Moore Math Messages

We are beginning to plan our TNT sessions for this year. Is there something you would like to see offered? Is there something you would like to present? Let us know so we can tailor this day for you!

1. The teacher will determine the topics being reviewed, such as punctuation, parts of speech, grammar, usage, mechanics, or style.

2. The teacher will create a class set of cards with the word, phrase or punctuation mark to be placed on the students’ backs.

3. The teacher will inform the students that they will have a chance to ask up to twenty questions about the card on their back.

4. The students will only ask one question per classmate. (See attachment for a Recording Table.)

5. Questions should start with “is” or “does” and should be written on the handout provided. These types of questions prompt “yes/no” responses.

6. If a student thinks they know what the topic is, they must write it down on the top of their paper and ask the teacher.

7. The first five students to identify their topics are the “winners.”

8. Repeat steps 1-7 by redistributing the topics to different students.

9. The attached handout can be collected to evaluate the strength of students’ questioning skills.

Link to Full Details and PDF

Thank you so much for jumping into the deep end with this new benchmark adventure! I know this process is brand new for everyone, and I truly appreciate the time, flexibility, and effort it took to make it fit into your week. You’ve done an incredible job navigating something unfamiliar.

The December benchmark is not meant to be a stressful "test." It is meant to give you some more information about how your class is doing as a whole and how individual students are doing on topics they have learned. Please communicate to students that this is just a tool to help you help them.

PLEASE DO NOT assign any other skills this week so that students have ample time to finish this benchmark. Remember that students are only supposed to be on IXL 30ish minutes per week. Some kids are getting burned out by the amount of time they spend online.

The next benchmark window is now open for 3rd - 6th. Just as before, you can use any time during the week to have the students complete the benchmark. It can be completed all at one time or in small chunks throughout the week. Just as with the STAR, I would recommend having a procedure in place for students showing their work on paper.

Below is a list of chapters/lessons each of the benchmarks will cover:

• 3rd: Ch. 4 - 6
• 3rd SPED: Ch. 3 & 4
• 4th: Ch. 3.6 - 5.6
• 4th SPED: 3.6 - 5.9
• 5th: Ch. 3 - 5.7
• 5th SPED: Ch. 3 - 5
• 6th: 2.2 - 3
• 6th SPED: 2.2 - 3.3

As you review your students’ scores, please keep a few things in mind:

• This is just a snapshot in time. You’ve only been teaching math for a few weeks, and students are still getting into their routines and building confidence.

• Many of these skills are still developing. Some standards on this benchmark will be used/reviewed throughout the year, so students will have plenty of opportunities to practice and grow.

• The format was different for students. Since most of their IXL experience is recursive—where they can try again until reaching a SmartScore of 80—some students may not have realized this assessment was “one and done.” That likely impacted how they approached it.

Results will be available after 4:00 on Friday.

1. Go to IXL → Assessment (next to Teaching Tools - middle of the screen)

2. Scroll down to Common Assessments

3. Choose the benchmark you’d like to review

From there, you’ll be able to see:

• Class average and performance graph

• Individual student scores, grouped by performance

• Options to sort by name or score, and switch between points or percentages

• By hovering over a student’s name, you can view their score, time spent, and detailed results

Scroll down to the Response Review section for a deeper dive.

• Hover over the magnifying glass to preview each question.

• Hover over the skill to view individual student responses.

Use the item analysis to identify areas where students may need:

• More practice or exposure through quick review questions

• Targeted IXL lessons to reinforce skills

• Problem-of-the-day discussions to talk through common misconceptions

• Small group lessons for reteaching or enrichment

Remember, this benchmark is a tool for insight—not evaluation. It’s meant to help you see patterns, celebrate strengths, and identify where additional support might be needed. Every bit of this information helps us tailor instruction to student needs.

Please reach out if you’d like help interpreting the data, planning review activities, or identifying the best IXL skills to target next. I'm happy to help in whatever way I can.

Did you know that we have some ways to make quick games and worksheets right inside IXL? It's called Spark Studio. You can quickly make jeopardy, Take a Risk, Matching, and Rags to Riches games in less that 5 minutes! Note of caution: As with anything, check the answers before using with your class. AI makes mistakes too.

You can also make math story problems centered around a theme, crosswords to practice vocabulary, and more. Themed math story problems are always fun around the holidays. Below I have created some math story problems for each grade level all about santa, elves, and math. Have fun!

The Star math December window will open on December 1 and close December 19. Please try to give the STAR early in the window. We all know that illness and absences hit hard in December.

Best Practices:

• Have a procedure and expectation for students showing their work on paper. This needs to be a regular occurance and something the students don't think twice about doing.
• Make time to meet with your students afterwards to go over their results (see suggestions in October's month's newsletter HERE).
• Let students know that they may see things on the STAR that they haven't been taught. We are just looking to see where they are and what we need to do next.
• Calculators can ONLY be used for students with that accommodation on their IEP.

Having issues finding the assessments for your standards-based report cards? Watch this quick (1 minute) video to show you where they are. This video was created for second grade, but kindergarten and first grade have the same options.

Where can I find standard-based math assessments?

6th grade teachers, this one's for you! We will be talking about the options that your students have when they enroll in math for 7th grade. Enrollment typically starts in February, so we will be meeting on January 12th (via zoom) so that you have all the information you need to have conversations with parents.

January 12 @ 4:15

Please join us at the University of Oklahoma on Saturday, March 7 from 8:30-1pm for the annual The KEY (Keep Educating Yourself) Conference! This event is Free and open to all PK-12 educators. Sessions are led by faculty and partners from the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum and span practical strategies and big-picture issues. Topics include technology integration such as AI, writing across the curriculum, and the power of play, and many others. You will gain resources, deepen content knowledge and pedagogy, and share fresh ideas for stronger
classrooms.

