In this class, students will be challenged to compete in many brainteaser activities that will help them enhance their critical thinking and math skills. They will be given a series of problems or challenges each class that they must complete. Each class will be broken into three parts: mental math brainteasers, challenge activities, and logic and puzzle problems. For the mental math brainteaser, these types of problems with help students practice multi-step math problems while challenging themselves to do it mentally. We may also play games to compete against the other students to see who is the fastest at these mental problems. For the challenge activities, students will be given a question or problem and must figure out a way to solve it. These types of problems will include more hands-on activities and manipulative. For the logic and puzzle problems, the students will be given logic problems or puzzles where they will need to look at different pieces of information in order to arrive at an answer. These problems will help strengthen their deductive reasoning skills.  Overall, all of these types or brainteaser problems with help the students to be stronger in their critical thinking and math skills

Week 1: This class will be split up with introduction, brainteaser questions, a challenge activity, and a logic puzzle. At the beginning of this class, we will introduce ourselves to each other and the teacher will gauge the students' prior knowledge about this topic. For the brainteaser questions, students will be asked brainteaser, riddle-like questions to enhance their math skills and get them warmed up with their critical thinking skills. The class will then start the main challenge activity. This challenge is called the Football Goal Post Challenge where students will move two sticks/post of the goal post to have the football move from inside the goal post to outside of it. After the students, have solved the challenge the students will move on to the logic puzzle.The logic problem with be a multi-step problem that will give the students different pieces of information in order to arrive at an answer. This will be a print out that students will need to fill out. 

Week 2: This class will be split up with review, brainteaser questions, a challenge activity, and a logic puzzle. At the beginning of this class, we will review anything from the class before. For the brainteaser questions, students will play a race game with multi-step math problems that they must solve mentally as fast as they can to earn points. This will help enhance their math skills and get them warmed up with their critical thinking skills. The class will then start the main challenge activity. This challenge is called the Matchstick Challenge where students will move matchsticks (we will use bobby pins or toothpicks) to answer different prompts. After the students, have solved the challenge the students will move on to the logic puzzle.The logic problem with be a multi-step problem that will give the students different pieces of information in order to arrive at an answer. This will be a print out that students will need to fill out.  

Week 3: This class will be split up with review, brainteaser questions, a challenge activity, and a logic puzzle. At the beginning of this class, we will review anything from the class before. For the brainteaser questions, students will be play a race game with brainteaser, riddle-like problems that they must solve mentally as fast as they can to earn points. This will help enhance their math skills and get them warmed up with their critical thinking skills. The class will then start the main challenge activity. This challenge is called the Pattern Puzzle Challenge where students will be shown a puzzle with missing numbers. The students must figure out what the missing numbers are. After the students, have solved the challenge the students will move on to the logic puzzle.The logic problem with be a multi-step problem that will give the students different pieces of information in order to arrive at an answer. This will be a print out that students will need to fill out. 

I taught sixth grade math for four years; I am passionate about helping students learn new math skills and critical thinking skills while making it fun and engaging. As a teacher, I make sure to create standard-based lessons that help students to learn the curriculum while making it fun to learn!