Fact Fanatic- How Do YOU Get One?

I have spent the last few years working on a multi-county team of Kindergarten through 12th grade teachers working on the Common Core math standards.  We have spent countless hours digging in to the standards to get the best possible picture of what each and every one expects the students to know and be able to do.  What an eye-opening experience!  When you really start looking, you start to notice all of the Common Core's different verbs:  demonstrate, distinguish, identify, compose, describe, and the list goes on and on. Knowing what student work needs to look like by demonstrating vs. distinguishing, for example, really gives you a clearer picture of how you should be teaching the standard.

 After immersing ourselves in the standards, we began to develop clarifying document sheets for each of them.  Each sheet lists the standard, highlights the vocabulary, lists the "I can" statements involved, and details the Mathematical Practices, the Depth of Knowledge (DOK) level, and examples of what the standard looks like.  You can actually see those documents here.  I have spent so many hours with my first grade group, and we have had so many great discussions.  Perhaps the most lengthy and [maybe] heated discussions revolved around the word "fluency".  What pops into your head when you hear this word in terms of mathematics?  For some of us it involved a time frame.  Kids should know how to solve _____ problems in _____ minutes. For others it meant solving the problem with ease. I don't care how long it takes them, I just want to see some type of strategy.   I am so curious to hear about your thoughts!

Regardless of which "fluency team" you're on, chances are you would really like it if your students practiced math facts more frequently.  I took a quick peek at the standards, and realized that Kindergarten through third grade all have specific fluency standards (This really was a quick peek; there are probably more grade levels with specific fluency standards):

Kindergarten: http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/K/OA/A/5/

First Grade:    http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/1/OA/C/6/

Second Grade: http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/2/OA/B/2/

Third Grade: http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/3/NBT/A/2/

I created this sheet to send home with my first graders.  You can get it for FREE today at my TpT Store if you like it.  

I just started this last year, and it really seemed to help.  I know that some parents are extremely uncomfortable and/or intimidated by some of the things we ask them to do at home, but I have found that math fact practice is something that most parents feel comfortable with.  This year I want to make it even better, and I'm looking for your help.  If you or your school uses some type of incentive slip for math fact practice, do you have any advice?  How do you make it powerful?

Enjoy your day!  My first official day of school is on Monday, so I'm trying to enjoy every last minute of sitting in my jammies and drinking coffee until way too late in the morning...or afternoon (only sometimes- don't judge me).

By the way, our Common Core team was named "Hair on Fire" from the very beginning.  The core developers of the team brought up the book, Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire:  The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56 by Rafe Esquith, and the name of our team was born.  This quote is perfect...

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

William Butler Yeats