Math Spiral Review Strategies to Make Content Stick

5 Math Spiral Review Strategies to Try

How many times have you taught something, only to have your students magically “forget” it one month later? It can be so frustrating. You may feel like you want to backtrack or start over. Today I’m sharing 5 math spiral review strategies you can implement to make math content stick with your students. 

*Note: You do not need to implement all of these strategies at once! Pick one (or two) that seems like the best fit for your classroom!

Weekly Math Spiral Review

These weekly spiral review sheets are a great way to help your students get started first thing in the morning or at the beginning of your math block. Because it’s only one sheet a week, it isn’t overwhelming for students to complete and only takes a few minutes out of the day.

Each month covers a variety of skills, and the days are thematic. For example, one month you might have Telling Time Tuesday! There is also a yearly at-a-glance spreadsheet to help you fit this into your curriculum as needed.

You can find these for first grade here and second grade here!

Warm Up With a Problem of the Day

Would you like to go practically paperless? Each day, display a new problem of the day in your classroom. Students can complete each day’s problem on a whiteboard, in a notebook, or one of the recording sheets!

These are similar to the spiral review warm-ups, but they take even less time out of your day!

You can find problem of the day for first grade here and second grade here!

Daily Word Problem

Teachers either love teaching word problems or absolutely hate it! You already know how valuable these real-life applications are, so it’s important you make a plan to implement word problems continuously throughout the year!

Whether you write a daily word problem on the board or have students complete the word problem in a math notebook, implementing word problems regularly is crucial!

You can find monthly word problems for first grade here and second grade here!

Spiral Review Math Centers

It’s easy to overlook this strategy, but if you plan it out thoughtfully, you’ll definitely find success! When planning your math centers, be sure to include skills you want your students to review. I use 3-5 math centers a week, and I always include one math center that reviews time, money, measurement, shapes/fractions, or graphing.

We focus on place value and addition and subtraction so much throughout the year, but these other skills don’t have as much time. That’s why I always incorporate these types of skills into math centers so there is more emphasis and review throughout the year.

Practice Math Facts With Fact Fluency Friday

This might be one of my favorite strategies that is extremely easy to implement. And as a bonus: students LOVE this one and beg for it! I call it Fact Fluency Friday!

On Fact Fluency Friday, students play math fact games and activities with friends! It can be first thing in the morning during arrival or a fun way to begin or end your math block!

I love this strategy so much that I have an entire blog post dedicated to it. You can read it here!

FREE Math Spiral Review Resources