Warm-ups in Math Education

Warm-ups are an important aspect in a math classroom. Warm-ups serve many functions, including getting students in a “math” frame of mind, reviewing material from previous lessons, reviewing basic skills such as fractions, percents, etc, review skills that may not be a normal part of everyday lessons such as OAKS testing preparation or use of calculators, or even pre-viewing or priming what you will be doing that day.  Warm-ups can also provide the teacher an opportunity to check for students pre-existing knowledge and/or misconceptions on the lesson that is being taught that day, so the teacher can gauge how fast or slow he/she needs to go and which topics and students need special attention.

I believe that warm ups should take under 10 minutes, especially in a 40 minute or 50 minute period system. I also believe that warm-ups should not be graded, but instead should be checked by a group discussion or calling on individual students.