Math Sprints Blackline Master is a series of 5 books for classroom use.
The Singapore Math curriculum stresses the use of mental
math. These sprint books are written with that in mind and are useful to all
elementary teachers interested in developing mental math fluency in their
children.
The section below explains how to give a sprint. You will
see that students are racing to beat their own scores each time they take one
of these tests. In the excitement of the sprint, applause is given to the
student who gets the most problems correct on the first half, and to the
student who improves the most on the second half. This applause, is, of course,
well-meaning. But what about those students who rarely, if ever, receive
applause? How can we keep them motivated to take the sprints when the same few
children are always receiving the applause? Equally important is another
concern: how do we keep the strongest math students challenged taking sprints
with their classmates?
This book is written to address these concerns. Each sprint
is differentiated. The A sheet of each half of the sprint is for the majority
of the class. The B sheet is for the strongest students. If you look closely at
the A and B sheets of each sprint, the answers to the problems are the same.
Many of the problems on the B sheets, however, require more mental calculation.
These sprints will allow access to the excitement of sprints for all of your
students.
If you teach in a fairly homogeneous classroom, using
differentiated sprints is not important. In that case, use the A versions of
both halves for one sprint for all of your students, and perhaps, later in the
year, use the B versions. Bonus…this will give you double the number of
sprints!
Generally speaking, sprints are used in the classroom two to
three times per week. Once a teacher becomes experienced administering a
sprint, the entire process, start to finish, should take about 10 minutes. You
can re-use sprints. For example, if you give sprint 305 one week, you can give
it again a couple of weeks later. The students will not remember it.
You may want to buy a sprint book at a grade below the level
you teach so that students get used to taking sprints and feel very successful
with them. Particularly if their mental math fluency is not where it should be,
you can help them build it gradually by starting at a lower grade level.
Above is extracted from the preface of Math Sprints Blackline Master.
Answers are after each set of sprints.
Instructions on "How to Give a Sprint" are included in this black-line master.
This black-line master is not a teaching book and does NOT provide instruction on mental math strategies.
This
black-line master is for classroom setting. A workbook version (with
identical sprints) is available for home or tutorial situations.
