Using Data That Is Meaningful Beth, Primary Grade Teacher: Boulder, Colorado

"Children need opportunities to build and construct graphs that can make sense to them. Graphs help children move naturally from concrete toward symbolic representation of data. The best way to do this is to have students involved in collecting data and formulating questions that lead to problem solving. A good way to do this is to have students keep track of the children who are absent each day class is in session. Graph the information on grid paper that is large enough to be displayed. You can use a piece of white formica board to create a grid that can be used over and over again...draw permanent lines for the grid and then use erasable markers to record data. Use the data to help students formulate questions and develop other math skills such as counting (tallying), place value, percentages, comparing and contrasting, etc. You can adapt this to hair color, height, etc."

"Prepare to Die!" Tie Neighbors, 11th Grade Teacher: Los Angles, California

"I try to do as many projects as I can with my AP classes that will challenge them and excite them at the same time. Last year, I had an idea that worked very well. Albeit, you probably don't want to use this project with kids younger than high school age. But, as a project, I had them finance their own funerals.

My students did not only know how much was involved, but they actually took it a step further on their own for extra credit. They actually proved that it's cost to finance a funeral in our part of California, on the average of 22%, costs more to die than be born.

It may seem a little out there to do something like this, but if you have a few kids that you think can handle it, you can review just about every standard that's written in math. We even use some Calculus."

"Long Division" Ned Uterniich, Math Teacher

"When teaching long division, students often forget what to do next after they bring down a number. Even though you post the steps on the board, they will subtract, bring down and then get confused. I've found that if the students learn to immediately draw a new division symbol around the subtracted number and brought-down number, it will remind them to divide as the next step."

"Beat The Machine Math!" Sean Redwodar, Math Teacher

"This game really works for just about any subject. I tell my students to buy a voice tape recorder at the begging of the year. I then have students take a stack of flashcards and read them into the recorder. There should be a pause between the problem and the answer of about 5-7 seconds.

As an example, "3 x 2 = (5 sec. pause) 6."

When students go through all the cards, they should then play back the tape and compete against the tape recorder. If they get the answer right, they get one point. If they get it wrong, the recorder gets a point. The object of the game is to shut out the tape recorder."

Math "Lunch Passes" Darlene Roker, Teacher

"After teaching for 20 years, I finally found a fun way to get my students to tell ME that they need to practice their multiples more! I make up a quick "test" where they must write out the multiples for 7-10 numbers, in a scrambled order. Then I present the chart to them 5 minutes before lunch, and tell them they will line up in the order that they finish the "test". The first day I present it, I can hear the slower students talking about how they need to study this number or that, as their faster friends go to lunch first. The second day I have fewer slower students, and by the end of the week, the lunch pass can be used on the next needed skill. And they have fun!"