Everyday Math Games and Tool Organization

I am on Spring Break this week and I am planning on doing a little spring cleaning and organizing at home so I thought a fitting topic would be to continue along on my classroom organization posting streak!

 If you are familiar with the Everyday Math program, you know that there are a ton of great games that allow kids to practice the new concepts they are learning. I have taken my favorite games from the program that help develop some of the most important concepts (and provide the biggest bang for the buck as far as skills practiced while playing) and created a system for kids to check them out easily.

First I began by deciding upon which games my students would play a lot throughout the year. Then I made the directions durable. You can either copy and laminate the math masters provided in the teacher manual or type out the directions on your own before laminating all of the games you want to make available for your kids. Next I divided each game into baggies, one for the regular version and one for the advanced version. I included all of the materials needed to play the games such as dice, bags, tiles, cards, money, etc. Each game is then stored in these labeled blue magazine holders with the exception of my fact power games. I found that there are just too many great addition and subtraction games as well as multiplication and division games that I use (from the program as well as some supplemental games I made) so I created two tubs for all of them. I labeled them both Fact Power and then added the operation signs (+/- or x/%).

I have them all out at the start of the year but students are only allowed to play the games I have explicitly taught. After I have taught a game, I add it to a nearby math game chart for kids to refer to. Most of the time I assign a game and which level I want kids to use because I know what they need the most work on but occasionally I let them play a game of their choice.

Along with the great math games, the Everyday Math program provides a lot of math tools for students to use. I have seen teachers give each student their own "toolkit" to store in their desks but as space is limited in my students desks, I prefer to store mine in the blue tubs seen above my cubbies. Each table group has their own labeled tub that contains tiny tupperwares of coins, calculators, soapdishes of cards, mini erasers for use on games and wipeboards, clocks, mini hundreds charts, mini multiplication tables and tape measures. I used to store the pattern block templates here as well but the kids used them so often they preferred to keep them in their writing caddies on their desks so I let them. I label each math tool within the kit with the table number so that if something goes missing, I know which table it came from. I have never had any lost or unaccounted for tools with this system and it only takes 30 seconds for kids to grab them off of the shelf and bring them back to their tables. It also eliminates kids digging in their desks during my math lessons looking for tools.

Finally, in the background of this photo you can see a lot of red tubs on the shelves and a few of my larger white tubs resting on the shelves as well. There are enough for each table group to have one tub. These red tubs store pattern blocks and the white tubs store base ten blocks. Whenever I have a lesson that requires kids to use either of these tools, each table group can grab the tub they need and Voila! they are ready to go!

Please let me know if there are other classroom organization systems you are interested in seeing that I could post about. I know I am always interested in seeing how other teachers house their materials in efficient ways and I always seem to be in the middle of a new project. Right now I am in the process of reorganizing my mass amounts of word work games from sitting in a huge messy pile in one of my large filing cabinets to labeled plastic envelops I found at Target.