Have you heard of Learning Paths yet? They are a MUST HAVE for distance learning! They will take your students from the mini lesson stage all the way to mastery of a skill. If you would like to learn more specifically about what they are, you can read The Learning Path – Mini Lesson to Mastery blog post HERE!
If you haven’t heard of learning paths, I’ll bet you can at least notice some trends we’ve been having this school year. Teachers Pay Teachers even blogged about it! I was absolutely fascinated about the newest trends from October! 30% of teachers said they were having trouble delivering engaging content to their students! When teachers were asked what they used to engage students, they discussed an array of tools.
Well guess what guys? That is EXACTLY what a Learning Path is! But don’t let me keep talking about it, check it out for yourself so you and your students can experience exactly how powerful and engaging they can be! Here I’ll talk about the latest path I’ve created to help students master the skill of subtraction within 10.
The Learning Path Components
Each Learning Path, no matter the skill, contains the same components. They include a mini lesson, various ENGAGING learning activities for practice, and assessments. There’s also an optional read aloud piece because who doesn’t love literature and want their students being exposed to as many books as possible?! I say that piece is optional because if you feel emboldened to take on creating a path yourself, I also have an editable template for you! Here you can take the greatness of the learning path, add to it your teaching style and you can house all the specific pieces of your students’ learning.
Mini Lesson
Starting with a mini lesson provides students with just the right amount of background knowledge and new content for students to understand and interact with. Here you can record and insert your own mini lesson, link a video, or simply use the mini lesson I’ve recorded for you and your students. In this video, I use various strategies for students to utilize when subtracting, such as a math mountains, number lines, and ten frames. There’s even time inserted in the video to allow for practice while learning. I keep it short for students to retain their attention and fill their toolbox with TONS of strategies! Check out more below by clicking the picture!
Learning Activities
The learning path provides your classroom with student choice. After their mini lesson, whatever practice activity students choose to interact with the skills is up to them! I LOVE creating engaging digital activities where students can have choice and FUN while practicing the skill being taught.
While working to master subtraction within 10, your students will have the choice to go on a safari adventure, playing a dice game, or have fun with some engaging task cards. No matter what activity they choose, it’s sure to spruce up your student’s subtraction skills! In addition to ensuring these activities are super interactive, I also make sure to include voice directions for students to gain independence.
Your students can go on their own safari adventure collecting clues to solve a riddle. Not only will your students LOVE being detectives, but the activities included in the adventure give your students TONS of practice with subtraction in engaging and higher level thinking ways. Take a look below at some of the different types of questions students will experience.
The next activity is super simple but TONS of fun! What kid doesn’t love rolling dice? Add some dice to anything and you have yourself ENGAGEMENT! This roll and cover is a fun way to practice subtraction with an easy to use game! You can also grab this for FREE when you subscribe!
Task cards are a GREAT way for students to practice a skill in different ways with all the tools they’ve learned. These DIGITAL task cards allow students to practice all the subtraction strategies they’ve learned. Question types they’ll encounter is all about differentiation with questions that include number lines, fingers, ten frames, and more! Look below at just a few of the ways students will practice subtraction. They will use manipulatives and strategies to help them understand subtraction in a multitude of different ways.
Need a bit more flexibility? You got it! The best part of the learning path, you can use all or some of the activities! It is completely up to you and what you want your students to do! Have activities you already love? No problem. You can link them into the path for students to use. Want them to just do one activity at a time? You hold the power! You have access to ALL the activities but you can push them out to students individually. The learning path is a GREAT way to house all your student’s learning needs and allows for flexibility while teaching… even at a distance. And those struggling kiddos who need more help? The path has got them covered too. They have access to that mini lesson at ALL times so they can go back and review as many times as they need!
Read Aloud
Confession: I’m a lover of books. I believe kids should be able to read all the time, not just during reading! I love finding different texts to support skills being taught… especially in math. For this path I have included a subtraction story read aloud for students to access. It is a simple link to a Youtube read aloud. Get those kids in front of a book! You could even record yourself reading a book and link it if you want. With the flexibility of the learning path, you can choose a different read aloud or none at all! It’s completely up to you!
Assessment
As educators, we know EXACTLY how important assessments are and how they help guide our instruction. I have been LOVING using Google Forms for digital assessments! They are an easy, quick way to assess exactly what the students learned from our instruction and where we need to go next. Below you’ll see some of the different question types students will experience in their assessment on subtraction. You’ll also notice how aligned the mini lesson and activities are to the assessment so that students are not “tricked”. This gives the assessment more validity and we can really ascertain exactly what they have learned. Want to learn more about digital assessments? Check out this blog post HERE about how to create your own!
SAVE YOU SOME TIME!
As educators, we NEVER have enough time. Let ME save YOU some time! I am creating these paths to help educators with distance learning. This year is TOUGH to say the least! I am working hard to create a fun and engaging way for students to practice skills. These don’t have to be used only with distance learning, these can easily be pushed out to students in the classroom too. They can be used for remediation of a skill or an extension! I love how versatile they are and all the different ways they can be utilized! Take a look below at The Subtraction Within 10 Learning Path!
I hope you enjoyed learning about all the AMAZING features of the Subtraction Within 10 Learning Path! Don’t forget to subscribe to my email list! Not only will you get the most up to date tips, tricks, and classroom projects… and of course more fun FREEBIES including the Digital Roll and Cover FREEBIE! But you will also have exclusive access to tons of digital how to videos! If you would like to learn about this and other things happening in my classroom follow me @sweetnsauerfirsties on Instagram.
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