What does every coach or personal trainer say you have you do before a workout? A warm-up, right? A warm-up before you work out gets your cardiovascular system revved up and increases your blood flow, which helps provide the initial increased oxygen to your system and in turn makes your body more efficient during the actual workout. Fascinating stuff, huh!?

The same idea goes for your students as you transition to your math lesson for the day. Math warm-ups are necessary to get your students thinking about math and prepared for the great lesson you have in store for them.

Now I don’t know about you, but whenever I work out, doing the same warm-up can become a bit tedious and boring. Same goes for your kiddos. So as a result, whenever I am planning a lesson (be sure to check out my most popular post, 4 Factors to Consider When Planning a Lesson), I prefer to provide different math warm-up activities for my students each day of the week. You might be asking, what about routine? The students in my class know that we ALWAYS do a math warm-up. They expect it. However, they never know which TYPE they might get, and I do my best to make them engaging activities for students as well. I will sometimes hear my students say, “Oh I like these ones,” or, “These are fun.” I would much rather hear that then the sigh from students when they get the same thing over and over again. Routines are absolutely necessary, but you can definitely add diversity within a routine to keep it interesting and engage the students in your classroom!

Now let’s get to the good stuff…here’s 7 Math Warm-up Activities for you to try in your classroom!

One:

ERROR ANALYSIS PROBLEMS

Two Truths and a Lie Math Problems — Do remember the *Where’s Waldo* books as a kid? You had to find the real Waldo among all of the other “fake” Waldos, and we would take forever searching those pages until we were successful? Kids just love finding things! Error analysis problems are just that.
One way of doing this is with Two Truths and Lie math problems. You may have played this game during a staff meeting as an ice breaker, but this is applied to math in a fun and engaging way. Students are provided multiple choice math problems with three possible answers…two are true and one is a lie. If you want more information on this type of math warm-up, click **HERE**.

Another version of error analysis is where students are provided a problem that has an error. They have to find what the error actually is AND then be able to explain it. Talk about some deep thinking there.

Two:

COLLABORATIVE MATH PROBLEMS

Math Challenge Problems — Deepen student understanding, increase problem-solving capabilities, engage the students in learning, improve student communication skills…
The list goes on and on to the benefits of academic discourse in the classroom, and kids just ENJOY it!

I love providing students with challenge math problems to get them thinking about math and then have them discuss. With open-ended questions like the ones in these **Math Problems Challenge** students can have a variety of answers, creating the potential of even richer discussions in the classroom.

Three:

WORD PROBLEMS

Students are presented with word problems just about every day. The question is how is it being presented?

Let me give you a scenario: A class has been working on multiplying whole numbers and are then given a story problem to apply the skill. This is great, students need to see the application of these operations. Then you notice the students just go through the motions of multiplying the numbers, barely reading the question because they know they have been working on multiplication all week. I bet you have experienced this before! I know I have!

Word problem application is where many students struggle the most. Not only do they have to know the operations, but they have to comprehend what the question is asking them to do, followed by taking the proper steps. In some cases, they experience working on those real-world applications only when they are working on the related content. To help overcome this, during their warm-up I will often give students a random story problem. This ends up being their content review and as a result also practicing the steps in dissecting a word problem. Talk about hitting two birds with one stone!

Four:

MATH JOURNAL PROMPTS

Writing Prompts for Math — More and more these days students need to be able to express in words their thinking process of math. Although it provides a clearer understanding of content, writing about math can be challenging task for many students, especially if writing alone is already a struggle. So why not practice this skill during a warm-up with math writing activities?

Provide students with math journal prompts to get them writing. Have them write about the methods they prefer, possible misconceptions, the how and why, etc. If you are you looking for some writing prompts for math, check these out **HERE**.

Five:

FACT FLUENCY

We all know students need to know their facts to make their lives (and ours) MUCH easier as they progress through their knowledge of all operations. However, so many students just STRUGGLE to memorize their facts. I’m going to let you on a little secret, I was one of those kids. As a result, I had to learn strategies to help access that fact family that I didn’t have down yet, usually utilizing my knowledge of the other fact families to get there. Still, I couldn’t pass my minute fact drills and working through multiplication and division problems just took me longer. However, the more I practiced my facts, I did get better over time.

My point? Continue to practice math facts with your students even if it isn’t in their standards any longer. Practice with flashcards, memory games, card games, multiplication chart sprints…the possibilities are endless. If they are engaging activities for students, students will love doing them and any of these can be done during a math warm-up. Get their brains warmed up with the facts they will need to be successful in the content they are expected to master in your classroom this year!

Six:

SPIRAL REVIEW

Along the lines of reviewing word problems as content review, there are many ways to review content with students. Reviewing content is a part of what makes it stick. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard students say, “How do I do this again?” By providing quick math warm-up activities that review this content, students won’t have to relearn the skills. Some of your district adopted programs may already do this for you. However, if your curriculum has students just go through each content area and move on, you need to give students opportunities to review.

Now you already know that I don’t like giving students the same warm-up each day, and that’s what a lot of spiral review worksheets do. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are great and awesome products! However, in this case I prefer to give students a quick problem and then we review the process as a think-pair-share or quick discussion.

*A quick side note that I have to mention before moving on: When planning a lesson, remember that making connections to prior learning within your lesson plan will be WAY more impactful than any isolated review. So, don’t just stop at warm-up time with review.