This year I entered a new grade level and wasn’t sure what it was going to bring. I felt just like a student on my first day, that anxious butterfly feeling, not know what the day would hold for me. 32 bright-eyed sixth graders filled my classroom and were just as nervous and excited as I was. I was eager to use many of my new curriculum purchases and ideas that I had stumbled across over the summer.

This year I am using Daily Language Review and Daily Math Practice books to start my mornings off. When the students come in, the first thing they do is unpack, turn in their homework and then proceed to work on the review questions for the day. This entire process takes up the first 10–15 minutes of each morning. It is a great way to kick-start the morning and get that brain power going!

Daily Language Review practice incorporates grammar, vocabulary skills, language skills, and sentence structure that is all aligned to Common Core. What I love about this practice book is that it builds off of itself over the course of the school year. As the students learn skills, they are able to put them into practice each morning while working on the worksheets. After the students have completed the daily practice, I project the worksheet up on my ELMO projector. We correct the five questions together as a class, and I use equity sticks to have students come up to the projector and walk us through the answer that they got. It is a great way to get all of the students involved.

Daily Math Practice is also aligned to Common Core and provides math practice on skills such as multiplication, division, fractions, addition, subtraction, and word problems. It too, builds upon itself as the school year progresses. I follow the same guidelines as with Daily Language Review, but instead of correcting the problems together first thing in the morning, we take the first five minutes after recess to go over the math problems. On Friday, I use the problems that we have reviewed over the course of the week and give the students a quiz. It is a great way for me to check for understanding and make sure that they know the concepts that we are going over. If the students struggled with a particular concept, I supply them with additional worksheets for classwork and homework.

Both of these books have been very beneficial to my classroom routine and learning environment. The students are loving the worksheets and are getting great use out of them! I highly recommend these products to every teacher at any grade level. You certainly will not be disappointed!

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Erin Sawyer has been an elementary school teacher for 8 years and currently teaches sixth grade. She has also taught third and fourth grades. Erin enjoys finding resources that will motivate and challenge her students to learn. She also serves as the student council mentor to the upper-grade students.