August 2007
Featured Topic: Basic Facts Fluency
Every math teacher struggles to find ways to encourage students to master their basic facts. Whether for addition and subtraction facts or for multiplication and division facts, teachers collect many ideas from which they can draw activities to meet the varied needs of learners in their classes. Games and Who Has? activities are especially motivational and continual play can help students develop fact fluency in an effort to master the games and capture the most points.
Many teachers include a weekly "Game Day" in math classes. On this day, student groups cycle through activity centers that include games to develop fact fluency and/or practice important math skills. This day also typically includes small group instruction centers where students meet with the teacher(s) for remediation or enrichment. Including this regularly scheduled "Game Day" is a win-win strategy for teachers and students as it provides opportunities to differentiate instruction to meet the varied needs of learners in any math classroom.
To learn more:
- Check out Basic Facts Fluency for information on Mathwire games and Who Has? decks to help students develop fact fluency.
- See Basic Facts Links for links to online resources that allow parents and teachers to differentiate basic facts practice, targeting each student's specific needs.
Web Site of the Month: Funbrain's Sudoku
Students may select an easy or hard sudoku. The puzzle lets students know when they have completed a row or a square. Upon completion, the program prints the solution time and includes an option for students to challenge a parent to beat their time. Students may also choose to complete another sudoku at either level.
This is an excellent site for students learning to solve Sudokus because the Options menu allows you to select a Training Mode that colors incorrect entries red. This alerts students to an error before they get too deep into the puzzle with multiple errors.
Check out the Funbrain Sudoku site.
Recent Additions to Mathwire.com
Check the New on Mathwire.com webpage to see what's new on the site this month.
Check the Recent Additions to Mathwire.com webpage to see the most recent additions to the site this month.
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Alphabetical Listing of Mathwire.com Topics
NOTE: Look for the A-Z option at the top right of Mathwire pages for an easy link to this alphabetical listing.
Mathwire Archives:
See Mathwire Archives for past issues of What's New on Mathwire.com and for past month's featured articles.
About Mathwire.com
Mathwire.com is designed to provide activities and appropriate worksheets for teachers to use in their classrooms. All activities and worksheets support the constructivist approach to learning mathematics and the NCTM Standards.
Activities: The activities on this site were developed by Terry Kawas and the teachers in districts where she has worked as a math consultant and coach or with students she has taught in college math-methods courses. The activities are classroom-tested by teachers and appropriate modifications have been made to reflect this field-testing. These activities are posted online in an effort to share quality activities and routines within the mathematics community.
Terms of Use: Teachers are welcome to download any of the activities for free use in their classrooms. No activities may be copied for use on other websites or included in commercial products without permission in writing from Terry Kawas, webmaster. Contact Terry Kawas