Are you addicted to Task Cards yet?

 Kill and Drill..... I was asked if I believed in kill and drill in math class.  My instant reaction was "No of course not"  I know that this is the evil in math classes.  But when I thought about it and I admit had sleepless nights pondering this.  I do not believe in mindless worksheets and do the same style problem over and over.  BUT  and this is a BIG BUT I do believe that working problems until you have the basics down is critical.  You can not have critical thinking problems unless students have the basics of that topic in math.

The question is how do you get students to complete multiple basic problems?  Enter TASK CARDS.  These can be used with any style questions but I have been using them when I want students to really practice basic problems.  The students love them because they get to choose their grade.  There are 40 cards and this is the grading system I use.

The students LOVE that they get to choose their grade.  I love that most of my students made the CHOICE do try for a 100.  That means they did 40 problems in less than 45 minutes.  Think about this what would happen if I had given them a 40 problem worksheet? These are the task cards for this day...

These are basic "naked math" questions but before we can do critical thinking they have to be able to do them.  Here is how I am using task cards...

• Students work in pairs 
• They can choose the grade that they want.
• Students complete the problem on white boards and then bring it to me to see if they are correct.  If they are correct GREAT they get the credit.  If there is a mistake the student has 2 choices.  1) go back and correct the question and if correct they still get credit.  OR  I will explain it but the card does not count.
• I have done these multiple times and it is ALWAYS amazing.  The students speak math, fully engaged, and LOTS OF PRACTICE.

This is a WIN-WIN for me in the classroom.  

Check out my TpT for a free set of these.  EducatorJennTPT