiral reviews are awesome for this!  Keen for your science class to understand the life cycles of animals?  You guessed it, spiral reviews could be used. Learning about poetic devices in Language Arts?  Spiral reviews are as good as gold (simile puns aside, they are a really valuable tool to assist student learning).

What types of resources do I love when using this style of learning?  Particularly for independent learning, I love self-checking and interactive resources.  I will teach the concept to the class, and then students can use interactive resources to test themselves.  I can even use resources with different levels of complexity to differentiate for each of my students.

If you’re looking for different ways to practice math with your students, this is a perfect activity.  This growing bundle has some great targeted math resources which can help you on your spiral learning journey.   This resource looks at integers, negative numbers and relative numbers. 

You can also try the freebie below, which allows students to independently revise whole numbers and decimals. 

Comment below if you have had experience and success using spiral reviews!  Happy September, and happy teaching!

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Back to School...Again

Holidays never seem long enough. 

For some reason, the much-needed and absolutely deserved break that we get for summer seems to race by. 

 Maybe it’s because we jam-pack our break with fun-filled trips, spending quality time with friends and family, or just catching up on a book or two that we always plan to read during the school year, but never get around to it. 

 As we draw closer to the new school year, I’m sure that many of you (me included!) are beginning to fill our holidays with the excited thoughts of new students, new classes, and new learning experiences. Oh, and of course, the not-so-exciting thoughts of planning, marking, reporting, and keeping our classroom desk from looking like a tornado has hit it. 

The importance of making an excellent start to the year is also something that’s probably crossed your mind once or twice (or ten times!). 

From the very beginning of the school year, we are aiming to engage and enrich our students with activities that are fun and challenging at the same time. If we can do that early on, success for our students is so much more attainable. I wanted to share some of my own resources that I’m going to be using at the beginning of the school year. I’m super proud of these, as I think I’ve nailed the balance between learning and fun that every teacher wants in a resource. 

Escape rooms are such a fun way to revise new concepts. 

Make this free resource one of your go-tos when learning about fractions and decimals. There is very little prep involved, and your students will not even realize that they are learning!

 

This back-to-school-themed escape room is such a fun way to review math concepts with your students.  Students are able to review integers operations, proportions, two-step equations, and area and circumference equations, all while having a bit of digital fun!  The best part of this resource for you?  It’s no-prep, so you can enjoy your holidays just that little bit longer. 

While it’s not always in our thoughts during the mad rush of back-to-school prep, having good sub resources should be part of our planning.  I love this bundle of fun-self checking activities which is perfect for your ‘sub-folder’.   

They are aimed at a 6th-grade level and are an engaging no-prep way to get your students revising operations with fractions, surface area equations, and more. 

 

In addition to sharing some of my go-to resources, I want to share the best piece of advice given to me about how to start the school year off great:  

Make sure your expectations and rules are established from the very first day.  

Building a rapport with students creates the groundwork for the most productive learning experiences.  Think about how you want students to learn and act in your classroom, and communicate these clearly.  

Refer to them frequently, and recognize students for following your rules.  

Better yet, get them to be part of the classroom rule-making.  They will take ownership of the expectations, the classroom and their own behaviors. 

Do you have any back-to-school tips or go-to resources?  Leave a comment below.  I’d love to hear from you!

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Homework or no Homework? That is the Question

Homework or no Homework?  

That is the Question

I always give my students homework.  To give homework, or not to give homework, though, is a question that has probably been around since before Hamlet uttered that famous line!

Every teacher understands the importance of learning and mastering material.  And every teacher definitely knows that class time is not always enough!  One way that we can allow students to develop their understanding of concepts and processes is through practice and assignments.  I always give my students homework because it helps them to understand concepts on a deeper level, show initiative, and take responsibility for their own learning. 

But... and there is always a but.  What happens when they don’t want to do it? 

As teachers, we are put in a challenging position when it comes to homework.  We know that they need to practice to learn.  But we also know that it isn’t always a reflection of the learning- kids can call on their good friend, “Google”, to help them finish tasks, or get their parents to help.  And don’t get me started on the time that it can take to collect, mark and grade homework assignments.

But, I did my homework (see what I did there?) and I truly see the value in giving homework tasks.  Practicing and revising their skills will help them get better at challenging subjects and tasks. Students will also see the value in taking the time to develop their skills when they achieve success.  So how do we, as teachers, motivate them to actually want to do it?

I know there are quite a few ways to motivate, but I want to share one that has worked for me.

Are you ready for this?  You’ll have to come in a little closer, I don’t want students to know that they are learning and having fun at the same time! 

What is the secret?  Games.

I find learning games to be extremely motivating.  Students actually want to play these!!!  Many are self-checking, too, so students can easily understand when and where they need help. (A time-saver, Hallelujah, I hear you say!)

I’ve created some no-prep (yay!) learning games which you can find in my TPT store.  (You’ll be even happier when you realize I’ve found a way to force them to show their work!) 

Take a look at the freebie below:

           

If you and your students love these games as much as I do, you might want to purchase some more of my math games. 

 

I hope that you and your students find these resources as fun as my students have.  Leave a comment below if your students love them!

Enrica

Matemaths

 

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Gamification in Math

 

Math Gamification & Why A Gamified Math Learning Strategy Will Ever Be Better Than The Traditional One.

Are you struggling to motivate your students?

Do you find it harder than ever to keep your students on track?

Are you looking for new and exciting ways to engage your class and ensure they are learning?

The answer is simple. Gamification.

I know what you are thinking! Firstly, what is gamification and where in outer space did it come from? It’s actually a lot simpler than it sounds, and the best part about it is that a lot of teachers are incorporating it into their daily classroom activities already!

Simply put, gamification is adding game-like elements into your everyday instruction. The games have a number of purposes. Firstly, they encourage student participation (win!). Secondly, they can provide an engaging way to introduce or reinforce learning concepts (win win!). Thirdly, they can provide challenging learning experiences, all while students are blissfully unaware that they are actually learning (win win win!).

I hear some of you out there saying, “oh, another thing that I would have to do on top of my teaching, assessment, parent contact (and the endless list of things we do as teachers goes on)”. 

But the best part about gamification is that it is not difficult at all to incorporate into your weekly or even daily lesson planning. There are even websites that can help you create these activities, which are easily accessible. Take for instance, Pixel Art. Type that into a search engine and you are treated to a number of free sites that could be used in your classroom.

You might even wish to try something a little more complex (and even these are quite simple once you get the hang of them!). For example, Google Forms can be used to create quizzes, escape rooms and other games.

Want to know the best part? Many of these games are self-checking and require little to no prep time. As teachers we are always looking for things that save us time. So a self checking game is definitely a great addition to our activities repertoire.

I have been using gamification in my own class, and the changes to my students learning is amazing!

My students are more willing to work, and definitely more motivated to understand new or challenging topics.

So what’s my ultimate go-to Gamification resource? While there are tons of websites that offer learning-centered games, Boom Learning is without a doubt my all-time favorite. Boom allows you to create a wide variety of interactive games and task cards to use with students. You can also search for games for sale that have been created by other teachers.

Whichever resources or websites you choose to use, it is a safe bet that gamification can help bring back excitement into your classroom. And I’m excited about that!

Would you like to try some free activities? Subscribe to my newsletter to receive every months FREE resources and tip:

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