Save Teaching Time with Stacking ... Plus a Valentines Day Math Freebie!

Hi, Teaching Friends!

Welcome to the February I Teach First Linky, filled with classroom ideas to keep the fun in teaching and learning for you and your little learners.

Okay, let's just be honest about this. Teaching has always been a fast-paced juggling act. But now, there are now more subjects to be taught, more standards to be addressed, more assessments to be given, more mountains to climb, and basically more of everything in a teacher's day ... except for time!

When I'm planning activities for my homeschooled grandchildren or designing classroom resources, that's something I always try to keep in mind. I think of it as "stacking"... addressing multiple objectives and even multiple subject areas with the same teaching materials.

Solving word problems about your science topic is the perfect example of this. You're touching on objectives in math, but also science and reading. If you can have your students create their own word problems, you can add writing objectives to your DONE list!

Here are a few ideas for stacking math and literacy.

From First Grade W.O.W., this is a great example of stacking. After reading Virginia Kroll's Equal Shmequal, she engaged her students in this hands-on visual activity to introduce a unit on symmetry and fractions.
Literacy, math, and art, too!

I love this idea from Learning at the Primary Pond. What a great way to combine math and literacy!

Here's one of my own free resources, a guided reading book about place value.  {{This is not the freeebie in the title of this post. Read on! }}

Here's an idea's great for stacking science and literacy. It's from The Science Penguin. Ari's post is about supporting ELLs in your science teaching, but this particular idea would be wonderful to use with all young literacy learners, to model in shared writing, post as an anchor chart, and then carry over into science notebooks.

Sometimes the stacking is all within the same subject area. Hundred chart games and activities are a good example of this. While your students are reading numbers to 100 (or 120!), they might also be adding or subtracting the dots from a roll of two dice, counting on or back from a given number, adding ten to a number, or various other skills. If you take a careful look, you'll likely discover that you're already doing some stacking!


This brand new just-for-you freebie will help your students practice stacked math objectives for addition, subtraction, and odd and even numbers. It includes sorting mats for addition and subtraction, two pages for recording number models from dominos, and an extension activity for an extra challenge.  There are also printed dominos, in case you'd like to add some pink to your February math!  I hope this resource will help save you some time in your math teaching and help secure your students control of these math skills. Download and enjoy!

Stacking objectives will save you crucial time, in planning, prepping, and teaching. Stacked standards also make it easier for your students to build connections, whether they do it on their own or with your guidance, and of course building connections helps cement and extend learning. Consider adding questions like these to your building connections list.

*  "What else have we learned that's like this?" 
*  "How can this help you when you... ?" 
*  "Does this make you think of something else you know?"
*  " How did knowing _____________ help you understand ____________?"

What other questions for stacked objectives would you add to this list?





If you're looking for more ideas for your February teaching (talk about a month with a time squeeze for teaching! So many events and celebrations!!), be sure to visit the February Fun for Firsties Linky on this blog. It's filled with over 200 activities both free and paid for everything from Valentines Day to Groundhog Day to Heart Month, Presidents Day, etc, etc, etc!

Don't miss out on these great posts that are also part of the I Teach First February Linky!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Happy Teaching!