Practice Questions: Design Notes & Frames

In this resource, we provide collections of both closed and open mathematics practice questions. Although there are several practice questions for each math topic at each grade level, there may be some students or contexts for which you need more practice questions.

Things to consider when creating practice questions

• Learning standards: What standards are being addressed? Consider both content and competency learning standards.
• Number choices: Are you using numbers that are accessible to all students? How can you provide the same questions with different number sets?
• Strategy alignment: If focusing on a particular computational fluency strategy, what numbers make the most sense?
  For a grade 2 “decompose/make-10” (bridge over ten) strategy, choose two-digit addends with 7, 8, or 9 in the ones place to nudge making 10, e.g. 58 + 26 = ___.
• Question strings: How can you “string” questions to build number relationships and access?
  1. 4 × 7 = ___
  2. 8 × 7 = ___
  3. 16 × 7 = ___
  4. 32 × 7 = ___

Frames for creating practice questions

• Representation prompts: What different ways can you __________?
  (represent 1/3, add 8 and 7, create arrays for 24, make 10, etc.)
• Backward design: If ____ is the answer, what could the question be?
• Compare & contrast: How are ____ and ____ the same? How are they different?
• Operation frames (variations of unknown):
  1. Start Unknown: ___ + 6 = 15
  2. Change Unknown: 9 + ___ = 15
  3. Result Unknown: 9 + 6 = ___
  4. Equivalence placement: ___ = 6 + 9