Guided Math Week #3 - Chapter #3 - Morning Math Warm-Ups and Calendar FUN!

This week has been a CRAZY one, but a good one - 8 days left and parents in for a work share on Friday!  Things are changing at my school for next year – and in a lot of ways things will be in a good place for the fall, but one makes me sad.  Our math coach is retiring.  She has been so supportive and caring about us as teachers and the kids as learners.  She is a hands-on person who will help you out in ANY way she can.  I think she will like some of the new ideas I got from this chapter about helping my kids do more math talking…

Currently, my kids come into the classroom and have 2 things at their seat – a warm up literacy paper (mostly grammar and phonics practice) and a math message book.  

This math message book is set up for kids to answer one question each day.  The question always covers material taught the day before.  This helps me figure out who “owns” the material and who needs more time.  Sometimes, I change my differentiated math groupings based on this information. 

After reading this chapter, I still like the math messages (exit slip style), but I realize that I need to do more.  I REALLY like all of the math warm-ups that Laney suggested.  I am one of those teachers who will need a schedule (Monday – data, Tuesday –math at home, etc) to help her plan, but what really won me over was how easy it will be to get kids talking!

Our district uses 2 CLM units, which focus on mathematical discourse.  They are both great units, but they only last 2 weeks each and as much as we want to continue the math chatter throughout the year, it somehow gets lost.  These math warm-up will be (I hope) a great way to gets kids talking and sharing about math.  Maybe if they have these conversations more often, they will be able to have higher-level learning partnerships – The kind I always want to have, but I don’t have many ready for this. 

I’m excited to try this out next year – That being said, yesterday I was told that we only have 10 minutes from the first bell to the start of morning meeting.  That means our morning routine will need to be tight – SCARY for firsties.  I’m committed to placing this somewhere in my day though – even if first thing ends up not working.  Anyone else have a SUPER SHORT morning work/check in time?  What do you do?

Making connections in reading is something that comes second hand for me and for my kiddos too.  Making connections in math is something that I have done in passing, but certainly not something that I did in a concrete way.  I am loving the idea of teaching the same type of connections in math as I di in reading. 

One of my SUPER SWEET bloggy friends, Kim from Splish Splash Ms. Lander's Class made these posters to help kids keep the three types of connections straight.  How cute are they??  And they are FREE!! 

I have to say that making concrete connections is on my MUST DO list for next year.  I want to make one of my warm-ups be about making connections and I would like to be more explicit about the places where connections can be made from the concept I am teaching to the “real-world”.  Anyone have any AMAZING ways that you help kids make math connections?  I’m looking for ideas!! J

This book is a great way for me to end the school year and begin thinking about next year.  I hope you are loving it as much as I am!

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