Math: Common Core Craziness!

Feeling overwhelmed with the new Common Core? I know how you feel! That was me at the end of the 2012 - 2013 school year. My solution? It was time to look into each standard and create my OWN worksheets. The only way I could understand what I was told to teach was to create it myself. It reminds me of the old Chinese proverb, "Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand."

Enter the website for TeachersPayTeachers. I had been a buying member for quite a while. There are so many talented educators across the world that I was excited to learn from. After creating my version of the 3rd grade math standards, my colleague (Catdogteaches) told me I should try selling it on TpT. I laughed, thinking, "Who would want my stuff?" (I've been told by many others at my school, that's their first thought about posting their "stuff," too!) I mulled it over in my mind and decided it was a win-win situation. Either, A.: No one would buy it- perfectly fine as I made it for myself to begin with, or B.: I could help other educators who were baffled by the change in our standards. Struggling teachers helping other struggling teachers can't hurt!

So, I did it. My first sell-able item ended up being my most popular item. 
 

Download it here

I'm still amazed at how many teachers are in need of something to help them teach these standards and decide to use what I created. I started with my 3rd grade math worksheets and used them with my students at the end of the year. Through working with them, I found it would be helpful to use something as a pre- or post-test to see how much they knew before and after I taught the lessons. This led to another creation: 3rd grade pre- and post- tests for each standard. 

Download it here

I didn't get to use these as much last year since the school year was nearly over by the time I had completed them. From what I did see, my kids last year were ALWAYS thrilled to see their progress. Even if they took the pretest on Monday, and then post-tested on Thursday, there were still improvements. Students graphed their own results and laughed at their initial score. I quickly found them excited to take the next pretest so they could see how much they learned after our lessons. I can't wait to use them for a full year with my new group of learners!

These creations led to other common core creations I needed for my classroom:

Download it here

Download it here

Download it here

Want to see how I organized all of this stuff? Check it out in my blog here! Hopefully you found something to help you through this change in education!

Happy teaching,
Amber