Want to bring movement into your classroom while helping your student’s practice word problems? As an upper elementary teacher, I was always looking for intentional activities that got my students out of their seat, and moving, while still learning. This is when I created my Around the Room word problem sets. They became one of my student’s favorite word problem activities because it was a different way to practice word problems. They were one of my favorites because it is a minimal prep. activity that just needs to be printed and hung up around the room. Yes, it’s that simple!
3 Ways I Used Around the Room Word Problem Sets in my Classroom:
- Warm-up Activity: For the first 10-15 minutes of my math lesson, I like to bring in a review or prior knowledge activity to get my students ready for our math lesson. Around the Room word problems are perfect for this. I would hang them up before my students came in that day and this would normally last for about 2-3 warm-ups that week. Don’t expect your students to get all of the problems completed in one day because there are 6-8 word problems in the set.
- Math Rotation or Math Center: Bring some movement into your math rotations and math centers! I would use this for our “Math Review” or “At Your Seat” rotation for some extra word problem practice. I would hang these up at the beginning of the week and students would complete throughout the week. I love finding math rotation activities that get my students out of their seat and can work for more than one day. Normally, this would take 2-3 rotations for my students to complete. I allowed students to work with a partner for this rotation.
- Review Activity Before End of the Year Testing: My students would get sick of page after page of word problems when it came to test prep. Let’s be real, most of the end of the year tests are word problems and we want to make sure our students are prepared for this. Around the Room word problem sets were a great activity to give my students that word problem practice, but find a different way for them to review that was more engaging and, you guessed it, got my students out of their seat during review time.
My Top Tips for Using Around the Room Word Problems in Your Classroom:
- Print and hang up the math word problems around your classroom BEFORE the day starts!
- Let students pick a partner for students to solve their problems with (voice and choice).
- Let students find any word problem in the room to start at and it doesn’t matter which one students choose first. It will still circle them around to all the word problems. I recommend having a couple partners at each word problem to avoid a big crowd at one of them.
- Explain to students that after they solve that word problem, they will look for the answer on another word problem poster on the top right corner. If they can’t find their answer, they solved it wrong and need to resolve the problem. Once they make it back to the word problem they started at, they will know they completed all of them.
Would you like to try out Around the Room word problems in your classroom? There are 2 different places you can find them. Click on the buttons below to check them out.
