Reflections from Kindergarten Model Lesson

With a new adoption and and shifting our teaching practice to inquiry-based learning, there is so much for us to learn as teachers. Luckily for our Kindergarten teacher, we were able to have a consultant come in to model a lesson. This is not something that the publisher deos regularly, however, due to some not-up-tp-par experiences in our Professional Development day, the publisher agreed to do this for our district. And WOW! It was amazing! Sometime seeing really is believing.

Here I am going to share some the major ah-ahs from the day, including videos and pictures. Hopefully this will give you an example of what Math Workshop can look like in your classroom and you can take it and make it your own! Ok, let's get started!

Model Lesson : Morning Session

In this unit, students will be using a variety of manipulatives for learning about 2-D shapes. Organizing the manipulatives and having students own their learning through Math Workshop can be a challenge. Below are pictures and videos that show possible ways to organize the manipulatives and MathWorkshop time with students.

Model Lesson: Pearson Investigations3 Kindergarten Unit 3 Session 1.4
Date: November 17th, 2016
Pearson Trainer: Sandy Fluck

Playdough Shape Mats

As a scaffolding technique, you can use these mats for students to form shapes with the playdough. By providing the outline of the shape, students can match the playdough either as an outline or filled in shape.
Removing the mat provides a different skill. This forces the student to form the shape without the outline.

Math Workshop (Investigations Style)

Math Workshop is designed to:

• Provide students with repeated experience with the concepts being learned and time to practice important skills and refine strategies. 
• Provide time for the teacher to work with individual students and small groups and to assess students' learning and understanding. 
• Help students develop independence and learn to take responsibility for their own learning as they choose activities, keep track of their work, use and take care of classroom materials, and work with others. 

Math Workshop menu using pictures

In Kindergarten, teachers may feel the need to provide structures and support for students to engage in independent learning through Math Workshop. While grade level, class size, physical space, students population and management styles are all factors in designing a Math Workshop for your classroom, do not be afraid to give students full access to choice.
The video above demonstrates a lesson where students engaged in Math Workshop with complete control over the activities they chose for themselves. The introduction to the lesson provides the structure and expectations for Math Workshop. The picture to the right shows the students the 4 options for activities during workshop time:

1. Counting Jar
2. GeoBoards
3. PlayDough
4. Pattern Blocks

Classroom Layout & Manipulatives Management

Every classroom is different in regards to layout and space. However, consider how you can place manipulatives so that students can gather and cleanup manipulatives themselves. For the model classroom, the pictures show a table where all the math manipulatives were located  for that day. Tubs, cups, plastic bags and bins are all used to help students self-manage their materials.

Student taking their bag of playdough

Each student has an individual ziplock with playdough. Names are written on the outside of the bag.

Geoboards and cups of rubberbands

Paper cups are used to store the rubber bands for the GeoBoards. Students take a cup and a GeoBoard to their table to work on creating shapes.

Table used for gathering, seleting,
and return supplies

Remember, there is no right way or wrong way to set-up your classroom and your math materials. Each teacher has a personal style and classroom management routine that will influence how classroom materials are handed out. Consider organization strategies that allow students to take ownership of classroom math manipulatives. Here are a few suggestions:

• Location: Math Bookshelf or Cupboard 
• Storage: bins, buckets, ziplocks, etc. You can even use clear food containers that can be donated by families. 
• Student jobs to organize or gather materials 
• Weekly parent volunteers to prep materials

Classroom Routines

My District is using Pearson Investigations3 math instructional materials. One component of the daily lessons is the Classroom Routines or Ten-Minute Math time. 

Classroom Routines occurs in Grades 3-5, while Ten-Minute Math is for Grade K-2. Even though the title is different, some of the routines are the same and the purpose of this time is consistent across the grade levels.

Let's take a look at why Classroom Routines/Ten-Minute Math is an essential part to our daily math lesson and a few strategies that will support our routine time is really 10 minutes (and not turn into a 30 minute mini-lesson). 

Overview of Classroom Routines/Ten-Minute Math

Adapted from Implementing Investigations:

Classroom routines are a critical piece of the review and practice that is built into the investigations curriculum. These short, 10-15 minutes activities provide daily practice and review that support and balance in-depth work of each curriculum unit. They are introduced as a session activity and are then used outside of math time (e.g. during morning meeting, just before or after lunch or recess, or at the beginning or end of the day) or integrating into the math lesson as the first 10 minutes of the 70 minute math block. Classroom routines offer ongoing skill building, practice, and review to support students understanding and retention key mathematical ideas, reinforcing the work of previous units and helping students increase the repertoire of strategies for mental confrontation and problem-solving.

