What are your absolute must-haves in your math classroom? This past year, I worked at my former high school as an MCAS tutor to help kids graduate. The MCAS is the Massachusetts state test that students needed to pass in order to receive a high school diploma. The requirement was in place for around 20 years, and was finally eliminated in November 2024.
No one really believed we'd finally end this mandate, so when it was voted out we were all surprised. Since my students would now be receiving their diplomas (if they pass all of their required classes), I finished out the year as a support teacher.
Next year, I'll be back at the same school co-teaching algebra 2 as the special educator. I love teaching algebra 2, which I've written a lot about here. There's something really special about the amount of growth kids make in this course.
While I’ll be sharing a classroom this year and won't have my own classroom to hang a math word wall, I will be bringing back a bunch of my math classroom must-haves from this past year and previous years, including math cheat sheets. Here are a few of them...
1: These writing tablets were a huge hit this year. They pretty much replace personal whiteboards except that you can’t just erase part of the board. We used them every day. I have been seeing 8.5" versions floating around social media this year. The ones I had gotten are 10". I do think the added size does make a difference, especially for students who write large. The other thing I need to mention is that each does have a button battery.
2: I added numbers to this magnetic coordinate plane with a Sharpie. My students and I used it to graph functions and for transformations. I'm hoping to hang this in my co-teacher's classroom this year.
3: Kinetic sand in these 3-D plastic shapes helped students see the relationship between cones, cylinders, pyramids and prisms. I used these with individual students and was worried that the shapes would break. Water may be better, though my students really loved the sand.
4: Over the years I’ve printed many copies of this success iceberg poster drawn by Sylvia Duckworth. I gave one to my husband for his classroom, and one to a fellow teacher for her classroom next year. I've seen different versions of this classroom poster over the years, but this one is my favorite. When I reached out to Sylvia years ago to ask if she had her drawing for sale as a poster, she said no and that I could make the image she posted to Twitter into a poster.
5: Snacks! The dum dums were a hit. This year I got one of these giant bags for under a dollar using all my CVS extra bucks! In general, I don't like giving out snacks because I know how kids can be tempted and pretend their food allergies don't exist. But hard candy seems to be pretty safe.
6: Quartet dry erase markers are my favorite. Microfiber cloths work the best to erase boards, though their texture could be better. I actually learned about the microfiber cloths years ago from the co-teacher I'll be working with again this coming school year!
7: Tissues cut down on trips out of the room. And as far as pencils go.... I had a few broken black Ticonderoga pencils this year that wouldn't sharpen. I'm hoping it was just a random thing and not a permanent change.
8: Blue Loctite for hanging word walls and posters on the wall. A teacher friend on Facebook mentioned there's a similar tacky putty at Dollar Tree.
9: A fellow math teacher found this sweet message in his classroom (my former classroom) from my 2015 consumer math seniors and gave it to be last year. I kept it on my bookshelf this year.
What are your math classroom must haves?
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