The MATHS BOX! Part 4

It's time for Part 4 of my review of the RIC Maths Box. If you have missed my previous posts, you can click below.

Part 1 - Organisation & Teachers Guide
Part 2 - Review of Activities
Part 3 - How I would use it in the Classroom
Part 4 - Differentiation

PART 4 - DIFFERENTIATION

Today I am going to investigate the activities a little further and show you how you can easily differentiate an activity to suit the needs of your students. For me, I would not be expecting to use the Maths Box activity cards in the same way every day/week. Sometimes the activity cards that meet your focus might be better as a one-on-one assessment, other times a whole group activity and other times small group. And sometimes I might need to be creative about how best to use it for all students. Here is a small sample of some activity cards that I looked at in more detail. 

Box 1 Card 15 Number - Popstick Bundles

This is a great activity card and if you have taught Grade 1, you know it's a skill you definitely teach (and in many cases you revisit it often too!). For students who might find this task difficult, simply make the bundles and talk through the questions. Being able to touch and count the sticks will help them understand. For students who finish the activity card quickly, the ADDitional activity is perfect, calling for students to make their own 2-digit numbers using the popsticks. 

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The MATHS BOX! Part 3

It's time for Part 3 of my review of the RIC Maths Box. As a recap, you can click on the link below to read more about the organisation of this resource and what is included in the Teachers Guide as well as a review of the activities.

Part 1 - Organisation & Teachers Guide
Part 2 - Review of Activities
Part 3 - How I would use it in the Classroom
Part 4 - Differentiation

PART 3 - HOW I WOULD USE IN THE CLASSROOM

There are many ways you could use the RIC Maths Box in the classroom, here are just 5 ideas...

1. Small Group Maths Centres
These activity cards would be just perfect small group Maths Centres. Although the Teacher Guide includes an answer sheet for students to fill out, I would teach my students how to write the answers in their Maths Book to save on photocopying. I could use the activity cards to highlight what I have been teaching in class, or expose the students to a new topic. Either way, activities are straight forward, easy to understand and engaging. With younger year levels I would use a mixture of activity cards and hands on activities. I don't ever want my students to become stale with an idea, so wouldn't use purely activity cards.

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