Recommended Websites
As teachers, we are always on the lookout for websites that help make teaching easier so we can focus our efforts on helping our students learn. Here is a collection of helpful websites I have found and used in my classroom over the years.
ACT Prep Materials
Check out this set of 180 FREE 3-question ACT warm-ups in the form of a PDF workbook.
Here’s more info from the workbook:
Each set of questions is formatted nicely to be able to print and give students as a workbook or project on the SMARTBoard. You could even use the snipping tool to insert these directly into your file!
A preview of the first two warm-ups:
At the end of the file, they even give you answers. 🙂
Download this pdf for free from LSU’s website.
Algebra Games from Jon Oaks
Jon Oaks, a math professor in Wisconsin, has an amazing collection of printable math games on his website! It’s definitely worth browsing.
Flashcard Generator
I frequently use this nifty flashcard making website. The site itself is sort of plain looking, but it makes great looking flash cards.
Start by typing in your questions and answers. You can also import them, but I’ve never tried this. Once you’ve typed everything in, click PDF.
You get plenty of options to customize your printed flash cards.
If you print them one-sided, they print with the question to the left of the answer. Just fold them in half. If you duplex them, they print with the answer on the back and the question on the front. Students just have to cut them out and study.
I used this site to make some integer operations flash cards that I used as part of my action research project I completed as part of my master’s degree.
Mathematical Clipart
This is one of those websites that I assume that everyone already knows about. But, I have a feeling that’s not actually the case. I use this site at least once a week.
I was super excited when I found the ClipArt ETC site from the Education Technology Clearinghouse. The site currently features 66,902 pieces of free educational clipart. The site license allows you to use up to 50 images in any non-commercial project without asking for permission. I can’t think of any time I’ve ever used anywhere close to 50 pieces of clipart in a project, so I never have to worry about asking for permission.
Plus, the clipart is super high quality. And, each image comes in three different sizes. Here’s the direct link to the math clipart section.
My most frequently used clipart pages:
Coordinate Grids
Blank Gridpaper
Number Lines
Blank Trigonometry Grids
If I taught geometry, I would definitely be using the angles, geometric shapes, geometric solids, lines, and planes pages all of the time!
Penny Dell Puzzles
Okay. If you’ve been reading my blog recently, you know I LOVE logic puzzles. Today, I want to share with you one of my favorite sources for logic puzzles. This is where I go when I want to find logic puzzles to solve personally. But, I’ve also used this site in the classroom.
Just last week, I challenged my students with a fill-in puzzle and a What’s Left? puzzle. (For the record, the fill-in puzzle was a HUGE hit which really surprised me. And, the What’s Left? puzzle really challenged my students and made the practice their instruction reading skills. The vocab was a bit challenging for my students, though.) These puzzles are both sample puzzles from Penny Dell Puzzles. Of course, the goal of Penny Dell Puzzles is to sell you puzzles. But, they also provide free puzzles to download each day as a PDF file!
Every single day, they post two free crosswords, two free variety puzzles, and one free sudoku. These are high quality PDFs! If you create a free account, they will let you download thirty days worth of puzzles. Five puzzles X Thirty Days = 150 free puzzles. I don’t know about you, but that’s more than enough puzzles to keep me occupied in those rare moments when I actually have time to work a puzzle! Access these in the Daily Puzzle section.
There are more puzzling goodies available under the Sample Puzzles tab. These puzzles don’t change on a daily basis, but this is great if you’re looking for a certain type of puzzle.
Other resources on this site:
PDF instructions for solving various types of puzzles – sudoku, kenken, kakuro, logic puzzles, etc.
Hope you find something useful for your classroom!
Problem Attic
This website is called Problem Attic, and it is exactly what it sounds like. It’s an “attic” full of old test questions. The test questions are taken from banks of standardized tests for a bunch of different states. I think the site started as a repository for New York Regents exams, but it’s expanded to many other states, too. Sadly, the test questions for Oklahoma are behind a paywall. Though, it’s not the end of the world because I know how to access the released test items from the state of Oklahoma’s website. Most of the site’s resources are free for the taking. I think you should definitely take a little time to explore! If standardized test prep questions aren’t up your alley, there are also math competition questions that would provide your students with quite a challenge!
Plus, there are more than just math questions, too! The questions are pre-sorted by topic, so it makes it easy to find the type of question you are looking for. Since I don’t use textbooks, I don’t have a test bank access when writing assessments.
As a beginning teacher, this site saved my life numerous times. Writing good quality multiple choice questions is time consuming. It’s so nice to be able to just pull up a list of questions and choose the ones that fit what you are looking for.
The site gives you tons of options for formatting your document to look nice and pretty.
Here’s what one of my test reviews ended up looking like:
