First Week of School in the Math Classroom

Do you have any math activities planned for the first day of school? In this post are a few back to school math activity ideas and classroom resources to help students ease into the new school year.

Editable Back to School Desk Plate

Students get to know each other through numbers with this back to school math desk plate activity. Students answer 10 questions about themselves that are all answered with numbers. The questions are ell editable, so you can change them to match what you'd like to know about students at the beginning of the school year.

Golden Spiral Back to School Math Pennant

Students color the different sections of their back to school math pennants based on their answers to questions like "favorite class?" and "birth month?" When all colored in, the final pennants make colorful math classroom décor that can be displayed for back to school night.

Back to School Picture Puzzles Escape Room

Braking free from this math picture puzzles escape room is a fun way for students to get to know each other while working together on the first day of school. To move to each next puzzle, students have to solve for the values of school-themes pictures and type the correct 4-letter code.

Back to School Picture Puzzles Escape Room

This math picture puzzles escape room also comes as a printable PDF version, if students don't yet have access to their devices or you'd rather they work on paper. 

"Mathy" Math Bulletin Board Borders

These math bulletin board borders add a little math to the edges of your classroom bulletin board. Wavy and straight edged borders are included in a few different styles.

My Best Work! Student Work Toppers

Students love seeing their work displayed. These student work toppers make it easy to create a confidence-boosting bulletin board display that showcases student work for Back to School Night. There are a few different styles that fit both horizontally and vertically-orientated worksheets.

Why I CAN Do Math Bulletin Board

We are all math people, and this math bulletin board gives kids reasons to believe this about themselves.

Math Word Walls

My math word wall completely changed my teaching and how my students accessed our curriculum. Some teachers choose to hang their entire math word wall at the start of the school year, and others, because of space or personal preference, build their word wall throughout the year. 

Math Word Walls

There are math word walls available for financial literacy, area, volume, elementary grades 2 through 5, middle school grades 6 through 8, and high school algebra, geometry, algebra 2 and the unit circle.

More back to school & classroom decor posts:

Back to School in the Math Classroom

Back to School Math Bulletin Board Ideas

Math Classroom Decoration Ideas

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9 Math Classroom Setup Ideas and Must-Haves

What are your absolute must-haves in your math classroom? This past year, I worked at my former high school as an MCAS tutor to help kids graduate. The MCAS is the Massachusetts state test that students needed to pass in order to receive a high school diploma. The requirement was in place for around 20 years, and was finally eliminated in November 2024.

No one really believed we'd finally end this mandate, so when it was voted out we were all surprised. Since my students would now be receiving their diplomas (if they pass all of their required classes), I finished out the year as a support teacher.

Next year, I'll be back at the same school co-teaching algebra 2 as the special educator. I love teaching algebra 2, which I've written a lot about here. There's something really special about the amount of growth kids make in this course.

While I’ll be sharing a classroom this year and won't have my own classroom to hang a math word wall, I will be bringing back a bunch of my math classroom must-haves from this past year and previous years, including math cheat sheets. Here are a few of them...

1: These writing tablets were a huge hit this year. They pretty much replace personal whiteboards except that you can’t just erase part of the board. We used them every day. I have been seeing 8.5" versions floating around social media this year. The ones I had gotten are 10". I do think the added size does make a difference, especially for students who write large. The other thing I need to mention is that each does have a button battery.

2: I added numbers to this magnetic coordinate plane with a Sharpie. My students and I used it to graph functions and for transformations. I'm hoping to hang this in my co-teacher's classroom this year.

3: Kinetic sand in these 3-D plastic shapes helped students see the relationship between cones, cylinders, pyramids and prisms. I used these with individual students and was worried that the shapes would break. Water may be better, though my students really loved the sand. 

4: Over the years I’ve printed many copies of this success iceberg poster drawn by Sylvia Duckworth. I gave one to my husband for his classroom, and one to a fellow teacher for her classroom next year. I've seen different versions of this classroom poster over the years, but this one is my favorite. When I reached out to Sylvia years ago to ask if she had her drawing for sale as a poster, she said no and that I could make the image she posted to Twitter into a poster.

5: Snacks! The dum dums were a hit. This year I got one of these giant bags for under a dollar using all my CVS extra bucks! In general, I don't like giving out snacks because I know how kids can be tempted and pretend their food allergies don't exist. But hard candy seems to be pretty safe.

