Another year over and a new one just begun

Well, not quite yet. Soon, though, we will be going back. AAHHHH! Where do the summers go?!

I've spent this one at home working on some projects around the house. I've been trying to learn to play the piano, doing lots of cleaning, and trying to get organized so that (hopefully) I don't feel so frantic this coming school year. I would have never guessed that one little person who weighs less than 25 lbs. can SO COMPLETELY turn your world upside down. Sigh. I know I'll miss these days, though, so I'm just trying to soak in all the toddler hugs and sticky fingerprints while they last.

Anyway, school... I'm just finishing up my postcards to my students and hoping to get those mailed out by the weekend.

Do you do postcards or a welcome letter to your kids? This is the first time I've done them, but I really like the idea, even if it is a little bit time consuming. I would have loved getting something from my teachers-to-be when I was growing up.

I've also been working a little bit on some new task card sets to use with my students this year. I'm sharing one today that I actually used last year with my kids, but I didn't have it ready to post until this summer. (Remember how I said that toddler was keeping me busy?)

This set is a mixed multiplication and division review with word problems. I've found that one of our struggles every year seems to be actually reading and thinking about what the word problem is asking for. My students see two numbers and either multiply or divide, but don't always read to find out whether the operation they're using makes sense. Do yours do that too? Please tell me I'm not alone!

This task card set is all word problems, and the division problems may or may not have remainders. I did this because I teach my students to think about what to do with the remainder. We have a discussion and make a chart as a class to help remind them that sometimes the remainder can be ignored, but sometimes we have to round up, even if the remainder is less than 1/2. We talk about problems where they have to split numbers of people into groups, and we have a discussion over how you can't cut a person up.

As always, there are two versions of the cards included - one with a background and one without (to save ink) - and a recording sheet and answer key. Click on the picture above to see it in my TpT store. And while you're there, check out my 1st nine weeks math reviews, which are 50% off until August 1!