Which animal is best for you—a dog or cat? Why? Engage third graders in an opinion writing assessment that prompts them to read facts about both pets, and then write and decide which pet is best for them.

Get third graders excited to work find area and perimeter of unit squares, rectangles, and irregular shapes. A 36-page packet comes with task cards, graphic organizers, practice worksheets, printables with squares, exit tickets, and word...

Challenge your class to construct a definition for trapezoids. Looking at four examples and four non-examples, students individually create definitions and use them to classify an unknown shape. Allow for small group and whole-class...

Visual models are excellent teaching tools when explaining equivalent fractions. Looking at a rectangle cut into twelfths, students first identify the shaded fraction, and then explain whether the fraction is equal to one-fourth....

Increase the depth of your class's fractional number sense with this number-ordering activity. Given four fractions, each with different numerators and denominators, young learners are asked to place them in order from smallest to...

A simple question, with a not-so-simple answer. Working with whole and mixed number measurements in inches, feet, and yards presents a problem with many possible solutions. A great activity that challenges the minds of young...

Can you find the line of symmetry? That's what your students will demonstrate by completing this worksheet. The task gets increasingly difficult as shapes are included that have one line of symmetry, no lines of symmetry, and multiple...

Use the alphabet as a tool for teaching your class about geometric figures. Break apart capital letters into line segments and arcs. Classify angles as right, acute, or obtuse. Identify parallel and perpendicular lines. An excellent...

Mrs. Moore's class is trying to earn money for a trip to the science museum, but how much more do they need? Solve this problem with your own class as they develop their ability to model real-life situations algebraically. As an added...

Help your class discover the commutative property of addition with this exploration of the addition table. By folding and coloring the table, a symmetry is found that directs students to an understanding of this crucial mathematical...

It's a snow day, and two brothers attending schools with different schedules each got a late start to the day. But who had the shorter school day? That's what your class will find out as they apply their knowledge of fractions to this...

An excellent activity that effectively pulls together the concepts of area, fractions, and equivalent fractions! Using 3x2 rectangular arrays, 3rd graders are introduced to the concept of area in terms of square units. Building on this...

An excellent lesson that encourages students to discover how complex figures can be broken into simpler shapes when measuring area. Working with block letters, learners are given the freedom to develop their own strategies for...

Aim high with a task on window washers. An assessment task challenges learners to determine the number of windows two people wash. They do this using a given number of window rows on each side of a building. In addition, they find the...

Paste this resource into your lesson plans like you'd paste a tile onto a mural. Given a diagram of a tile mural with rectilinear figures, future artists determine the perimeters and areas of the figures. They must then develop their own...

Here's an assessment task that's better than watching a show. Young mathematicians solve word problems involving multiplication and division with equal groups. They must find the total number of attendees on a trip to a theater based on...

Let knowledge grow bountifully like plants in a garden. Given a diagram of a rectangular garden split into plots, scholars determine the area of the entire garden and the areas of the individual plots. As a culminating activity, they...

Let imaginations run wild as participants design animal pens. A performance task challenges young mathematicians to determine the perimeter or a missing side length of different animal pens. They then design pens that meet given...

Obviously, four is the perfect number when you're playing Four Square. Scholars first use multiplication and division to solve a set of problems on the number of balls needed, the number of games, and the number of players required for a...

Scale up your lessons with a performance task. Young data analysts work through an assessment task on scaled bar graphs. They answer questions about a given scaled bar graph on favorite colors, analyze a bar graph to see if it matches...

Take two steps back. Given 5/3 on a number line, the task asks pupils to determine where one goes. The activity is the most demanding in cognitive complexity of three tasks dealing with the placement of fractions on a number line.

Where does a quarter go? Given a number line, the short task asks individuals to place the number one-fourth correctly upon it. The writers developed the task to demonstrate ways to assess critical skills from the CCSS.

Patterns are extremely helpful when solving a puzzle. Young scholars attempt to find times a bus will pass each stop. They identify a pattern in the known stop times to identify the solutions.

Tackle these tables. A performance task has learners complete two puzzles using addition and subtraction. They must fill in tables with missing addends, sums, minuends, subtrahends, or differences.