Centers...without Answer Keys (or even a WRONG key!)

So, this year my district has adopted Florida's version of Common Core, but NO textbook. Ack! I've been working like crazy every night to put together an interactive notebook (thank goodness for Blair Turner!) and figure out which pieces to use with my students. Well, that left very little time for center prep - not that we've really had time for centers!

Enter this week...a breath of fresh air.... My students are picking up the cut & paste system, so we're able to complete our notebooks much more quickly. They even seem to be doing fairly well with the content. So, I needed something for my kids to work on to review. The thing is, I knew exactly what I wanted them to do...I just hadn't yet created it!

Last night I stayed up until nearly midnight creating Math Ladders based on 3-digits & 4-digits x 1-digit numbers. They're not available in my stores because...well...they haven't been checked yet. Today in class, my kiddos checked the answer keys for me. They were so excited to find an error (we found 2 mistakes out of 20 ladders - not TOO bad considering these were made so late at night) that they didn't realize they were doing hard work.

And then I used the same trick on some task cards. The two sets of cards were created late one night...and don't have an answer key yet. As students solved a problem, they wrote their answer (in pencil!) on a class key. The next person who solved that problem compared their answer to the one on the key. If it matched, they went on to another problem. If it didn't match, they reworked the problem. If they still weren't sure, they called in a friend to help them rework the problem. If the answer on the key was wrong, they then fixed it. It was an excellent activity and has made me seriously reconsider giving kids keys at all....