My students need Reflex Math to help them reach their full potential.
My students are hardworking and eager to learn.
We are a small school, so we feel like a family. I am lucky to have a class of outstanding students who can't seem to get enough of learning. They also have quite the competitive edge, and enjoy trying to outdo each other, both in the classroom and out.
As a best practice in the classroom, we strive to help our students have a deep understanding of math. However, math fluency is a necessary skill for lifelong success. We often spend our time as teachers focusing on the former, leaving students to practice the latter independently. This is a difficult task for eight- and nine-year-old students, as they have to be aware of what they know, what they don't, and have motivation to continue practicing. Reflex Math gets rid of these difficulties to help them be as successful as possible!
My Project
Reflex Math is a math fluency program that helps students to see relationships between facts, practice these facts through fun games and puzzles, and watch their tree, and themselves, grow as they learn more and more facts. I was lucky enough to be rewarded a grant for this program during the 2013-2014 school year, and I knew my next DonorsChoose.org project needed to be for a new subscription. Our classroom has several extra electronic devices thanks to prior DonorsChoose.org projects, which gives my students the chance to grab a device and practice their math facts whenever they want. I am happy to say that the students were just as excited to pick that activity in June as they were in September! During the year, we had a "Ninja to the Stars!" wall where students could post their high scores to one game and try to outdo each other, which pushed several students to practice more. On the other hand, celebrating Reflex Awards together as a class provided support for everyone to succeed.
Fulfilling this project will enable another year of students to become confident in math.
Third grade is a great transition from doing only addition and subtraction to doing also multiplication and division. Reflex Math helps them to be excited about mastering their old facts and being confident in their new facts, which transfers to confidence in all math problems as the basic math becomes muscle memory. I am hopeful for the opportunity to have that energy about math facts again in 2014-2015!
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Sollenberger and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.