One of the challenges we all face in the classroom is finding activities for students who finish early. This is an important topic because we know what happens when kids end up with extra time in class with nothing to do! If students are getting bored, they can find all kinds of ways to get themselves into trouble. In this article you will find 37 free early finisher worksheets that will engage students in mathematical learning.

It is unfortunate that in the United States mathematics has a reputation for being dry and uninteresting. I hear this more from adults than I do from children—in fact, I find that children are naturally curious about how math works and how it relates to the world around them. It is from adults that they get the idea that math is dry, boring, and unrelated to their lives. Despite what children may or may not hear about math, I focus on making instruction exciting and showing my students that math applicable to their lives.

One of the most challenging Grade 8 math topics to teach is systems of equations. Activity-based lessons are one way to go when you are trying to teach students; I also like to use online videos. But the most helpful thing I can share with you from my experience is the template that I have developed in order to help students solve a systems of equations activity using the substitution method.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes my students have trouble telling how many times greater one thing is than another. They usually misread the problem and tell me how much bigger something is (by subtracting), rather than how many times greater. Today’s Populations Place Value Activity uses the idea of place value to help students get used to the idea of telling the factor—or how many times greater—one country’s population is than another’s. This place value activity would be appropriate for Grades 5 to 8.

I am so glad that you found this math blog among all the possible sites you might have landed on through the Internet, and I hope you keep with me as I continue to develop the blog. What you will find here is a collection of standards-based math activities, thoughts on lesson planning, trends in K–­­8 mathematics teaching and learning, a focus on the mathematical practice standards, and connections to children’s literature that can be paired with math lessons.