Math QR Codes

A few years ago, I decided that in order to keep my teaching fresh and up to date I would spend each year focusing on a new subject or two. Since I have taught fourth grade for nine years I am really comfortable with the school's curriculum and I have a good understanding of where the average fourth grader is developmentally. With the Common Core being implemented at my school I decided that this year I should focus on math and reading.

One of the first things I did was look around teacherspayteachers.com. While I was there I discovered this activity from FlapJack Educational Resources; QR Code Math Problem Fun. In this activity students can create their own QR codes to math problems that they create. I thought this would be a great way for me to differentiate, and really challenge those that need it, but it also gave me the idea to create my own task cards where students could check themselves using the QR codes.

I spent a Sunday afternoon working on my first set...creating problems that covered the key concepts my students needed to know, and from my years of experience, what most students struggled to master. When I brought them in Monday morning the only thing I had at the time that could read QR Codes was my iphone, so after a discussion about what I expected of them, I allowed a few kids to work together on the task cards at a time.

The students loved them! Some students worked alone and then checked their answers to the problems using the codes, other students worked together and helped each other as they worked on the math concepts, then checked the codes to see if they were correct. My students loved them because they could use my iphone (now I sign out a few ipads for the students to use from our computer lab,) they had the option of working together, and they could immediately check themselves to see if they understood. I love them because it gives my early finishers something engaging to do, it covers key concepts that I know they need to master, and it allows them to enjoy learning! Who doesn't want that for their students?

You can find a few of the task card sets that I created at my TpT store here.  Most of them are free for you to use in your classroom. All I ask is that you let me know what you think of them! I've just started to load them, so there will be more coming soon.