Math Pennants are a fun way to show off student work

When my students feel good about themselves, they try harder. And when they try harder, they do even better. To me, math is all about confidence. Of course there's skill involved. But above all else, students find more success in math when they believe that they can, and will, do well.

Displaying student work is one of the ways I've built student confidence in my classroom. Even my seniors get excited about hanging their work on our "Fridge" (a green bulletin board with letters spelling "The Fridge" at the top). It always surprises me that they'd rather hang their papers in our classroom than bring them home! 

On days when students feel they "can't", I can point to their work on our wall and say, "Yes, you can." This is why I feel so strongly about displaying student work. When students see their work hanging in their classroom, something special happens. Math pennants also bring in some added creativity, softening the math a little and making it a bit more fun. 

In this post, I want to show you some of the math pennants I've made over the years for topics covered in early elementary school right through to high school math. 

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To date, I've made over 100 math pennants, so they're not all in this post. But I picked out some of my favorites to show you. 

Some of the ways teachers are using math pennants in their classrooms include: 

1: as warm-ups 

2: as math centers 

3: as community-building classwork 

4: as exit tickets 

5: as homework 

6: as extra credit 

7: as math-themed class décor

All of the ways teachers are using math pennants in their classrooms have a really cool side effect-- building confidence. Once students feel confident, they start taking more risks, which ramps up the learning. The affective filter is talked a lot about in second language acquisition. I believe this affective filter is an obstacle with math learning, too. Once that filter comes down and students start feeling that buy-in, so much learning can happen. 

Displaying student work, reminding students that they CAN, helps this filter come down. Above is a Golden Spiral Back to School pennant to get kids excited for a year of math. 

And an editable Math Boss pennant that gives students confidence during class tests and leading up to end of course and state exams. 

I've really enjoyed making math pennants from teacher requests, like the one above for comparing fraction size. Students color the fraction wheels to help with figuring out which fraction is larger.

This 3D Nets math pennant was another teacher request. 

Fractions! I have had a lot of requests fractions math pennants. The multiplying fractions pennants above show fraction multiplication through the area model. Students color rows and columns to show the overlapping area what represents the fractions' product.

Students practice finding angle measures in this parallel lines cut by a transversal pennant.

This ordering Real numbers pennant came from a teacher request. Students cut out 4 Real numbers and paste them in order on the pennant. I've made a similar one for ordering integers.

Above is a free math pennant for order of operations. It was one of the very first math pennants I made.

This conversions pennant came from another teacher request. Students convert both metric and customary measurements in this activity. 

And this ratios and proportions pennant also came from a teacher request. Students determine ratios represented in pictures, solve proportion equations, complete ratio tables and plot their results on a grid, determine ratios from word problems, determine if a given table represents a ratio and determine if two ratios are proportional. They can then color their pennants for a little fun.

Here is a set of place value pennants. 

And a set of geometric transformations math pennants. This set shown covers all 4 quadrants. I also made a set for quadrant 1 only.

A teacher asked me to make her a pennant covering GCF and LCM. It asks students to find prime factors, lowest common multiples and greatest common factors. 

This Pythagorean Theorem pennant was probably one of my favorite math pennants to make. 

This regular polygons pennant came from a teacher request. Students identify polygons and their angle measures:

Students solve with elimination and substitution in this solving systems of equations pennant activity. The elimination questions require one, both or neither of the equations to be multiplied.

I've made a lot of math pennants specifically for holidays. Below are a few of these.

These graphing linear equations ornaments ask students to graph linear equations in different forms. Bows and holly cutouts are included for an added layer of holiday décor.

In this Christmas fractions pennant, students convert between improper fractions and mixed numbers, then color to show the fractions. 

And of course every math teacher's favorite holiday-- Pi Day! This one here is for students who are comfortable with the circle formulas enough to solve for specific variables within the equations. I also made a set for younger students. 

I found a springy set of clipart to decorate this exponents pennant. 

One of my favorite classes to teach has been Consumer Math. Compound interest word problems are covered in this set of compound interest pennants.

Integers are so tricky, even for older students. There are 3 problems on each integers pennant so that students can practice seeing the relationship between positive and negative numbers.

My friend Mandy from The Math Dyal sent over this great photo. A student of hers who is usually disengaged from class created this systems of equations masterpiece. It made me really happy to know that this activity was able to reach her student is such a meaningful way.

This domain and range pennant covers the topic through graphs, scatter plots, tables, coordinate pairs and mappings. 

In this volume and surface area pennant, students work with 3-d and irregular shapes.

This pennant came from a teacher request for one to help her students convert scientific notation. I also made more sets for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing in scientific notation.

And this "My Advice to Next Year's Students" pennant is a nice end-of-year activity. It gives your current students the opportunity to give their best advice to next year's students. 

“This was one of the things that many of my students commented that they enjoyed when I asked them at the end of the year." - Marla B

Photos from teachers:

Teachers have sent me so many photos of math pennants hanging in their classrooms. Below are just a few I'd like to share with you.

Ms. Woodworth sent this incredible photo of her school courtyard with hundreds of matholution math pennants.

Ms. Deculus sent this photo of her students' comparing fraction size pennants hanging over her desk.

Ms. Barnum's students made a happy sunflower with their completed order of operations math pennants.

Ms. Collins made a holiday display from her students' graphing linear equations ornaments. 

Yvette from @maththatworks posted this photo on Instagram of her window display made with her students' systems of equations pennants.

Students of all ages love seeing their work displayed, and math pennants build student work right into your math classroom décor. Students complete the math problems on each pennant then decorate to add their unique touch. Each math pennant activity includes an optional student answer sheet and answer key.

Every math pennant from this post is included in this big Math Pennants Bundle:

Math Pennants Bundle

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