4 Editable New Year's Math Review Coloring Activities

Happy New Year 2026! If you're looking for a midyear review for your middle school 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade or algebra 1 students, there are 4 editable math review activities updated for 2026 linked below. Each comes with 20 review questions and a 2026 coloring sheet, and will be updated every year. The math reviews can be used to refresh skills or as semester 1 review when students come back from winter break. 

Each of the 4 math reviews comes with a 2026 coloring page and an editable 2-page worksheet with topics covered between back to school and the new year. 

Algebra 1 Midyear Review

Topics include:

• Multiplying binomials 
• Factoring quadratic trinomials 
• Finding parallel and perpendicular lines through given points
• Calculating slope and y-intercept from a table 
• Converting standard form equations to slope-intercept form 
• Identifying domain and range of graphs

This algebra activity is editable in PowerPoint and includes 20 questions. 

Students answer the questions on their worksheets, then color their 2026 based on the key. An answer key is included.

8th Grade Math Midyear Review

Topics include:

Domain and Range Finder Tools

Do your students struggle finding domain and range of graphs? I made a couple printable domain and range tools to help our students this year.

There are directions pointing students to look at x for domain and y for range as they drag each tool across the graphs. There are also directions printed on the tool for what to record for domain and range when a graph has an arrow.

We have always used rulers to find where graphs start and stop, but I wanted something a bit more self-teaching for our students this year. The graph cards in the photo are a free download on my blog here.

You can find the domain and range finder tools here on my website.

I also made a new domain and range of graphs cheat sheet for our students that you can find here in my drive.

UPDATE: A 3rd tool for finding increasing/decreasing intervals of graphs has been added to the file linked below.

> Browse all domain and range activities

Domain & Range Finder Tools

Winter math activities and classroom décor

We're getting so close to winter break! In this post, there is a collection of winter-themed math activities that hit the standards while keeping students engaged in learning their math before and after winter break. Many of the activities below were made to double as colorful winter math bulletin board displays of student work.

Slope winter snowflake activity

The first activity is a slope winter snowflake activity where students find the slopes of lines given a table, then decorate your classroom with their finished snowflakes. Anna L's students called their slope snowflakes "slope flakes" as they worked on the slope review activity coming back from winter break.

multiplication ornaments

These multiplication ornaments make a festive math bulletin board display of student work. Students can decorate their ornaments with bows and holly after calculating their products. There are 4 blanks also included for your own multiplication problems.

Winter proportional relationships snowflakes

There's a similar set of winter proportional relationships snowflakes for younger students. students plot coordinates of proportional relationships, then determine the equation of each snowflake's line. 

Winter snowflake 2-step equations

If your students are solving 2-step equations this winter, they can practice their solving on this winter snowflake 2-step equations sheet. After solving, students will need to read the inequalities in the key to figure out which color to color each section of their snowflake.

Slopes between winter animal pictures

This winter slope activity has students calculating the slopes between winter animal pictures in the coordinate plane. The x-axis is in months, and the y-axis is in days of the month. It's a fun, low-stress way to review slope.

Multiplying decimals mittens

If your students need practice multiplying decimals, these multiplying decimals mittens make a colorful winter bulletin board display of student work.

Multiplication ornaments activity

This set or Christmas multiplication ornaments have students multiplying multi-digit numbers that then become winter classroom décor. The multiplication problems include: 2x2 digit, 2x3 digit, 1x4 digit, and 2x5 digit. There are a bunch more Christmas math activities here for middle school, high school and elementary school math topics.

Winter picture puzzles math escape room

For a digital activity, this winter picture puzzles escape room has students solving for the values of winter pictures before going on to the next puzzle. 

Winter picture puzzles math escape room

The escape room is self-checking in Google Forms, and also comes as a printable PDF for days off devices. 

Editable New Year's math review

This is year #2 of updating this editable New Year's math review. There are versions for 7th grade math, 8th grade math, and algebra, and will be updated every year. They're each editable in PowerPoint so that you can customize the activity to your students' needs.

You can browse all winter math activities here: winter math

Browse Valentine's Day math activities

Free Discriminant Cheat Sheet for your Quadratic Formula Unit

In this post, I want to share a few resources for teaching the discriminant as part of a Quadratic Formula unit. 

This simple discriminant cheat sheet helps students make the connection between the value of the Quadratic Formula's discriminant and the number of real solutions the equation will have. It also shows examples of graphs with 1, 2, and 0 zeros and what the discriminant will look like in each case.

SIX SEVEN! Real Number System Math Sorting Activity

If you're a middle school teacher, I'm sure you've been hearing "Six Seven!" nonstop this year!  