Please register and share with colleagues!

Follow this link to the Survey:
Take the survey

Ready to take the next step in becoming a math leader? The Oklahoma Association of Math Leaders is hosting a book study starting in January on Math Leadership. I will be happy to pay for the book for you to join the study! Please let me know if you are interested, and I will get a book ordered for you. The book study will be virtual and have options of meeting dates.

Session 1: January 13 @4:30

or

Session 1: January 22 @ 6:00

Session 2: February 10 @ 4:30

or

Session 2: February 19 @ 6:00

Session 3: March 10 @ 4:30

or

Session 3: March 26 @ 6:00

Here are some quick and fun activities you can use to help your students learn their facts.

War: Use a deck of cards or make a deck of cards numbered 0-9 (or a deck of uno cards). Two players put down a card at the same time. The first one to correctly add, subtract, or multiply the cards gets to keep the cards. The winner is the person with the most cards.

Domino Facts: Place dominoes face down on the table. Randomly select a domino and add, subtract, or multiply the two sides.

Spinner: Use a spinner from a board game that has digits 0-9 or make your own with a paper fastener and a paperclip. Spin the spinner twice and add, subtract, or multiply the numbers.

Grab Bag Facts: Place digit cards in a bag that are 0-9. Grab 2-digit cards out of the bag at one time and add, subtract or multiply them. Return the digit cards to the bag after each turn.

Rolling: Take a pair of dice and roll them. Addm subtract, or multiply the dice to find their sum, difference, or product.

3rd - 6th SPED teachers are invited to a special collaboration time on January 27th 4:30 - 5:30. We will be meeting at ASC in the 2nd floor conference room. We will be talking specifically about how to use IXL for progress monitoring, preparing for the OSTP, and using manipulatives with your students. Looking forward to seeing you there!

One of our SPED teachers requested some resources on different ways to use math manipulatives. Great idea! Since using manipulatives benefits everyone, there is a new section about this down below the Little Learners section.

Flocabulary could be a great way to add to your lessons. Each lesson comes with a video (song with lyrics), vocabulary cards, vocabulary games, break it down (examples used to teach), read and respond, a quiz, even a lyric lab to help you write your own songs. You can find a lot of the videos on Youtube, but all the extras come with the subscription.

Teachers can get a free "lite" trial for 30 days. You may want to wait until we return in January to get this free trial so that you have the entire 30 days to play!

Anything you want featured in this section? Just let me know!

Christmas Farm is the lovely tale of Wilma and her neighbor Parker and their patience and hard work to grow a Christmas tree farm.

I would recommend reading through this once with your kids just to enjoy the story.

Read Aloud Version

After reading through it, you can then read through it again and pay attention to all the numbers in the story. This book provides great, real life examples of calculating dozens, as well as dealing with large numbers.

For instance, Wilma starts with sixty-two dozen trees. Talk about a dozen and ask your kids how to calculate the total number of trees.

Each year, however, some of the trees are lost to mice, moose, snow and ice, but a great many remain. Ask your kids to calculate how many were lost each year. Depending on the age of your kids, they could use a pencil and paper, or work on their mental math skills.

After reading the story, talk about the growth of the trees. Calculate their height in feet after each year of growth (there’s a chart given at the back of the book which gives height in inches).

Try to determine the best number of seedlings to start with if you want to have 700 to sell once they reach maturity. This is a great, open-ended discussion, because it , and has no right answer. After all, there is really no way to know how many trees will be lost each year, so how exactly do you determine how many seedlings to buy at the start? The possibilities for math discussions are endless!

And if you would like to “grow your own tree farm,” play this Christmas Tree Farm math game together!

All Materials (Free)

• Match two different types of objects together, such as five counting bears and a domino that shows five dots.
• Use links to create a number chain for a number.
• Work up to showing quantity with more than two types of objects (as seen in the photo).
• Have many different items available for activities, such as dice, dominoes, number magnets, bears, counting chips, cubes, and number cards.
• Match number cards from a card deck or game of Uno with dots on dominoes. Find every number combination on the dominoes.
• Complete number puzzles that have a different number representation on each piece. They help kids see that numbers can be modeled in many ways.
• Encourage one-to-one counting with clip cards. Kids count groups of objects and clip the numeral that matches the correct quantity.
• Ten frames are great for organizing numbers so that they can be easily counted. Matching numeral cards with ten frame representations is simple, yet effective at connecting quantity with numbers.

• Practice making groups of ten things. Group straws, beans, counters, or any small objects.
• Teach counting by 10’s to count groups. Extend to teaching groups first and then singles.
• Make groups of ten to get to the 100th day.
• Show and examine a tens block and ones block. Discuss that a tens block has ten ones put together.
• Use base ten blocks to represent numbers. Do plenty of examples where kids must use and count blocks. Use a chart to help count the blocks.
• Say “Show (or draw) me 14 with place value blocks!”
• Represent the number of tens and ones on place value mats (seen below). Ask questions like “How many ones are there?” or “How many groups of ten?”. Make sure they understand what each number within the number stands for (i.e., the 1 in 18 is a ten and not a one).
• Use stackable cups to show numbers (see below).

My entire job is to help you in whatever capacity you need.

• Off on the pacing and need help getting back on track?
• Lesson just flopped and need some ideas?
• Have a small group of students still struggling and don't know how to help?
• Need help with the curriculum and how to use it?
• Had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day and just need to vent & talk?

These are just some of the ways I can help. Please reach out when you need some help, ideas, or just a shoulder to lean on.

We have winner from the drawing from the November Moore Math Message entries. Look for an email to claim your prize!

Thank you for taking the time to read Math Messages this month. Please register for the monthly drawing for some goodies!