Let's take a quick glance at the various routines across the grade levels. 

Classroom Routines in Investigations3 Additional information about Classroom Routines and Ten-Minute Math can be found in Part 4 of the Implementing Investigations manual.
Classroom Routines			Ten -Minute Math
Kinder	Gr 1	Gr 2	Gr 3	Gr 4	Gr 5
Attendance	Build It	Fact Fluency	Closest Estimate	Closest Estimate	Closest Estimate
Calendar	Quick Images	How Many Pockets	Counting Around the Class	Counting Around the Class	Guess My Rule
Counting on the Number Line	Start With/Get To	Quick Images	Guess My Rule	Practicing Place Value	Order of Operations
Story Problems	Tell a Story	Today’s Number	Practicing Place Value	Quick Images	Practicing Place Value
Today’s Question	Time	What Time is it?	Quick Images	Quick Survey	Quick Images
			Today’s Number	Today’s Number	Today’s Number
			What Time is it?	What Time is it?

You can see from the table that there are some routines that are done at each grade. This consistency supports students as they engage in the routine again and again with deeper content as the move from one grade level to the next. 

Some of the routines are common math routines that are discussed in other instructional resources. For those familiar with Number Talks: Helping Children Build Mental Math and Computation Strategies, the routine Quick Images will be familiar. While investigations3 takes a slightly different approach to Quick Images, it is perfectly fine to adapt the routine for your students as use both approaches. 

A couple of other resources that I really love for the K-2 classroom, is the It Makes Sense series. There are some routines describe in these two books that are similar to the routines we are using in Investigations3.

Certainly it is not necessary to have these books in order to implement your Classroom Routines/Ten-Minute Math, but if you have these available or you are familiar with these books, go ahead use them!

One of the main differences between the approach in these resources and the Classroom Routines/Ten-Minute Math from Investigations3 is using the routine as pure mental math. 

One of the resources that I think is really useful is the hand signals. These hand signals allow for students to participate in mental math while informing you, the teacher, where they are at in their thinking process. Using thumbs up, thumbs sideways, and showing the number of fingers to match additional strategies communicates whether students are done, need more time, or have more than 1 strategy. 

Click here: Hand Signals PDF

Math Tech Tools - QR Codes

Math Tech Tools - QR Codes

Check out this article from Edutopia!

The recent Edutopia article describes 5 ways to use QR Codes for your math classroom. 

1. Connect to Tutorials

2. Interactive Word Walls

3. Share Student Work

4. Explore 3-Dimensional Shapes

5. Update Old Textbooks

Go check out the article here:

Do you use QR Codes in your classroom? What additional ways do you use QR Codes?

Challenge: Select one way to use it in your classroom. How and when will you use QR Codes?

Now What? Next Steps for Implementing Number Talks

So, you’ve heard about Number Talks or maybe your math coach has modeled a Number Talk in your classroom. Now what?

Establish the Routine:                  

• Use hand signals. 
  
•  Record all student solutions without teacher comment.
• Ask students to justify or defend an answer.
•  Provide students with sentence frames to support communication.
• Establish a classroom community that is supportive and helping everyone learn. There is not one best solution or strategy. We all can learn math.

How do I prepare for my next Number Talk?

• Consider the skills within your unit or skills that your students need more support.
•  Create or select one problem or a series of 3-4 problems. Refer to the Number Talks book by Sherry Perrish for a selection of problems. Or refer to the handout “Grades 3 through 5” by Boston Public Schools.
• Prior to the classroom Number Talks, solve each problem using strategies that students will possibly come up with. This prep work is worth the time. Consider using the Planning Guide (from Number Talks Quick Start Guide pages 15-25, Oakland by Unified School District)

Maximizing your Number Talk Experience

• Prior to the Number Talk, make sure you worked out all possible strategies. This will help you decipher students thinking and record the problem using good syntax.
• Start with easier problems. As you introduce the routine or want students to focus on a new strategy, start with problems that have smaller numbers. This will help students focus on the strategy and not get overwhelmed with the higher numbers.
• Connect the Number Talk to the math lesson for that day. This may not always be possible, but can really lead to good conversations and preloading students with strategies for that day’s lessons. 
• After the Number Talk, have students solve a problem, on paper, that is similar to the problem(s) from that day’s Number Talk. This could be an “Exit Ticket” for your Number Talk. 
• After the Number Talks have students use their math journals to answer an extension question.
• Which strategy was most efficient for “the problem”?
•  Pose a potential mistake or misconception and have students write how to fix it.
• Have students write to a friend explaining how to solve a similar problem.
• Scaffold Number Talks during the week to create problem sets that have the same strategy focus, but the numbers get increasingly bigger.