Math Sprint Freebie & Patching Up Linky!

Happy Sunday!

It's f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g here and I seriously have only left the house for 1 hour the entire weekend to get a quick workout in. Today will be an exact repeat. The good news? I'm getting SO much accomplished!

I usually split my weekend work into four areas: 

1. Paperwork (Special Education, lesson plans)

2. Prepping (materials for stations, Power Hour)

3. TPT/Blogging (updating materials, blog stalking)

4. Organizational (my ongoing Dropbox files!)

I always get #1 done and usually a blogpost. 

This weekend, I'm hitting all 4!

Yesterday was all about prepping my "Assign Yourself" Math Stations (independent math bags):

I want my centers to be self-checking, even if it just means writing the answers on the back with a dry erase crayon (doesn't rub off as easily!). My go-to centers are themed number bonds with coordinating pom-pons for manipulatives (they are SO quiet and easy for my students to access - I work with students receiving services for OT and many manipulatives are frustrating to grasp). 

And who wouldn't want to work with these?

Other independent math station ideas include clothespin cards (clipping the correct answer from multiple choices) and sorting (i.e.: true/false equations, sorting by sum/difference).

I usually create all the materials because 1) they need to be differentiated for my own students and 2) I'm super picky about fonts and the amount of ink I use! The math stations sets are not up on TPT yet, but someday soon I'll bundle them up and upload. 

I want to make sure they are all student-approved first!

An area of math my students have been REALLY working hard in is those fluency math sprints! Does your school use these from Engage NY? As a special educator, I'm going to refrain from giving my opinion about the format of these sprints :)

Regardless of how I feel about them, I do believe that fluency is extremely important for my students! This is also an area that we really struggle. I saw everything the first few months of the school year...from my students taking their time and completing 3-4 problems out of the 25+ in five minutes to students just randomly writing in answers to fill them all in (???). As a result, I started incorporating the independent math stations focused on fact fluency and I created this extremely simple, yet effective math sprints tracker:

My students ♥ this!!!

I don't really think it's the actual tracker or the adorable Melonheadz Clipart that they love, I really believe it's because
we use these to track progress:

And you know what? It works for me, too! :)

Please click here to download your own copy of the math tracker. Be sure leave a comment if you have a terrific idea or product to support your students' learning!

I'm linking up this post with one of the blogs I stalk enjoy!
It's such a great topic so many of us can relate to!

Thank you Brooke for providing a place
where we can show our blogs some ♥

Although I've been posting, it's not at all what I have planned on my master to-do list! Throwback Thursdays have saved the day many times and I have so many unfinished Five for Fridays...

The biggest area of neglect is my store. I have many items posted that I'm still using regularly, but I have SO many more, plus updates, that are still sitting in my Dropbox. Next snow day, spring break, summer break...watch out! Every file will most likely double with all the new creations. (Hint: this is a great time to purchase because the prices will most likely go up when the product size doubles, but redownloading an update is free!).

I also just wrote my first Donor's Choose project 

(thank you snow days!). 

You can check it out here.

This post is linked up with Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies!

Thank you! Enjoy your Sunday & stay warm!