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I spent an embarrassing amount of money when I transferred from an 8th grade ELA setting to a 5th/6th grade math setting. I was just so excited and determined to blow everybody’s socks off! I bought so many things . . . and well, I am pretty sure I didn’t use a third of it. This list is filled with my classroom must haves in the 5th/6th grade math classroom. This list contains only items I would buy over again in a heartbeat!
Prizes for students
Who doesn’t love giving students prizes? Of course, I always have a good assortment of candy on hand, but I wanted to switch it up from time to time with some other prizes.
300 PCS Vinyl Sticker Pack – I mentioned this in my back to school post, but my students LOVE stickers. Many of my students ended up with quite the collection of stickers by the end of the year. One disclaimer, I will say about these stickers or any other set I have bought for the matter, make sure you look at each one before you give them to students. There have been one or two in every set I have bought so far that has been mildly inappropriate for my age range.
Sticky Hands – These were gone almost as soon as I bought them. My students were more excited for these than anything. I did hold on to them for my winners until the very end of the day. The last thing I wanted was for the other teachers to have to put up with them.
Classroom Decorations
Positive and Negative Number Line – Honestly, this was my FAVORITE thing I bought. I definitely recommend it for anyone teaching 6th grade math.
Colorful Washi Tape – This was used for many different things in my classroom. I created an Agenda Board with this and used it for my magnetic pencil holders.
Colorful Classroom Posters – I wanted my room to be colorful, but I didn’t want everything in the room to be math. These fit the bill nicely.
Colorful Growth Mindset Posters – A couple of times during the year, a teacher or counselor quoted these posters or referenced them to my students.
Multicolor Classroom String Lights – Ok, this is not a must have, but they are so awesome!
Colorful Bulletin Board Letters – You have to have colorful letter cut-outs with your colorful room, of course.
Math Symbol Posters – These are colorful too!
Multiplication and Division Posters – I actually kept a miniature multiplication reference sheet on students desks this past year.
Classroom Supplies
30 Dry Erase Pockets – I use these with my Math Dry-Erase Graphic Organizer Templates.
32 Pack Dry Erase Boards – I love using these for Consensus Placemat and many other Kagan strategies.
Expanded File Organizers – This is perfect to store all of my Scavenger Hunts and other math activities in.
Colorful Cardstock – Great for printing out anchor charts, vocabulary words, etc.
Teacher Planner – This is a fairly inexpensive, but nice teacher planner. It is not dated, so if you don’t end up using it, you can always use it later. However, I will say after spending so much on my room, I needed something inexpensive and this did the trick!
Magnetic Clips – I used this for my pencil borrowing station. Students signed their name when they took a pencil; and erased it at the end of class after giving the pencil back. I have had years where I was VERY successful with this strategy; however, due to the location of my board this year, I wasn’t as successful in year’s past. This is a goal of mine in the new school year to keep track of it. Or at least have a student keep track of it for me.
4×4 Felt Pieces – I bought fancy magnetic erasers for my whiteboards. They didn’t last. Students kept stealing the magnets out of them. So I opted for these 4×4 felt pieces. Inexpensive, and nobody steals them. Win! Win!
Fill the last few minutes of class with learning
Brain Quest 5th Grade Question Cards – I hate free time at the end of class. I feel like it’s wasted time, and causes classroom chaos. So I got these Brain Quest cards to quiz students if for some reason we finished early.
Brain Quest 6th Grade Question Cards – Same as above.
Classroom Reads
Building Thinking Classrooms – Great read! I actually read a lot of books over last summer, and this was by far the best one. Did I truly stick with the guidelines of a “Thinking” Classroom. No! But I would like to get closer to this next year.
Dollar Tree Musts
Uno Cards – There are so many math games you can play with Uno Cards.
Tumbling Tower Games – These are smaller, but WAY cheaper than Jenga block towers, but they are perfect for Jenga review games.
Misc. Buys
Lice Prevention Spray – It never hurts to be on the safe side. Never!
Tried and True Items
Learning Resource Answer Buzzers – Great for Jeopardy type review games, and more. I also play a game called “King/Queen of the Hill.” You see which kid can stay up the longest answering trivia/math questions. If you are curious to learn more, let me know in the comments, and I will make a post.
Geometric Shapes with Nets – 6th grade is big on identifying prisms and pyramids, volume, and area of nets.
These are my classroom must haves? What are yours? Let me know in the comments! I would love to know what my next Amazon purchase should be!
