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Empowering Back-to-School Strategies to Inspire Math Enthusiasm in the Classroom

Welcome back, teachers! As we step into a new school year, it's' the perfect opportunity to infuse fresh energy into your classroom. We're excited to share innovative strategies that will ignite your students' curiosity and foster a love for math learning.

We've compiled a collection of effective approaches to make math come alive for your students. From practical tips to inspiring resources, we're here to support you in creating an engaging and dynamic math learning environment.

Create a Math-Friendly Classroom Environment

Setting up a math-friendly classroom is essential to engage students in math learning from day one. Here are some tips to make your room a mathematical haven:

  1. Create a Math Corner: Dedicate a specific area in your classroom as a math corner, adorned with interactive posters, charts, and manipulatives to spark curiosity.
  2. Visible Math Anchor Charts: Display math anchor charts, number lines, and student work related to math concepts discussed to build a visual reference for students.
  3. Math Tools and Manipulatives: Ensure that math manipulatives are easily accessible to students, such as counters, cubes, and calculators, reinforcing hands-on learning.

Need more ideas? Hop on over to Big Ideas Learning and learn how to create a math-rich environment.  

Play ST Math! 

It wouldn’t be a complete list if we didn’t mention ST Math! As an innovative visual instructional math program that aids in conceptual understanding and problem solving, ST Math provides students with interactive, game-based learning experiences that ignite a passion for mathematics. Check out some of the resources we’re offering:

  1. Build an ST Math Bulletin Board: Need inspiration for a bulletin board in your classroom? Check out our bulletin board resources for creative ideas to celebrate your students' growth and success—or hop on over to the JiJi store to grab a JiJi Bulletin Board your entire class will enjoy! 
  2. Motivate Student Progress with JiJi Brag Tags: And if you’re creating a bulletin board, why not check out our JiJi brag tags! JiJi has a backpack full of brag tags to encourage your students’ progress towards mathematical success.
  3. Design Your Own ST Math Usage Challenge: Visit our Six-Step Guide to Design Your Own ST Math Usage Challenge, which provides resources and ideas to help you create customized math challenges to engage students and build excitement around math!
  4. ST Math Schedules and Stations: Looking for more ways to embed ST Math into your daily and weekly class routines? We're offering an organizational template to help you seamlessly integrate ST Math into your teaching schedule. From weekly schedules to alternative math blocks, you can create personalized learning schedules for all of your students. 
  5. ST Math Weekly Goals: ST Math contains tens of thousands of puzzles. To ensure that students problem-solve all year and to cover the critical areas of their grade level, try these recommended weekly goals!

And don’t forget, we have some brand new ST Math enhancements that’ll empower your classroom like never before! 

Turn Math Lessons into a Game! 

Integrating games in your math lessons promotes an enjoyable learning experience while reinforcing conceptual understanding. Here are just a few ways to gamify your classroom:

  1. Math Jeopardy: Divide the class into teams and create a jeopardy-style game with math questions of varying difficulty levels. You can use ST Math puzzles as inspiration for questions!
  2. Escape Room Math: Design a math-focused escape room challenge (or visit Room Escape Maker), where students must solve math problems to unlock clues and progress through the activity.
  3. Math Olympics: Organize friendly math competitions among students, complete with medals and rewards for their accomplishments. Include ST Math games as part of the competition!

Starting the school year with a strong focus on math engagement can set the stage for a successful academic journey for your students. By fostering a math-friendly environment, utilizing the fun and engaging resources we’ve provided, and incorporating exciting strategies like gamifying your classroom, you’ll pave the way for your students to excel in mathematics.

Let's make this back-to-school season a memorable one, filled with passion, excitement, and joyful math learning. Here's to a successful back-to-school season where we set the stage for a whole year of kids who embrace math and confidently believe they are math people! May this academic year be filled with endless possibilities for learning and growth.

Happy back-to-school planning!


Need more math inspiration? Explore our newly revamped MIND on MA+H blog and check out our Rethinking Math Education blog series as we explore a new way of learning math, where understanding takes precedence, and every student can see themselves as “a math person”. 

Victor Nguyen

About the Author

Victor Nguyen is MIND’s Content and Community Specialist. Victor is a passionate storyteller with a penchant for creative writing. In his free time, you can find him engrossed in books, going on long hikes, or trying to meditate.

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