Winter Math Strategies

My teaching partners and I find that our Year 3s lack some of the basic mental math skills that would help them improve on adding and subtracting quicker. We decided that for the last week and a half of school instead of planning out a maths unit that could be interrupted by Christmas concert rehearsals and changes in the schedule, that we would use this time to explicitly teach math strategies - that way if lessons are skipped, it wouldn't interrupt the flow of the unit. These strategies are useful for a variety of age groups and most of the sheets are differentiated, so take a look even if you're not teaching Year 3!

This unit includes multiplication tips and tricks, teaching making ten when you recognize a number bond, doubles and near doubles, as well as near 10s, partitioning and using the previous strategies to add tens, and using fact families to recognize patterns.

Day 1 – Multiplication Strategies

On the first day students were the teachers! I gave them a list of multiplication strategies, and they created their own posters on their given multiple. They practiced the strategies, made up their own songs, and then presented for the class. Click the photo below for the strategies list the students received.

Teachers Pay Teachers have a Multiplication Strategies blog post that came in handy for planning this. On the page, there are songs from YouTube by Planning Playtime, complete with songs to the tune of nursery rhymes to help students learn their multiplication tables.

Day 2 – Teach making 10 (adding/subtracting)

Next students played a dice rolling game to practice making ten. The idea was that if you have three numbers, often two of them can pair up to make ten. Rather than needing to count three times on your fingers, you can just make ten with two of the numbers and add the third.

E.g. 6 + 4 + 5

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10 + 5 = 15

The dice rolling game can be found in the picture below.

Day 3 – Teach doubles and near doubles (adding/subtracting), near 10s

The following day we talked about doubling numbers, and how we can also look for near doubles. We can do the same thing by looking for near tens to help us add. Their practice was a racing doubles sheet using dice! Open the link below to go to the creator's site and download the differentiated sheets for free.

Day 4 – Teach partitioning, applying strategies to tens (adding/subtracting)

The following day, we used partitioning to help us add easier. If your students know how to add by column method already, this might confuse them because they'll just want to use column method. But it is really good practice for mental maths so still worth a try to teach, click the photo below for the link to the differentiated sheets.

Day 5 – Fact Families and Estimating (adding/subtracting) differentiated The next day we used a spinner to practice spinning fact families and writing the two addition, and two subtraction problems. The equations are based on the tricks they have learned this week - doubles, near doubles, adding three numbers, and include a section on estimation because this is another good strategy for students to have. Click the photo below to go to the document - includes a super chilli, more difficult spinner to further challenge students.

Day 6 - Application Adding and Subtracting, and Multiplication (Colouring)

The last day is perfect for the last couple of days of school, throw on a movie or Christmas songs and let your students colour to show what they have learned. They can use any of the strategies from the past week to help them complete it and find the Christmas picture!

Enjoy! I hope this helps the last week fly by with fun and useful math lessons!

#math #mathstrategies #wintertheme #makingten #doubles #partitioning #factfamilies