Making Eureka Math More Engaging - Loop Activity

 

Does this sound familiar - take out your Eureka math workbook, turn to page 70 and work exercise problems 1 - 6?

Do you cringe when you look at the Eureka math workbook and note that it is not very student friendly - especially for our struggling math students?

Do you wish that you had more time to take a Eureka Math lesson and make it more engaging?

Heck, I have at some point over the past several years said yes to these questions and many more like them.  To combat these yes answers I try to employ different strategies and activities over the years to fill my teacher 'toolkit belt' with resources that can be meaningful and relevant for my students.  One age old adage I have tried to embrace this year is that 'Variety is the Spice of Life.'  Routines and procedures in the classroom create a safe environment for students - but who does not enjoy a surprise activity every once in awhile that shakes things up a bit.

Here is a recent activity I did with my math classes by taking Eureka exercise problems and putting them into a Loop Activity (this activity has also been called "I have, Who has" - Math Treasure Hunts, etc.)  I took each exercise problem and put it on a sheet of paper with the answer from a different problem at the top of the paper.  For this activity, I took 8 problems with their answers to create my Loop Activity.  The idea of the Loop Activity is that you work out the problem to find the answer and then find the answer on another sheet of paper.  You then work out the problem on that sheet of paper and find the answer on another sheet of paper.  The last problem's answer should then take you back to the answer on the first sheet of paper - which closes the Loop Activity.  Below is a link to the Google Slides Template that I use to create my Loop Activities - feel free to make a copy and edit the text with your problems/answers.

Google Slides Loop Template Link

I put my students in groups to do this activity and I made two copies of the Loop Activity so that I could split my classroom in half to assist with student management.  I placed one page on each desk and had each group of students choose a desk to start at - in a Loop Activity it does not matter where you start.  

I noticed that during the activity students were engaged in solving the problems, helping each other, talking about math, and showing their work on a paper I provided to them.  Students were unaware of what I was doing - which was listening to conversations take place.  I noticed that at the end of the time allotted for the activity students had been successfully engaged in doing their math exercise problems while not thinking that they were actually doing math as usual.  I heard students say that it was fun, can we do this again, we need more time because we got stuck on a problem - all music to my ears that today was engaging and meaningful for my students.

"Variety is the Spice of Life" - do I do this specific activity a lot?  No.  This is just one activity in my
teacher toolkit.  I also use 'Level Ups' which take the Eureka math questions from an entire unit of study and build a pyramid with them so that the easier questions are at the bottom and gradually get more difficult until reaching the top of the pyramid with the most difficult question (Shout out to Ms. Keeton for these awesome engaging activities).  Mrs. Nelson (Spotlight Teacher), at my site, just shared with me about an idea called, "Math Cake Walk" - where students solve a problem, walk around a circle of numbers until the music stops, a number is randomly called and if the student on that number has the correct answer then they win.  My goal is to create such an activity around my current unit of study on system of equations to get students doing math problems with a slight twist to engage them.  

I encourage you to look at Eureka Math and ask yourself how can I make this engaging for students in a different and meaningful way?  I encourage you to work with colleagues in designing one activity that you can use this year and again next year.  I encourage you to slowly build your teacher toolkit with engaging activities so that after a few years you start to have a library of activities that you can use with your students.  I get that Eureka Math can be challenging in its presentation to students and I get that time is not a luxury we have - so start small otherwise it can be so overwhelming.

Please feel free to reach out with any questions as we continue to look for ways to engage our students during another year of a pandemic that impacts each and everyone of us on a daily basis.

Most importantly, give yourself grace and when you have done that then give yourself even more grace.

Teaching and still loving it,

Kevin Stott                         

De Anza Middle School