6: Quartet dry erase markers are my favorite. Microfiber cloths work the best to erase boards, though their texture could be better. I actually learned about the microfiber cloths years ago from the co-teacher I'll be working with again this coming school year!

7: Tissues cut down on trips out of the room. And as far as pencils go.... I had a few broken black Ticonderoga pencils this year that wouldn't sharpen. I'm hoping it was just a random thing and not a permanent change.

8: Blue Loctite for hanging word walls and posters on the wall. A teacher friend on Facebook mentioned there's a similar tacky putty at Dollar Tree.

9: A fellow math teacher found this sweet message in his classroom (my former classroom) from my 2015 consumer math seniors and gave it to be last year. I kept it on my bookshelf this year.

What are your math classroom must haves?

Graphing Algebraic Functions with Cut Paper

Algebraic function graphs and their transformations can be challenging at first. Why graphs shift in the coordinate plane the way they do can feel pretty abstract. Vertical transformations shift as expected, but horizontal shifts are "opposite"-- why? With practice, students start to "get it" and can even apply what they know about one function graph to an entirely new function. Our function transformations unit was always one of my favorite units to teach in algebra 2 because of this.

Over the past week or so, I've made 7 function transformation video shorts using cut paper. In each video you'll see familiar algebraic functions—like quadratic, absolute value, and radical functions—transformed visually in the coordinate plane. There's also one for sine.

End of the Year Math Activities

It's hard to believe it's almost the end of the school year! In this post, I want to share a few end of the year math activities to keep students engaged in these last days of school (and also having some fun). 

The first is a new end of the year math escape room that comes in both digital and print form. Students use their logic to solve for the values of summer-themed pictures in equations while celebrating making it to summer break.

End of the School Year Math Escape Room

The digital version of the escape room is an answer-validated GOOGLE Form that eliminates your need to grade. Just check the Responses tab to see which students successfully broke out.

End of the School Year Math Escape Room

Students use their logic and algebraic thinking to unlock 5 locks by finding the values of summer-themed pictures in equations. Questions are grouped 4 per puzzle, resulting in five 4-letter codes that will unlock all 5 locks. All answers are positive whole numbers.

The printable version of the escape room has a NEXT STEP box that lets students know which puzzle to visit next. They can start on any of the 5 puzzles. The download also includes a printable graphic organizer to help students keep track of the pictures' values as they find them, a student answer sheet and an answer key.

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Dear Students, My Advice is Pennant

This last end of the year activity works for students in any grade or subject. This year's students give their best advice to next year's students in this dear students, my advice is pennant activity. As students walk in next year, they can read all of the good advice this year's students left for them.

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As the school year wraps up, I hope you remember all of the wonderful learning experiences and opportunities you gave your students this year. They have been so lucky to have you as their teacher.

End of the Year Math Escape Room

My Advice to Next Year's Students Activity

Free math resource library

Free Slope Word Cloud Classroom Poster

There are so many different ways to express slope. From constant of proportionality to rate of change to unit rate. I wanted to make a poster to help students make connections between all of the different ways they will see slope described as they move from middle school to high school.

The poster includes the math vocabulary:

• Slope
• Rise/run
• Rate of change
• Gradient
• Delta Y over delta X
• Constant of proportionality
• Speed
• Unit rate
• m=
• k=

There's a color version (shown above), and also a black and white version, if you'd rather your own color scheme. 

The poster is a free download here in my TPT: Slope Word Cloud Poster

If you'd like to enlarge it or any other PDF on your home or school printer, there are simple directions for enlarging any PDF here.

Fun Slope Activity Ideas

Inverse Operations Classroom Poster

Here's a super simple poster to help students remember inverse operations when solving equations in algebra. There are 4 variations of the poster so that you can use the one that matches your curriculum's notation.

Spring Logic Picture Puzzles Digital Math Escape Room

I just finished working on a new spring math picture puzzles escape room that comes as a no-prep, self-checking Google Form and as a printable PDF. 

This math escape room is a perfect spring-themed math activity that requires no prep and no grading. Students can't move to the next puzzle until successfully entering a puzzle's 4-letter code, so you will know who did -- and who didn't -- break out!

Students add, subtract, multiply and divide to figure out the values of spring pictures. It's a fun brain break, filler activity for after testing, PEMDAS review, or can be left with a sub on a day you won't be at school.

An answer sheet and graphic organizer are included to help students keep track of each picture's value. An answer key is also included. 

Spring Math Picture Puzzles Escape Room

You can find the spring math escape room here:  Spring math picture puzzles escape room 

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