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    

Gradual Release with Eureka Math

 

My Math Wall

Musings

Please indulge me for a moment (if you don’t want to that’s fine, scroll to the next heading 🙂

I just finished a book in which the main character is hit by a car and needs to relearn how to walk. When the doctor checks on her, the doctor says the following

“This is a long road ahead. It’s one that can be very frustrating. It will only get more frustrating. You’re going to have to learn how to do something you already know how to do. You will get angry. You will feel like giving up. I just want you to know that it’s okay to want to give up. That it’s okay to reach a breaking point with this stuff. You have to have patience with yourself”

I feel like this year more than ever I need the reminder that it’s okay to be frustrated and feel like I’m at a breaking point. I’m human and this teaching stuff is hard. What I’ve been working on is having patience with myself and accepting the fact that this feels like I’m relearning things I used to know how to do! Case in point: Eureka Math

EUREKA! I don’t get it...

I’ve been using Eureka Math for four years, which is to say that I’ve been struggling with Eureka Math for four years. I’ve been to the amazing district Eureka Preparation and Customization PD on how to teach the lessons, I’ve watched the Eureka provided PD on it, and I’ve read more blogs than I care to count, but I’ve never been able to hit my stride and make all the pieces fit.

This year, math needs to be a special priority because over 100% of my class is below grade level in math. In my quest to learn more about MTSS and being deliberate about gradual release, I’m happy to say that I think I juuuuuust might have figured it out for myself.

Gradual Release with Eureka: Ruth’s Way!

Fluency - 5 minutes

Skip counting by 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9. I used the linked videos for kids to practice skip counting. I don’t do all of them every day, but I make sure to hit every one at least once a week.

Gradual Release - 50 minutes

I DO - 15 minutes

Introduce the learning target, link it to their prior knowledge, explain the importance of the skill in real life, explain success criteria.

One of the parts of Eureka that I’ve found most challenging is that the direct instruction isn’t presented in the same way as the Problem Set and Exit Ticket. That’s led to a lot of confusion for my students about how to apply the new knowledge they’ve gained in the lesson to a novel situation.

To address that, I use the Succeed homework book to teach the concept. Each lesson has 3-4 problems that are presented exactly like those of the Problem Set and Exit Ticket. That way, students are seeing problems that are like the ones they will need to solve. 

I model the first problem step by step specifically explaining how to do each step of the problem. I then ask for up to 3 risk-takers to share what they don’t understand yet. I go through another problem specifically pointing out the answers to their questions. I ask for 3 more courageous students to share what they don’t understand yet and go back to the problem to show them how I came to that answer. I’ve found that asking students to specifically state what they don’t understand is really helpful in getting me to hone in on a particular step and also encourages students to be reflective and actively engaged in the learning process.

WE DO - 25 minutes

I dismiss the whole table of students (balanced through Kagan groupings based on the iReady diagnostic) to work with each other around the classroom on the problem set. The kids love this flexible seating option and I’ve noticed they really stay on track when they can be in a different environment for collaborative work time. Students use Math Talk sentence stems in their communication with one another. I encourage them to use the anchor chart if they are stuck and I use it as a teaching tool as I walk around to groups and guide them as needed.

After 20 minutes, I call students back to their desks and we debrief the problem set. I will either call on students to be the “tiny teacher” and explain their solution or I will clear up a common misconception I noticed while circulating. This is another key moment to have students reflect on their learning and ask for any last-minute guidance.

YOU DO - 20 minutes

Students complete the Exit Ticket independently. When they are done, they bring me the Exit Ticket and I give them instant feedback. They either get a check that it’s correct and then go to Xtra Math (more on that in a minute) or are given corrective feedback that they then apply to their Exit Ticket and they bring it back to me in the “Fast Lane” which is a line that forms at a different part of my desk and helps them move through faster.

Once they have a check, they log on to their Chromebook and go to Xtra Math. Look, I tried using the Eureka Sprints, but I could never get into a groove of giving kids feedback on them so I would have some kids who only finished two correctly and some who wrote “15” for every answer on the page and felt like they were really successful for finishing the whole thing. All that is to say that fact fluency wasn’t getting addressed in my class. In my search to rectify this, I found Xtra Math. It gives you good reports and each session is about 7-10 minutes long. It can also be linked to your Clever page for easy access (see how here). Students take a placement test and then practice only the basic facts that they don’t know. Once they show mastery of a certain operation, they move to the next one.

If a lesson has been successful, MOST of my students complete the Exit Ticket correctly within about 10 minutes. If I have a group that is struggling, I can then pull them and do a reteach while the rest of my class is on Xtra Math. Once they finish a session, they know to go to iReady Math.

DEBRIEF - 5 minutes

Students are given the signal to remove their headphones. We discuss successes and challenges of the lesson. We revisit the learning target to determine if it has been met and I then tell them how we will use this new learning to help us on our quest for math knowledge the next day.

Wrap Up

After years of struggling, I’ve finally found a way to make this powerful curriculum work for me. Students have already been very successful in meeting learning targets (I’m talking 90% of my class is correct on their Exit Ticket) and for the first time ever, I look forward to math because I feel like my daily instruction is truly best, first instruction.

We’re relearning things we already knew how to do and it’s okay to get to a breaking point. Have patience and be gentle to yourself. Always remember,

TPT links to similar resources: Math Talk Key Words  CUBES

Here for you,

Ruth Reinkymov

3rd Grade Teacher

Hawthorne IB World School