I have had a couple opportunities to sit in on Dr. Yeap Ban Har presenting math concepts. One such workshop was when he talked about the importance of Anchor Tasks. Anchor tasks can be presented in a variety of ways: a short 5-10 minute tasks prior to moving into the lesson, a problem students can come to when they are finished with their work, or maybe a problem that they will work on throughout an entire unit. Whatever type of task you decide on, there should be time for exploration, communication and questioning, modeling, time for students to attend to precision, persevere and make sense of the problem - in other words, they should encompass many of the Mathematical Practice Standards!
We need more than worksheets to develop mathematical thinkers. Giving students a worksheet is easy for students to practice their skills, but are those worksheets effective? Are they engaging? Do they develop thinking skills needed for real life? Dr Ban Har's book Every Child Can Do Math offers simple problems to engage your students that naturally create conversations needed to for mathematical thinking.
There are many resources available outside of this book too - here are a couple of files to get you started!
There are many resources available outside of this book too - here are a couple of files to get you started!