Happy back to school time! Unfortunately, there is only a week left before I head back to work full time. I have had a fantastic summer and I hope you have too. My son informed me this week that "school" is now a cuss word and cannot be used in earshot of him. He cracks me up! At the end of the school year, I introduced my teachers to the 8 standards for Mathematical Practice from the Common Core State Standards for Math. Since I teach in Nebraska, where we have our own state standards, we are not held accountable for teaching the CCSSM, however; these 8 practices are just plain good and we should strive to help our students develop these levels of expertise in mathematics so that they can think like mathematicians and apply that thinking to any problem they encounter in the future. The 8 practices are: CCSS.Math.Practice.MP1 Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. CCSS.Math.Practice.MP2 Reason abstractly and quantitatively. CCSS.Math.Practice.MP3 Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. CCSS.Math.Practice.MP4 Model with mathematics. CCSS.Math.Practice.MP5 Use appropriate tools strategically. CCSS.Math.Practice.MP6 Attend to precision. CCSS.Math.Practice.MP7 Look for and make use of structure. CCSS.Math.Practice.MP8 Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. The teachers I work with seemed very interested in learning more about these and keeping them in mind while teaching their math lessons. I thought....why not have a visual aid to use to help teachers AND students be mindful of the practices they're using each day. I came up with the 9 posters and large checkmarks that can be used to identify those practices being used. I envision students pointing out various practices being used throughout the lesson, justifying why they think it's being covered, and placing the checkmark on the wall to show it. I have seen lessons where all 8 practices are present. I have also seen lessons where only 1 or 2 are evident....how many can you use in 1 lesson? The link below will take you to TPT where you can purchase the posters get for FREE for use in your classroom. Enjoy! Link to TPT- FREE