Are you
LOVING this book as much as I am??? I am
still in the midst of the whirlwind that is the end of the school year, but I
am feeling like I am also ready to being to be thoughtful about making changes
for next year.
A HUGE
thanks to Amanda from The Primary Gal for turning me on to this book! And BIG
HELLO to the new teachers and math coaches from my district who are now
following our little blog hop book group!
I have
been using guided reading (mostly centered around what Fountas and Pinnell have
taught, but my district pulls in pieces from other researchers too!), so I feel
like my room is set up in a way that will be conducive to guided math!
Looking
at the foundational principles of guided math laid out by Laney Sammonds, I
think her first is the MOST important. All students can learn math. By saying this one is the most important, I don’t
mean to belittle the others, I just feel that without this underlying value,
none of the other principles will be easy to put into place.
This is something
that I do feel like I NOW import to students.
However, I will admit to being one of those people who used to say “ I’m
just not good at math” or “I’m not a math person”. It took time for me to change my views on
this, because the school culture I grew up in supported the fact that you
either knew it or didn’t – not that the work you put in = your success.
I do
think that there are many parts of my classroom that help students feel as
though they are members of a mathematical community. However, there are definitely some additions
that I would like to have in place for next year so that the feeling is
stronger.
Student Calendars
I have a
classroom calendar, but never use individual ones – maybe I can make it more
meaningful if students needs to keep track of their weather data themselves
along with our whole class chart…
Manipulatives
We use
manipulatives ALL of the time. Kids LOVE
hands on work!!
Problems of the Day/Week
I’ve tried these before, but since they weren’t
differentiated, I have not been successful.
How do you make these meaningful for all students?
Word Wall/Math Vocab
I have
my math alphabet that I shared in my last post, but maybe I could make a separate
board with math vocab?? Not sure where
this could fit, but sound like it could be helpful!
Math Journals
I’m
going to have to be careful with language in this one…We use Everyday Math and
they have a “journal”. By “journal” they
mean practice pages, not places to write math thinking. I am intrigued by this. Do you all have prompts for each day/week or
do you let kids write about problems as they come up?
Graphic Organizers
We use
these across the curriculum.
Class Made Charts
LOVE TO
MAKE THESE WITH THE KIDDOS!!
Math Literature
Always
looking for more math connections!
Math Books by Student Authors
I’ve
never tried this before? How does it fit
in with everything else that we are teaching?
Our new writing curriculum leaves NO ROOM for “extras”.
Math Connections to Other
Curriculum Areas
I would like
to find more places to make these connections!
A mission for the summer!
Hope this week got you thinking about your classroom set up. I know it got me thinking. There is certainly more to creating an atmosphere of numeracy than I had originally thought!
Happy Reading!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
a Rafflecopter giveaway
