My favorite thing is....whiteboards!

So I'm going to try and jump on the Explore the MTBoS 2017 Blogging Initiative! bandwagon.    

I'm not very good at remembering to blog every week, but it is a new year and my goal is to try some new things.  So here we go....

Although I don't blog much, I usually only blog about my favorite things.  In the past, I have I blogged about my favorite website game, Kahoot.  If you haven't tried it yet, you really need to!  It's so much fun for the students!  You can read more about it HERE.

I have also blogged about my favorite in class game, the Grudge Game.  This was a lot of fun to play in class but does take some prep work.  Not something that can be easily played on a whim, but definitely worth the time to set it up!  The kids LOVE IT!  It gets exciting and the students are very engaged.
  


But for today, I think I will pick my favorite classroom activity...which is using my whiteboards.  A few years ago, I purchased a set of whiteboards for my classroom and they have become my favorite form of formative assessment.  I love to use them in place of worksheets or homework.  And they also make great review activities as well.

When I use them, I make a set of problems, anywhere from 12 - 16, and hang them around the room.  Sometimes I will have the answer on another card, forcing the students to answer the problems in an order I created, but usually I just put the answer on the back of the card so the students can flip it up to check themselves.  There are lots of ways to use these but I have found the latter way the easiest for me.  It allows those who understand to keep moving and time for me to work with those who struggle.  A third way is to keep the answers to yourself and the students have to show you their work and answers.  This helps you see who is understanding which problems and what problems they are struggling on.  The only downside to this way is that your attention is on everyone and so it is hard to help the students who need a little one-on-one.   

 

One catchfall to this activity is that my students are terrible at putting the caps back on the markers tightly when they are done.  I go through a lot of expo markers and they are not cheap!   At NCTM this year, I splurged and bought my self a new set of markers from the Markerboard People.  They are supposed to be longer lasting and not dry out as easily as the expo markers do.  So far we are doing great with them, but I am also trying to be more diligent about checking the caps too!  My next splurge is to get myself a new set of dry erase boards from them.  I love their boards!! Check them out at http://www.dryerase.com/.   

#MTBoS #MtbosBlogsplosion