Math Toss and Pair-Share

In an attempt to procrastinate on my lesson plans a little bit longer, I've decided to blog about a couple of simple math "activities" that I do to keep my class a little more interesting. I say "activities" in quotes because they're not full-blown projects or even games necessarily. I just use them to try to make math problems less boring. As much as I love math, handing a student 15-20 equations and saying "You learn by doing!" is torturous, so here we are :) (I may have blogged on this first activity already... I'm not sure).

Math Toss - I borrowed/stole this activity from one of my favorite professors, Mrs. Rachel Pool. It can be adapted for several different types of problems, but I used it most recently for solving and graphing inequalities.
*Problems are given on the board. I provide 2-3 different problems and assign rows of students to do each one. They still work independently, but this gives me the opportunity to go over more than one problem after the activity.
*Students work on a half sheet of paper and are told to solve the inequality but do NOT graph (yet). When they finish, they crumple their paper into a ball. (They begin to get restless and excited at this point!)
*On my count, students are allowed to throw their "ball"... at me. I should probably be concerned that they get SO excited about throwing something at me, but I just go with it!
*Once they've tossed their ball, they come up and retrieve one (my mantra here is "It doesn't matter who it belongs to or if it's your own. Pick one up and go back to your desk"). When they get back to their desk, they check the work done and then graph the inequality.

Pros: Students are having fun and doing math, need I say more?  Students get out of their seats. Students practice evaluating someone else's work.
Cons: Students get caught up on, "Whose problem is this?" Without clear direction, they can get out of hand when throwing but I'm fairly strict in my directions so it's not usually a problem.

Pair-Share - This can also be adapted for several different types of problems. I'm using it this week with Greatest Common Factors.
*Each student makes up their own _______. For GCF this week, it will be a random number (with reasonable parameters given).
*Students are to pair up with another student and find the GCF of their two numbers.
*I usually have them pair up with a different student after this for more practice.

Pros: Students work together. Students "create" their own problem. Students get out of their seats.
Cons: If what they're supposed to make up is too complicated (perhaps an algebraic expression), it can be confusing when they pair up.

That's all I have for now... I suppose I'll have to actually finish my lesson plans now :)