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Do you ask your students to show their work? Should they? This article has an interesting perspective.

I ask them too because I teach alg, these problems become more complicated as the year moves on and they need to write their steps down because there are multiple steps. The ones that have been doing it in their heads for years suddenly cant seem to do that anymore and find themselves in a tricky situation because they don't know how to show their work.

Need a great activity to get your students working on problems while moving about the room? This middle school math activity is explained in a short video, but while the topic is math, you can adapt the exercise to other topics too!

"This site provides an extensive collection of free resources, math games, and hands-on math activities aligned with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. Our math printables are suitable for use in math centers, small group or whole class settings. Instructions for each activity are presented in large print on a task card in child-friendly language to enable students to work on tasks independently after a brief introduction to the task. All files are in PDF format and can be accessed using Adobe Reader. Also available are Math Journal Tasks (K-5), Math Vocabulary Resources (Gds. 2-5) and Math Projects (Gds. 3-5) for teachers looking for ways to support students' math writing skills while developing key concepts and skills. See our E-Books page for more information on these resources."

What a great resource this is! Word problems are often a challenge, but modeling them helps a lot, and Thinking Blocks at Math Playground are an excellent way to model word problems. Sure, drawing pictures can be fun, but sometimes time doesn't allow us to draw detailed pictures. This Singapore math-style of modeling works, and Math Playground did an excellent job with this tool.