Teacher: So this activity is called “Say What.” What I want to ask you is, why do you think we worked on this today? What would you think the goal was or the reason for working on this math today? I want you to think for a second.

Yes?

Student 1: We were trying number sentences on the paper.

Teacher: We were to match our number sentence, right? What were we doing here? Were we trying to put things in order? Were we taking away? What were we doing?

Class: Adding numbers

Teacher: Oh my gosh, what does adding mean? What does that mean? Why aren’t any of these crossed out? Think first. Why are none of them crossed out?

Student 2: Because it’s not subtraction.

Teacher: Because it’s not subtraction.

Teacher: I use “Say What” at the end of lessons after we’ve talked about a concept and we’ve had multiple opportunities to practice to that I know they can verbalize what they just learned for that lesson that day. 

Based on these responses today, I need to review addition, the plus sign, the equal sign, and how the picture matches the addition problem they’re trying to solve.

“Say What” is fun. I think this is a great instructional practice to make sure your kids actually learn what you intended to that day.