Scoot! for 4.NBT.1

I don’t know about you but my math block is after lunch and for some reason after lunch most of my energy is spent trying to gain my student’s attention. One day I even resorted to doing a ridiculous walk around the room as I was talking. When one student said, “Mrs. Miller, why are you walking like that?”, I replied “Because it’s working, you’re all looking at me!”

I love the idea of scoot because it allows students to get up, move, and talk collaborate. (This is the game where there are different task cards at each student’s seat. Students are given an allotted amount of time to complete a task card at their seat until a signal is given when they “scoot” to the next person’s seat. I don’t know about your class, but mine is enormous. I find having that many fourth graders trying to move at once to be a little too chaotic in my small room. Mini Scoot is the same principle, but it allows the scooting to happen at a table or row instead of the whole room. In my mind it is more manageable.

I made my own version to go along with standard 4.NBT.1 from the Common Core. The thing I like about this version is the built in collaboration and group discussion piece.It  gives students a ready-made group where they can discuss their findings and make corrections to mistakes.  After the students complete all of the rotations they meet as a group to go over their answers. There is a box at the bottom of the task to say if your group agreed with your answer or did not. If they did not agree students are instructed to discuss how they got their answer and vote on the most likely answer.This step offers students immediate feedback on their mathematical thinking and a chance to collaborate, which is a common core standard!  After this step we come back together as a whole class and review our answers to make sure everyone arrived at the correct answer and address any misconceptions.

I also included a practice page so students can get used to the problem format before playing scoot. I did this one as a whole class so we could talk about strategies together. It worked so well as an engaging way to practice that I’m going to create more packets for the other standards!

Do you have a good way to keep students engaged and having fun during math? I’d love to hear about it!

Check it out on TPT!