Welcome back, math fact enthusiasts! We’re bringing you another blog covering all of the information you need to know about the math fact solutions we offer. If you’re unfamiliar, at Math Facts Matter, we offer a variety of incredible math fact fluency solutions to teachers that serve to develop fearless math fact fluency in your classroom. In the past, we’ve spoken about our free resource, Space Challenge, as well as our multi-sensory and assessment tool, Countdown — follow the respective links to read our blogs discussing their features.
Today, we’re continuing this series by discussing the next solution we have to offer, our Space LAB. Keep reading to learn more!
Space Lab is a math fact fluency program we offer to help your students conquer the basics they need for a solid arithmetic foundation. In fact, the “LAB” in Space LAB means “Learning Arithmetic Basics.” This program consists of a wide array of different activities in different forms that you can use to enrich your classroom’s math fact fluency education. Some of the activity types we include in Space LAB are:
The options found in this reservoir of math fact activities all serve to perform certain functions. Like we said above, the idea with this program is to help your students conquer the basics of arithmetic — but to what ends? Obviously, the mastering of math facts and arithmetic basics is no small task, and that’s a major driving factor behind this program. However, there are a variety of intentional goals we engineered this program around meeting.
Mastering arithmetic basics is important, but equally as important is building confidence in your students so they trust their practice and knowledge. The activities featured in Space LAB largely allow your students to independently practice their math facts. This means that your pupils will be able to approach each activity at their own pace, which will remove stress and gradually up their confidence in their autonomous work. What’s more, these activities are also self-graded, removing the anxiety around getting answers wrong — a win-win!
Another direct intention of this math fact fluency program is to prepare students for algebra, which they’ll be encountering sooner or later. For one, understanding and having a confident grasp of basic arithmetic is going to directly correlate with those students being able to understand the fundamental concepts of algebra, as they’re going to have an intimate context of arithmetic understanding. Going further, having such an in-depth relationship with math facts and math fact fluency, these students will be able to identify trends and math facts that are important to algebra, which will help them excel.
Space LAB works by contributing to the four steps of math fact fluency. Steps two and three largely focus on storing and then rapidly retrieving math facts. How? Space LAB offers an immense amount of opportunities to practice known math facts using visual, auditory, and tactile clues. This format helps students retain the math facts, and eventually recall the math facts after sufficient practice.
For a final overview, let’s do a quick rundown of the main benefits Space LAB can provide your classroom.
The fact that the Space LAB offers a variety of activities that your students will do on their own will help boost their confidence in their independent learning skills. Not only is this going to be a major benefit with their mathematical endeavors, but across all academic subjects your students will thrive because they’ll be equipped with the super power of independent learning!
Another amazing benefit of this program is that all of the activities we include are fun, engaging, and exciting for your students. We all know how difficult it is to get students to engage, especially when they’re not particularly excited about a subject. So with a variety of activity types your students will get excited when they enter the Space LAB.
As you collect different Space LAB activities, make copies, and set them aside for later. Sooner than you know you’ll have an extensive collection of activities you can pull from at a moment’s notice, or that substitutes could utilize for a quick, engaging activity in a last-minute scenario.
At Math Facts Matter, we simply want to help teachers by taking a bit of the load off their shoulders. We do this by offering incredible math fact solutions that will help you master math fact fluency with your students. If you’re interested in subscribing to Math Facts Matter, contact us today to learn more about the process, and what to expect when you work with us.