The Diary of a Nerdy Teacher: 4th, 5th, & 6th Grades Full Year Curriculum Literacy, Math, Science, & Social Studies

I have also teamed up with Educents with some instant downloads for you! It includes a full years worth of activities for your 4th, 5th, and 6th classroom! So exciting because it's stuff for now, in a few months from now, and all the way through the end of the school year! Check it out below!

My product included will surely be loved by your students!

This little monster task cards has 15 word problems and 15 answer cards. This is a great review OR introduction to teaching word problems with money. These cards are great to use for reinforcing understanding word problems or challenging your early finishers.

You can laminate the cards and have students write their answers directly on the cards with dry erase markers or they can use the included student recording sheets. Answer sheets are available for students to record the answers for grading purposes.

I have also provided a black and white copy for my ink saving followers! Either way they are cute and the kids will love them!

I don't know if you are a Duck Dynasty or not but man, I just love the show. Even if I have seen the episode before, I have no problem watching it again! Anyways, my newest game is comparable to SPOONS. That was always a game I played when we had all of the family over for holidays. The directions are in the product that you can purchase pretty much how it works is, all the students sit in a huge circle. There is a card dealer who passes out 4 cards per person. Each person must keep the cards in their hands until they have a match. Once the card dealer starts, he will pass the cards one by one to the next player. The cards will be going around the circle. The objective of the game is to find your match. For example: I have in my hand 11 x 11. I going to keep the 121 card when it comes to me. This helps kids learn their facts quickly and in a fun way. Personally, I will use this game on the end of the 2nd day of multiplication facts. In this deck, there are cards from 2 x 1 all the way to 12 x 12.

There are two covers available.

Sometimes they just want to make their own answer key...and I am ok with that! I have provided an answer key as well in the download!

How I set up this game is different than others. I gave every student a card. Once they were done with the card, they would go return it to my desk.

They then would go find the answer card and write down the answer letter. This was a good way to keep them moving and engaged.

When they were done with all 18 cards, they were able to go and check themselves. It was very effective on holding the students accountable for their own work and grades.

I have worked really hard to make this unique and different. I believe I can teach almost anything we need to learn in math in game form. Yes that takes more time for me BUT my students deserve it! I will be posting a few pictures in a couple days of ways I have made worksheets into games that my kids BEG for!

Now, I will give you the low down on how I am using this in my classroom. I am going to use jus the card games for about 2 days where that is the main lesson. Then the third day, I will start working on the word problem cards. I will give details on how I do the word games at the bottom.

First, I get a file folder. I make the first page the cover for the folder. That helps the kids know what they are going to get. Then, I cut out the directions and put them on either side. This helps with the, "I don't know how to play this" OR "I was in the bathroom when you taught this" comments. I have a laminator at my school so I have them all laminated so I can reuse them again next year. I cut out all of the cards and have them in a plastic baggie with the name of the game on it so we do not mix bags up.

I have two ways that I introduce a game. 1. I choose a random person to be my partner and we play the game together. My cards would be face up and the partner or opponent's card would be on the floor. This helps with any game to teach strategies. I then have them play against me. Sometimes I let them win other times I win, I try to keep it fun. ;) 2. I have a reward system and one of the rewards is "teach a lesson to the class." This is the time I usually use this reward. I work one on one with that child and they get to learn the game. Once I feel like they can teach it to someone, they lead the class in the game just like I would have. This lets them feel confident and the class feels more like a team.

When the games are ready, I put them in the middle of the floor, where my big carpet is. I then pull sticks on who gets to go to the carpet first. When they get to the carpet, they must choose a game that they have not played today. Since there are cards 2-10 for multiplication, I would put the easy ones out first. Maybe 2, 3, 5, 9, and 10. If you laminated your file folder they could use wet erase markers to work any problems they might not know off the top of their heads. If you could not, let them use a scratch sheet of paper or dry erase board. Letting them work it out is very important. Each time we have a "round," they must have a different partner. I NEVER pick partners for them just for the fact that this is their learning time and I want them to feel comfortable on what they are doing. I also will set a timer on my phone between 10-15. Depending on where we are going. Make sure you have a back up for kids who can not behave in the rounds with the other kids.

I have to say, my favorite part about doing stations like this is the communication between the kids. I have only taught my students the 2, 3, and 9 deliberately. They knew 10, 9, 5, and 1 just from second grade. They work with their partners to learn how to do the rest. I taught my kids the 9 trick with the fingers. (Let me know if you would like me to teach you that.) They caught on QUICK! After each station, while they are cleaning up and putting them back where they found it, I will call out facts. The kids will yell it out as they know it. You would be surprised how quickly they will start saying the answers.

I constantly walk around to listening and helping different groups. I love hearing them saying things like, "how do you know that 6 x 6 is 36." "Oh you did an array to find it out?" They love playing games with each other but they are learning so quickly tricks they taught themselves.

For the word problems, I have a large carpet in the middle of my room. I ask all the students to sit on the perimeter of the carpet. I then throw all of the word problem cards on the ground and have each child get one. Once they have one, I throw the answers out. They have to get one of those too. They must each have something they can work the problem with and a way to show they did the work. I say go and they must find the person who has their answer and the person that has their problem. My kids think it is so fun to hunt for the person. When we are done the first time, I collect all of the cards with the answer and go over how the person solved the problem. I want them to see how there are so many different ways you can solve the problem, picture, array, multiples, groups of, or just knowing it from your head. They will have chances later in the week to play this in one of their stations again.

It is also an option to do, "I have, who has" since each person has one of each kind of card!

I hope you have found this useful and not me just typing on and on. I would love to communicate with you and see how you liked my product. I am also in need of one or two people that can proofread and edit products for me. In turn, you may use the products in your own classroom.

For a limited time it is $15.99 from Educents which is about 79% off - if purchased separately would be $74! 21 instant downloads with 38 different products sold separately! And almost 600 pages of materials you can use all year... it's hard to go wrong!