The 12 Most Popular Math Strategies and Downloads – Steve Wyborney's Blog (2024)

Over the past 5 years, this blog has seen nearly 3.1 million views. The most popular strategies from the blog all have one thing in common: They include downloadable resources and strategies which can be immediately used in the classroom. They are also free! I’m sometimes asked these two questions:

“Which are the most popular strategies and downloads?”

“Is there a way you could put them in one place?”

Here they are.

Part 1: The Quick List for Easy Access

(See Part 2 for a Deeper Dive.)

1. Splat!

2. Esti-Mysteries: Estimation Meets Math Mysteries

3. 51 Esti-Mysteries

4. The Fraction Splat! Series

5. 20 Days of Number Sense and Rich Math Talk (K-12)

6. Splat for Google Slides – 40 Lessons

7. 100 Subitizing Slides and 10 Challenge Patterns

8. Cube Conversations – and the follow-up post 80 Printable Cube Conversations Pages and 4 Instructional Strategies

9. The Estimation Clipboard

10. The Maze Hundreds Chart – and also the post that followed, Strategies for Using the Maze Hundreds Chart

11. The Animated Multiplication Table

12. Tiled Area Questions – and the accompanying 3 Powerful Tile Strategies (and 40 New Downloadable Pages).Also note: Primary Tile Questions is part of this series.

Part 2: A Deeper Dive

More detailed information – AND PICTURES – can be found in Part 2.

Splat!

Two years ago – nearly to the day – I posted the first Splat! lesson. Since that time, I’ve posted 21 levels on the blog through various posts. The sequence of lessons ranging from very small numbers through algebraic reasoning with multiple variables has proven to be the single most popular concept. There are other versions of Splat! that I have yet to share. Among them, Splat! in Motion and the Rare, Rogue, Red Splat! are in the wings and I look forward to sharing them!

Esti-Mysteries: Estimation Meets Math Mysteries

This concept has been really fun to share. Estimation and a wide range of math concepts are fused together in a very invitational format. The first time you use Esti-Mysteries, you may be amazed at how deep the conversation goes – and at how loud the cheering becomes when you reach The Reveal at the very end of the journey. Your students will ask you for another Esti-Mystery right away.

51 Esti-Mysteries

If it looks like I posted the same thing twice, that’s because the original Esti-Mystery post only had 12 Esti-Mysteries. I received so many requests for more Esti-Mysteries, that I decided to write 51 more during the first few months of this school year. I planned to post 3 per week for 17 weeks in a row. The result is that there are a LOT of Esti-Mysteries suitable for many grade levels that can be immediately downloaded and used in class.

The Fraction Splat! Series

The Fraction Splat! Series is one of my favorite resources. Following Splat! the fraction series dives into some much deeper territory and invites students to think about numbers in many different ways.

20 Days of Number Sense and Rich Math Talk (K-12)

The purpose of this series was to create a set of resources that any teacher – at any grade level – could use for 20 days in a row. It’s mean to provide rich experiences to students and a rich journey for teachers. While the series contains entirely exclusive content, it draws upon 4 routines found in my blog. Days 1-5 are Estimation Clipboards. Days 6-10 are Splats! Days 11-15 are Esti-Mysteries. Days 16-20 are Cube Conversations. Each of the 20 days is labeled so that it is very easy to find which grade level to use. Any teacher at any grade level can use this single post to have access to 20 days of rich math discourse – and may even discover a new part of their teaching journey just by listening to the insights of the students.

Splat for Google Slides – 40 Lessons

After writing Splat! I heard from many educators who do not have access to PowerPoint. So, I rewrote the series from scratch with a new combination of animations that would make it work in Google Slides. This set is for everyone who has Google Slides and wants to use Splat!

100 Subitizing Slides and 10 Challenge Patterns

This is an all-time favorite resource. The concept is a set of 10 lessons. Each lessons shows a series of quick subitizing images (which also energizes the classroom) then quickly transitions to a challenge dot pattern. It’s more than subitizing, and it’s more than a dot talk. It’s the combination of the two that make this work so well. The 100 slides are set in 10 lessons and there are printables to match the challenge patterns.

Cube Conversations – and the follow-up post 80 Printable Cube Conversations Pages and 4 Instructional Strategies

Cube Conversations is a series in which I feature a 3-D cube structure and then (with a click) allow you to show your students how it could be decomposed usefully. The shape changes colors and surprising groupings appear. Then, with two more clicks, two more examples of how the shape can be decomposed appear before the students. Many of the recognize similarities to how they have decomposed it already. The animations serve as an example as 1 more shape appears and allows the students to decompose it 4 different ways. This is one that you really have to see and experience to detect the full power of how it propels student insights.

The Estimation Clipboard

Estimation has always been near and dear to me. Yet, I’ve seen so many, many times when students are given ONE thing to estimate (1 jar, 1 image, 1 length of rope) and then they move on to something completely different. The Estimation Clipboard offers something new in that it provides 4 highly similar images in a row. Students estimate, share their reasoning with each other, and eventually see the answer… And then they are given a 2nd image that is similar to the first one. They have a rich context in which to estimate. Then they see a third image – and then a fourth. After you’ve taught your class the Estimation Clipboard routine, you are very likely to hear even more cheering in the classroom.

The Maze Hundreds Chart – and also the post that followed, Strategies for Using the Maze Hundreds Chart

This interactive hundreds chart allows you to create mazes on the screen in front of your students. Better yet, it allows them to amaze you with their thinking. It’s hard to describe exactly how this chart works without showing it in person – or guiding you to the video. I encourage you to take a look at the post, watch the video, and see just how this highly versatile chart works.

The Animated Multiplication Table

This interactive PPT file allows you to see the multiplication table – and many of the relationships that sometimes stay hidden – in many different, vivid ways. Take a look at the video, and you will see what I mean.

Tiled Area Questions – and the accompanying 3 Powerful Tile Strategies (and 40 New Downloadable Pages).Also note: Primary Tile Questions is part of this series.

I was going to make this list show the top 10 pages – but when I saw that one of my all-time favorite strategies wasn’t within the list of the top 10 page views on my blog, I knew it needed to be shared again. This strategy can travel into so very deep, very rich, and very colorful territory. I love this strategy so much that I actually wrote 3 blog posts about it.

I am certain that this list will change over time. Some of these posts (like Splat!) have been around for two years, while others (like 51 Esti-Mysteries) have only been around for a handful of months.

Thank you for all of your questions and support. I hope this helps to answer these two questions:

“Which are the most popular strategies and downloads?”

and

“Is there a way you could put them in one place?”

I look forward to reflecting on this post in the future and seeing how it changes. There are many new resources which I’m excited to share very soon!

All my best,

Steve