You Asked...Math and Language Board

I don't often get repeat questions on this little ol' blog of mine, but I recently have gotten several requests about math and language board. Now this is NOT my idea. A good friend of mine used it in her 4/5 combo and I thought it would work in 1st too. I only did both boards for about a year and since I am moving districts and they have a different program in place I won't be continuing with them, but in any case here's what I know ...

Board math is a daily spiral review based on "heavy hitting" math standards. The questions stay the same throughout the week or over the course of the topic at hand (we did time and money for weeks and weeks!) and the numbers change. It is relatively easy to manage and takes about 20-30 min.

This is what my board math looked like:

It is not fancy, but it worked. Some other boards I have seen use tape to mark off their questions, but I wasn't into taping. I had a magnetic white board installed which was AMAZING because then I could use magnetic numbers and coins! The white sheets are the questions. I had about 25 in all for the entire year. I put some questions up as a review and others went up as a preview. The length of time in which they stayed on the board varied depending on how my students were doing.

For accountability I had students use white boards and markers to write their answers. We also incorporated hand symbols and songs to keep it interesting. This took the place of a calendar board, as it was combined into board math.

This is the planner that I used for board math. I wrote out the questions I wanted to ask on one page and then made 5 copies of it for the week. Then I would add in the numbers for each day. Click to download your copy :)

Board language is really similar to board math. The idea is to spiral review the "heavy hitting" ELA standards. This board has many more questions and takes longer to complete, but it is effective if you can keep the kiddos engaged. I used name sticks, funky pointers, songs, sign language and pair share to keep my students into it. I did not do a "true" language board because I was working in HM focus wall stuff too, but the basic idea is there.

I did not have another white board available, so I stuck it out with my bulletin board. Those a plastic page protectors with the question on them. Now these questions did not change as often as my math questions because they were easier to adapt. This is a 30-40 min activity, especially when I was working in extra HFW practice.

This is the planner I used for board language. I did not use every question on the planner every week. But we did do every question on the board every day. Click to download.

Both boards were good. I felt them to be a little lengthy to do both of them every day and before I knew I was moving I considered alternating math and language or only doing half the questions.

For more information you might want to check out http://www.r4sdss.org/board-language and http://www2.nvusd.k12.ca.us/apps/pubs.asp?Q=2&T=Board+Math&P=52 and http://www.r4sdss.org/board-math They are great resources if you want to learn more :)

I hope that was helpful!

See you soon with pics of my classroom updates :)

P.S. I case you don't know what "heavy hitting" is .... Standards that occur the most often on the state test. Since first graders don't take the state test here, I used my best judgement and some of the applicable second grade heavy hitters :)