Third Grade iPads

Luckily, this past week I have been able to start with my long term position in third grade. I have been in the classroom before, so fortunately I am used to the classroom routine and what they are learning. I have noticed that iPads are not regularly used in the classroom. I hoped that using the iPad that I have, would be helpful for the students and change up what the students are doing each day. This week, the students had been working on multiplication and division problems. They complete word problems and have to use strategies to solve the problem and determine if the word problem is a division or multiplication problem. In order to help the students learn their multiplication and division facts, they need to continue to practice them.

I decided to use the iPad game Mathopolis with my students. Mathopolis is a firefighter themed game that students really enjoy. There are many different levels of the game that start with basic addition and go all the way up to division. In the game, a building is on fire and in order to put the fire out you have to solve the math problems. Within the different levels, students can choose between easy, medium, and hard. The game can also be timed or not timed. The game is $0.99, but is completely worth paying for because of all the game comes with.

I split the students into small groups. One group was working with the student teacher to work through word problems together, one group was working independently to solve problems, and the other group was working with me on the iPad. We switched stations every 15 minutes so all the students would have time to get to each station. I explained the game to the students. Each student would have their own turn doing the game themselves. This would help with their math fluency and building up their math facts. We started with multiplication. I had each student do a level of multiplication, since I knew this group would handle it well. Once each student completed the multiplication levels, we moved onto the

division problems. Depending on which group I was working with, I either started with multiplication or addition. One of the groups I worked with only did the addition and subtraction problems since we still needed to work on getting those facts down.

I loved using the Mathopolis game! The students absolutely loved the firefighter theme. It is a better way to learn your math facts then just using flash cards that students become bored with. Making sure that students have their math facts down helps them complete the word problems easier. It also builds up the students fluency with the math facts. The students did a great job with this activity! Having them do it one at a time with the game, allows me to see exactly how each student is doing and what I need to help them with. This is a game I will definitely be using again.