Teachers Convention 2013

Thursday and Friday were spent at our Teachers Convention.  There were lots of great sessions to choose from.  Here were my picks: Engaging the Brain, Manipulative Madness, Newsday Tuesday, Science Inquiry Not Through Worksheets, and SmartBoard Tricks of the Trade.  They were all very well done.  Engaging the Brain had lots of helpful information that I can put to use tomorrow when I start Whole Brain Teaching with my grade 4 math class.  Manipulative Madness introduced many math games.  Here's the Black Out board I made with an idea I got from that session:

It's a simple partner game.  First, students need to randomly place all the numbers on the grid.  Then, they roll 2 dice.  They multiply the 2 numbers and cover the product on their board.  You could have them write the multiplication statement over top of the number instead of just crossing if off.  Players can play against the clock to see if they can get all of the numbers covered in a certain amount of time.  I decided to focus on the 4-9 times tables, so I bought some wooden craft cubes from the $ Store and wrote the digits 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 on each side.  Since I printed the boards in colour, I'll laminate them so I can reuse them.  I can't wait to try this out with my kids.

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