Daily Routines to Jump-Start Math Class, Elementary School: Engage Students, Improve Number Sense, and Practice Reasoning

Do your students need more practice to develop number sense and reasoning? Are you looking to engage your students with activities that are uncomplicated, worthwhile, and doable? Have you had success with number talks but do your students crave more variety? Have you ever thought, “What can I do differently?” 

Swap out traditional warmup practices and captivate your elementary students with these new, innovative, and ready-to-go routines! Trusted elementary math expert John J. SanGiovanni details 20 classroom-proven practice routines to help you ignite student engagement, reinforce learning, and prepare students for the lesson ahead. Each quick and lively activity spurs mathematics discussion and provides a structure for talking about numbers, number concepts, and number sense. Designed to jump-start mathematics reasoning in any elementary classroom, the routines are: 

• Rich with content-specific examples and extensions
• Modifiable to work with math content at any K-5 grade level
• Compatible with any textbook or core mathematics curriculum
• Practical, easy-to-implement, and flexible for use as a warm-up or other activity

Accompanied by online slides and video demonstrations, the easy 5–10 minute routines become your go-to materials for a year’s work of daily plug-and-play short-burst reasoning and fluency instruction that reinforces learning and instills mathematics confidence in students. 

Students’ brains are most ready to learn in the first few minutes of math class. Give math practice routines a makeover in your classroom with these 20 meaningful and energizing warmups for learning crucial mathematics skills and concepts, and make every minute count.