In all my years of teaching I always felt it was important to start a
class with some sort of warm-up. As I have observed many other
colleagues I found that they also started a class with some sort of
warm–up. This need comes in many forms, but I believe the basic
idea is to get the student thinking about math in some way.
In my high school career I cannot remember ever having a
warm–up in my classes. We just started with the assignment.
Even my own Master Teacher had no need for one. In college one
of my favorite professors was Dr. Spazito, a Physics teacher.
He would come into class with the text and a new piece of
chalk. He would then write the last equation on the board
from the previous lecture, entertain some questions, and go
on from there.
I was never that great a Physics student, but I looked forward
to his class, because my notes were like the continuing of a
text we were writing. I guess sometimes we do not need to
warm-up anybody. However, that is college not junior high
or high school.
There are several great warm–ups that I used in my career, and
here I would like to mention just a few.
1.
SUDOKU: We have all seen these puzzles in news-
papers, and there are books of hundreds of
them. There is a sight on line that that contain
millions of them at all levels.
In Algebra we try to get rid of all those things around the
"x" the find what the value of "x" is. I a Sudoku we remove
all the possible choices that could go into a square, so that
we know what number goes into the square. My students
loved these and some even wanted harder ones for extra
credit.
2.
SMALL NUMBER OPERATIONS:
This is simply a running list of numbers with operations
in between. It is great practice of those basic operations
in small numbers that most of your students can do well
at. You can make up hundreds of these, many of which
are great patterns.
Example:
Start with 2, add 2, times 2, times 6, add 3,
divide by 3.
Many times I would have to repeat the list, but at
a slower pace. So, I would say, "this time I will
do it in Southern". You need a Texas accent for
this.
Example: Start with 3, plus 3, times 3, minus 3, divide by 3
Start with 5, plus 5, times 5, minus 5, divide by 5
Start with 6, plus 6, times 6, minus 6, divide by 6
Here they may see the pattern in the solutions and
know the answer before you get there.
3.
LARGE NUMBER MULTIPLICATION:
Next try multiplying 46 x 102. You want them to see that
we are really doing 46(100 + 2). Which they can do in their
heads as 4692. The key is to break the habit of always
grabbing for the calculator, and for the student to use their
own best calculator, their mind.
