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Hey, teachers. If you have a classroom and a commute, you're in the right place. I'm your host. Rachel and I want to ride along with you each week on your ride into school. This podcast is the place for busy teachers toe want actionable tips, simple strategies and just want to enjoy their job more. Let's go. Hey, guys, what's up? It's Rachel from the classroom nook, and I am your host for the podcast. The classroom commute where you are right now. I hope you're having a great day. And today I'm gonna share with you something real quick and easy. That could be a game changer in your classroom. It was certainly a game changer for me and my classroom when I was teaching fourth grade. But first a confession. I still count on my fingers. Yes, like what? I go to figure out the tip at a restaurant. I will count on my fingers to figure out how much more I should put and what the total bill now is. After adding that tip. I know it's embarrassing. I'm not proud of it, but it is what it is. And the worst thing about the whole thing is that I would tell my students that they were not allowed to count on their fingers, that I wanted them to know their math, fax and howto add and multiply quickly in their heads. I think we can all agree that knowing our math fax is something that we use as adults every single day. There are many things that we've learned in school. Like, say, 10th grade math. Logic improves that we will never use again unless you teach 10th grade math. However, the reason I was so strict about math fax with my students was because I didn't want them to turn out like me and have to use their fingers and math facts whether it's multiplication, adding division subtraction are fundamental skills that many other math concepts build upon. So we want to make sure that our students know them forwards backwards, inside out and everywhere in between. So, knowing this, I wanted to create a fun way for students to learn their mathematics that they actually looked forward to doing. And I think I might have found the ticket and I'm gonna share it with you today, and it could be a total game changer in your classroom. The thing I started doing with my students to help support them. Learning their mathematics was to incorporate math challenges into our every day. So what I mean by that when we were learning about multiplication, we'd have multiplication challenges, and I'll explain them in a minute. We would learn about division. We had division challenges, subtraction challenges, adding challenges. And you can do this at any level. It's not something that you're only doing at the primary level. It's something that you can do all the way through. Um, sixth grade and upper elementary school. Here's how it works. Students take short timed math. Fact quiz is probably something that you have done many times in your classroom, where you give students a sheet, maybe 15 20 problems on it. You give him a minute, and they try to answer as many math facts correctly as possible, right? So if we're talking about multiplication, they would start by multiplying all there, too. So two times 32 times forward two times five and do a complete time to quiz focusing on multiples of two. Then they would move up to multiples of three and four and so on. And the goal would be to have students memorize their math facts and know them quickly so that they could recite them on those timed quizzes. So we did this in my classroom. But here's where it was different for my students. And here's where it really got motivated. We would have four math fact challenges a year, one for adding one for subtracting, one for multiplication and 14 division. And each math fact challenge had a different theme. For example, the Multiplication Challenge had an ice cream theme, and as students took their quizzes, they were working to earn parts of their ice cream cone. And this is gonna be one of those episodes where you're definitely gonna want to head over to the show notes to see some pictures, because it will help make it all clear for you. So you can do that by going to classroom nook dot com forward slash podcast forward slash seven to get all of the information about these math fact challenges, and I'm gonna tell you about a freebie that you can grab as well while you're over there. But as I was saying, they earn parts of their ice cream cone, and we're talking a paper ice cream cone at this point, every time they would pass a level in the math fax challenge. So if they passed their twos and they passed their threes in past their fours and so on, all the way up to 12 they would earn a part of their ice cream cone. So for a two, they would earn the placemat that they would put their ice cream cone on for three. They would earn the napkin for four. They would earn the cone itself for five. They would earn a scoop all the way up to nine. They would earn scoops. Um, 10. They would earn whipped cream 11. They'll earn Sprinkles on there. Cone and 12 there earn a cherry on top, and they glue these parts of their ice cream cone onto their place mat that they earned for passing their multiples of two timed quiz. And when they earned all parts of their ice cream cone, their paper ice cream cone, we had an ice cream party and celebrated with riel ice cream, and the students loved it. I mean, come on, food is the master motivator, right? But even more than that, the result of these multiplication challenges was that they started to know their math facts, and they enjoy doing it. Students will beg you to take these time quizzes every day. I've had teachers tell me time and time again, who have used these math back challenges in their classroom to say that their students begged them to take these quizzes every single day because they know they want to add to their ice cream cone or whatever the theme is for that challenge. It is just an awesome way to kind of get your students totally on board with learning their math fax. So you might be thinking, What are the other themes? Well, like I said, the multiplication theme is to build a paper ice cream cone so that they can earn a real ice cream party. The division challenge is a pasta party, so they build their pasta plate. They start with a plate for being able to divide by two. Then they add their pastas by being able to divide by three. Then they add meatballs and sauce, and then they add their paper fork and the Parmesan cheese shaker and then at the end of a pasta party, which is actually super easy to do. If you pre make the pasta at home and then put pasta sauce and a crock pot and have it in your classroom all day when you're ready with the meatballs, it's super easy to do, and the students love it for a subtraction. Students have a gumball theme, so they are adding gumballs, threw their gum ball machine, and when they've earned all of their gum balls, they get to have gum in class, which is always a huge privilege, of course. And then, for addition, it's a popcorn theme, and they have a bucket of popcorn that is their number twos when they pass their twos and then they add kernels of popcorn to their bucket, they glue them on, and then you have a popcorn party when they pass. So it's just super simple. But such a motivator for students to have something to kind of work towards, and it's also a visual representation of what they're learning. They can see themselves progressing through because you'll put up their ice cream cone or their popcorn bucket or their gumball machine on a display somewhere in your classrooms that they can see where they are in the process. If you're having a hard time visualizing exactly what the's challenges look like, definitely head over to the show notes to see some of the pictures that I put there for you. And the biggest reason that you're going to want to head over to the show notes is you can download all of the resource is and materials that you need to host a math fax challenge in your classroom. Ray on the website in our Members Resource Library. If you are not already a member, it's totally free to sign up and you'll have access to all four math challenges, in addition to dozens of other. Resource is for all the content areas, teacher resource is student resource is and even some video tutorial, so there's a ton of stuff waiting for you there. If you're not already a member, make sure you sign up again. You can get it at classroom nook dot com forward slash podcast forward slash seven. Grab these math challenges and do them in your classroom. Your students will thank you. And when they're an adult, they'll think back on you as they're sitting at that restaurant, figuring out the bill and being able to divide it out among their friends and add on the tip and do all the things unlike yours truly. So that's all I have for you guys today. I hope you found that valuable. I hope you're inspired to host the math backs challenge in your classroom with your students and have a wonderful rest of the day Bye for now.