Halloween in a middle school
classroom can be a nightmare. Students
are thinking about costumes, parties, and candy when you need them to be
focusing on slope, rational numbers, and equations.
Do you accept the lost day and move
on?
Fight it and assign seatwork to bore
the excitement right out of them?
I have found a better solution that
I love and my students love, too!
I have created a line of
holiday-themed partner stations.
Students work with a partner and move around the room as they solve math
problems.
HOW IT WORKS:
1) Set up the 8 stations around the
room. I typically tape them to the walls
and give students clipboards to write on.
2) At each station there are two
different problems – each leading to the same solution. One student completes problem A and one
completes problem B. They are working
independently, but can check their answer to make sure it matches their
partner’s answer.
3) Students show all of their work in
the provided workspace. At the bottom of
the workspace, there’s a key that lists all correct answers and some answers to
common errors (and some random numbers to fill in all spaces). Each answer is matched up with a letter so
that students “collect” a new letter at each station.
4) Once students have completed all 8
problems, they unscramble the 8 letters to determine the themed code word.
During these activities, my students
are super engaged. They find the
activities fun because they are working with a partner and moving around the
room. I am happy because they are practicing
math – without complaint – on a holiday – and they ask for more… WHAT! I love it.
For Halloween, I currently have
these topics ready to go in my store:
You can also put in a request for a
different topic and/or holiday. I can
work with very short notice. Fill
out a request form to share what you’re looking for.
And if these activities work wonders
in your classroom, you can scoop up the entire bundle.
Try a worksheet version for free!
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