Math Racers Revisited

Ahhhh! Where does the time go!???!?! I have so many things I want to post about and share, but not enough time in the day to get there! Eeeeek! Needless to say I am so excited for Christmas vacation coming up!!! So excited!!! 

Congratulations to Lori & Karyn! They were the winners of the Holiday Party Pack! 

A while back, I posted about the Math Racers my students do everyday in class to practice math fact fluency. You can read about it HERE! It's a quick process, taking less than 5 minutes each day. The kids love it, and are really motivated by it! Kids start on their addition +1s and as they pass, move through all of their addition facts, their doubles, doubles plus one, mixed addition, and then on to subtraction. I even have some kids who have made it all the way to their multiplication facts and it's not even Christmas break yet!!!

My hubby used to I used to collect every single student's math racer every single day, correct every single one, and staple a new one on top for the next day. This not only took me a lot of time (when I could have been watching reality TV at home ;), but it was also kind of a waste of paper (however this really did work for me the first three years of doing math racers!).

Over the summer, I gave my Math Racers a little make over and posted them on TPT. I printed out the answer keys, laminated them, and used a binder ring to connect them together...

And we had an idea!!!

Why not create a ring for EACH student!?!?! So....I printed and laminated (I heart my laminator!) a class set of math racers. Each student started off the year with Addition +1s on their ring. Since they're laminated, the kids are able to use a dry erase marker on them:

{ And there's even an eraser on top!!! And they were pretty inexpensive- 6 markers for $4.00- from Target! We're still using the ones I started the year off with in September, so they've endured 27 second graders thus far!!! }

Kids write their answers each day on their math racer with a marker. After the minute and 30 seconds is up, ONLY the students who think they passed (answered ALL of the math facts correctly) turn them in to me to the basket on the right.

This has cut my grading in HALF (because not every student passes every day!!!). The kids who did not finish, simply erase their answers and hang them on their hook and they are ready to try again tomorrow (without wasting ANY paper!!!).

I drilled little hooks into the kids desks, and that's where they keep their math racers!

A wonderful friend created this for me to hold all of the laminated math racers:

That way, when a kiddo does pass, I can quickly and easily find the next math racer, hand it to the kid, and they hook it onto their ring!

If a student passes all of their addition facts, I give them two of these:

(one to take home and hang on the fridge and one to attach to their math racer ring.) Then I collect all of their addition math racers from their ring, erase them all- so they're ready for the next user, and they start on subtraction -1s!

I love this new system because:

1. I am only grading the students who passed- not every single one!
2. After I printed off the class set of math racers and laminated them, there is NO prep or copies for me!
3. We're wasting much less paper!
4. The kids are more in charge of it them I am!
5. It just makes sense to me! :-) 

If you're interested in checking out my math racers, click the picture to take you over to TPT!

Also, if you've already purchased the addition or subtraction math racers, make sure to redownload it because I added a few things to the file!

Thank goodness the weekend is almost here!!!!! Have a great one!