We hadn't heard it in our algebra 2 class until about a month ago, when the 67 floodgates finally opened and now "67!" is an almost daily occurrence. It came up recently when solving x^2 - x = 42 (though this was on purpose).

As math teacher Ms. Campbell wrote, "Truth be told, it's the least offensive tiktok trend in years (at least for me!) And math teachers sure can have fun with it." Very true. And it's nice that math finally made it into a trend!

Six Seven Number Sort

This SIX SEVEN real number system sorting activity has students sorting numbers made of up of sixes and sevens into whole numbers, integers, rational numbers and irrational numbers categories. The activity includes the sorting mat, 18 numbers to sort, and a key.

Algebraic Expressions Activities in Middle School Math

Algebraic expressions can be translated, just like any other language. When middle school math students learn how to translate algebraic expressions correctly, they begin to see algebra as the language it is and more than just a random set of rules. In this post, there are a few algebraic expressions activities to help middle school math students practice translating algebraic expressions into numbers and symbols, along with some research supporting a varied approach to teaching math.

Free Perfect Squares and imaginary numbers sheet

 

This past week, we started learning about imaginary numbers in algebra 2, which will lead into solving with the Quadratic Formula. I made this simple cheat sheet for the students so they can quickly check if a number is a perfect square and be reminded of how imaginary numbers work when simplifying and multiplying. 

2 free factoring quadratic trinomial cheat sheets

What's your favorite method for factoring quadratic trinomials? For me, it's the AC method with grouping because there's no guess and check, which frustrated me as a high school student. I remember endlessly erasing my work, and settling with "close enough" on some problems. The box, or area, method has grown on me over the years, especially how it links back to multiplying polynomials.

The structure of the AC method works for me, and is the method I have used most when teaching students to factor. I don't know when I learned it, but I remember thinking that it would have been a helpful tool for me in high school. If making the list of factors is difficult, students can divide AC with 2, 3, 4, ... with a calculator and write down any quotients without decimals, checking which factor pair adds to B.

I made a couple factoring quadratics cheat sheets and posted them on Facebook this week.

We're getting to factoring in a few weeks after imaginary number operations, Quadratic Formula and solving with square roots and we're going to teach the kids the box (area) method, which they may have seen in algebra 1. AC with grouping will be the backup plan for students who aren't clicking with the box method. Multiplication charts will also be available to students who need them.

Box method factoring

AC method with grouping

If you are teaching factoring this year, I wanted to share the two cheat sheets above in case you find them helpful. I also wanted to mention that the cheat sheets I share are never intended to be standalone teaching tools. They always go along with lessons as a way to help students through independent work. This was something that came up this week, too. 

algebra word wall box method posters

A teacher recently requested box method factoring references be added to the algebra word wall, so I added these two posters.

> Browse all Quadratics activities

You can download the two factoring cheat sheets free here.

For practice, there's a free set of solve by factoring task cards here.

self-checking factoring escape room

For self-checking practice, this factoring quadratics escape room covers factoring trinomials when A = 1, when there's a GCF, and when A > 1. The entire escape room is housed in one answer-validated Google Form with no outside links, eliminating your need to grade.

The escape room also comes as a printable PDF with a student answer sheet and key.

Factoring polynomials error analysis

For engaging error analysis, this factoring polynomials 2 truths and a lie activity asks students to find the lie when presented with factored form binomials and trinomials.

 

> Browse all free math cheat sheets

free math resource library

 

Function Composition Cheat Sheet

We've been working on composition of functions in algebra 2 the last couple weeks, and some students are still having a hard time with composing functions shown in graphs and equations. We're also seeing a few students looking at the y column in tables when evaluating functions shown in tables.

There are a bunch of free math cheat sheets on my blog here, and I wanted to add another one for composing functions.

How to Make Any Math Word Problem Solvable for Students

Solving math word problems is tricky for students whether they are in 3rd grade using multiplication, in middle school solving ratios, or in high school working through quadratic word problems. If you're looking to support students through solving word problems, this math bulletin board set is a guide to solving any math word problem students will see throughout school.

The bulletin board posters are written in simple language so that all students can access the information and outline five steps in the solving process. 

1: UNDERSTANDING 

This step asks students if they understand what is being asked of them to solve and if they understand all of the vocabulary in the word problem. 

2: PROCESSING 

This step asks students if they are able to restate the problem in their own words, if they can draw a picture, if they can make an easier example, and if it's possible to add their own name into the word problem. This always seems to make word problems easier! 

