Lines Task Cards

Our geometry unit started right after our unit on long division. I had about half of my students who had mastered long division and were ready to move on at the end of the unit. However, the other half still needed some more practice. Our district pacing is pretty set because of the amount of material the state expects us to cover before state testing in April. So I felt the need to move on to geometry, but still needed to work with my students on division.

This led me to the development of task cards. I created different task cards for some of the main topics in our geometry unit. I'm going to focus on the tasks for lines in this post. The way I structured this unit was that the students were all given the same task card to start with. While they were working independently, I was able to pull small groups to reteach division. We spent about a week working on the different task cards. This gave me enough time to help my students reach mastery with division. Some of my more struggling students did not complete all of the task cards because they spent more time working in small groups with me on division. 

Must Do Activities:

Their task card included two must do activities. Every student had to do both of these activities. The first must do was to watch a video that I created using the show me app. This video went over the important vocabulary that they needed to know about lines. This was the direct teach portion of the activity. 

Here is the video:

The second must do activity was to create a foldable for the vocabulary. We do a lot of foldables in my class, so the kids are pretty quick at making them. They had a flap for each vocabulary word and inside the flap they put a definition and a picture. They could use their math textbook as a reference material. When they were finished, they glued their foldables into their math journals.

Can Do Activities

There were 4 choices for "can do" activities. The kids had to pick 2. I tried to come up with activities that appealed to different interests and strengths. Their choices were: 

• Use pipe cleaners to make examples of parallel, perpendicular & intersecting lines. They glued them down on paper and labeled each example. 
• Create their own instructional video using an ipad. They had to explain the different types of lines and how they are different from one another. Some kids used a screen capturing app (like my example in ShowMe) while other kids chose to make an iMovie. They had freedom in choosing which app to create their video in. 
• Complete practice problems on Khan Academy. 
• Draw a map of a town with intersecting, parallel and perpendicular streets. They had to include an explanation of their types of streets. 

Assessment

The last part of the task card was the assessment piece. For this they had 5 different word problems to answer about lines. The assessment piece allowed me to see if they were able to apply their knowledge to word problems. It also gave me data on which students needed additional instruction with me. 

Reflection

I loved this activity. Not only were the kids extremely engaged, but I loved seeing their creativity in the different ways they demonstrated their knowledge. I saw so many kids referring back to their foldables and rewatching the video to ensure they had the content correct. When I wasn't working with a small group, I was walking around talking with kids about their work, answering questions and clearing up any misconceptions. 

After our geometry unit we took a district assessment and 100% of my kids correctly answered the questions over lines! I was amazed at how much learning took place.