3: PLANNING 

In this step, students make a plan to solve their word problem. Strategies include writing an equation, using reasoning, making a list, finding a pattern, etc. 

4: SOLVING 

Students always want to jump to solving, so they'll begin to see that solving can only come after a plan has been put in place. This step asks students to go ahead with their plan, and if their plan fails to try a new plan. Most important is staying persistent. 

5: LOOKING AHEAD 

This final step asks students to think ahead to when they might see a similar problem and to consider what approach might be best then. 

You can find this math word problems bulletin board set here.

Math Word Problems Bulletin Board

> Browse word problem activities.

More posts:

Math Bulletin Board Ideas

Math Word Walls

Consumer Math Curriculum Warm-Ups 18 Units of Financial Literacy Bell Ringers

Do you start math class with a warm-up or a bell ringer? My classes started going more smoothly once I got my warm-up routine down. 

Our classroom routine: 

Students enter our classroom and grab a warm-up out of the basket at the front of the classroom. The warm-ups were either a 1/2-sheet or 1/4-sheet of paper and would get glued into their interactive notebooks or on binder paper. Students get time to work on their warm-up independently before we go over the answers together to make sure we were all on the same page.

Sometimes if students weren't focused, I'd switch gears and collect the warm-ups for points. This kept students on their toes. I'd only ever do this when the warm-up was a spiral review of material students had recently learned. This was usually the case with our warm-ups-- they'd be a short review of previous material before moving on to learn new math concepts.

I put together an 18-unit pack of consumer math warm-ups to get students thinking about real-world math as soon as they sit down for class. There are at least 6 warm-ups included for each curriculum unit listed below, along with answer keys:

18 units of consumer math warm-ups: 

• Wants vs. needs 
• Checks and registers 
• Wages and salary 
• Bank accounts 
• Budgets 
• Electronic banking and credit cards 
• Credit score 
• Discounts and coupons 
• Sales tax and tip 
• Percent change 
• Unit price 
• Income taxes 
• Car loans 
• Mortgages 
• Student loans 
• Investing 
• Car insurance 
• Health insurance

The warm-ups are all sized to be cut and pasted into an interactive math notebook. Students answer their warm-ups on their notebook paper, discuss with each other and report out on their answers to create a classroom discussion. These are the same warm-ups included in the Scaffolded Consumer Math Curriculum.

Want to try them out for FREE? Get a free 4-unit of consumer math warm-ups here.

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First Week of School in the Math Classroom

Do you have any math activities planned for the first day of school? In this post are a few back to school math activity ideas and classroom resources to help students ease into the new school year.

Editable Back to School Desk Plate

Students get to know each other through numbers with this back to school math desk plate activity. Students answer 10 questions about themselves that are all answered with numbers. The questions are ell editable, so you can change them to match what you'd like to know about students at the beginning of the school year.

Golden Spiral Back to School Math Pennant

Students color the different sections of their back to school math pennants based on their answers to questions like "favorite class?" and "birth month?" When all colored in, the final pennants make colorful math classroom décor that can be displayed for back to school night.

Back to School Picture Puzzles Escape Room

Braking free from this math picture puzzles escape room is a fun way for students to get to know each other while working together on the first day of school. To move to each next puzzle, students have to solve for the values of school-themes pictures and type the correct 4-letter code.

Back to School Picture Puzzles Escape Room

Graphing algebraic function transformations with cut paper videos

In this post are a bunch of function transformations videos showing how vertex form functions all transform using the same pattern. The way that functions transform in the coordinate plane can feel pretty abstract to algebra 2 students just learning about nonlinear functions. But every algebraic function in vertex form transforms the exact same way.

Functions can translate vertically and horizontally, and even reflect over the x and y axes just like geometric shapes. The one quirk is that horizontal transformations feel opposite from expected. 

Why are horizontal transformations opposite? It feels backwards for the vertex of y = |x - 3| to translate right 3 units. With all horizontal shifts, we're looking for the value of x that will "zero out" the inside expression. For x - 3 = 0, x would need to be 3. With x gone, we can find the function's lowest or highest y value, i.e. the vertex's y value.

Here is how we can find the horizontal transformation of a quadratic function in vertex form and why the inside shift is opposite. 

function transformations cheat sheet

This function transformations cheat sheet in my Google Drive has graphics from an algebra 2 word wall for absolute value, quadratic and square root graphs. There's also a free set of dancing skeleton functions posters here.

Below are a bunch of function transformation video shorts using cut paper. In each video you'll see familiar nonlinear algebraic functions transformed in the coordinate plane.