My Version of Math Groups

As teachers are eagerly getting things sorted and ready for the upcoming school year I thought I would take some time to reflect on my experience with Math Groups. In previous years of teaching, I always taught the lesson whole group, scrambled to get to the struggling students desks and pass out papers... Sound familiar?

Well, I decided to jump ship of this routine and try Math Groups. After browsing Pinterest and many blogs I finally felt like I had a good idea of what I was wanting for my 3rd grade classroom. Below is a run down of how I set things up.

Schedule

Looking at my schedule I knew that I had enough time to do 4 math groups in one day. Each group would receive modified versions of the same lesson. My first 2 groups were 20 minutes each and my last 2 groups were 15 minutes each. Now... like you I thought that it was a crazy idea to try and teach in 15-20 minutes. How would I teach everything I needed to teach? How will I make sure these students got and practiced what was being taught? Well listen up, I did it and it worked. I figured out what I really wanted the kids to master with me in the short time and what they could do in another rotation/station. My decision: Get down to the nitty gritty at my table and spread out review, worksheets and practice out into the other rotations/stations.

 

Rotations/Stations (same thing!)

With 4 rotations decided on, the next step was to figure out what students would do in each station. Station 1 (teachers table)- students would meet with me for the nitty gritty lesson of the day.

 Station 2 (at your set work)- students would work on that days worksheet/visual that is related to that days lesson.

Station 3 (math games)- students would play different file folder/teacherpayteachers.com games that I found and created.

Station 4 (math facts)- extremely important and improved my students memory with daily math fact games that I created or purchased on teacherspayteachers.com

 

Stations Prep

Teachers Table- manipulatives needed for the lesson, a pencil box/container containing everyday materials they may need (5-6 glue sticks and scissors, sharpened pencils, eraser caps, dry erase markers)

At Your Seat Work- Worksheet that is related to what students learned that day. There would be a sign letting them know if this was practice or if it was for a grade. Either way, students turned in their work at the end of their station time.

Math Games- I started off with 6 choices... TOO many. My kids were crazy and they did not take care of my games :(. Taking that down a notch, I got a three plastic container from Target and took the game choices down to 3... JUST RIGHT! Now to prep for this, I looked at my units and created or purchased 5-9 different games from teacherspayteachers.com that would relate to each unit. I found a bunch of free games. Click HERE for some of the games I created myself. These would last for about 4-5 days and then got rotated with another game that was related to the unit... hint the need for 5-9 games revolving around each unit.

Math Facts- Again, these are games that I found on TPT that are all focused on math facts (+0 to +10, mult/divide games, etc).

 

 

Whew... almost done

Now that we know all about my stations, the number of them and whats going on in each. Here is what a day would look like in my classroom. Students would take a pretest at the beginning of the unit to determine if they are in group1,2,3,4. Two groups were reserved for my higher level students, one group was reserved for my med/bubble kids and one group was reserved for my struggling students. I tried to keep groups in sizes ranging from 4-6 students. That allowed them all to fit at my teacher table.

Once groups were decided, students would be told their group number and who their partner was in that group. Their partner was who they would pair up with and work with in all the stations. Partners changed weekly but groups stayed the same throughout the unit. When all students were assigned a group and group partner, students would look at our board and figure out what station they would start at everyday during the unit. Students would go to that station and begin that days activities. For my sanity I would keep a timer on my phone that would ding when it was time to rotate. Students would get a 1 minute warning to clean up, the timer would ding, they would look to see where to go next and rotate. Simple! After the first 2 days students began to remember where to rotate. It was basically a big circle that they would follow each and everyday.

By the end of all the rotations for that day, students would have received their daily nitty gritty lesson, did their worksheet, practiced the topic by playing related math games and lastly review their math facts.

 

 

Now... breathe. I know that was a lot to read but I hope at this point is that you have an idea of how it worked in my classroom. From prep to execution, my students saw success and was able to feel confident in their learning. When asking students, they ALWAYS said they preferred small group math rotation because they "got to learn more".

 

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask below!

 



Multiplication Facts Lap Book

I am excited and ready for my kids to have some fun with this activity this year! Each student will make their own lap book to take home with them for the summer time to use as a review before going on to 4th grade. Students learned tips and tricks to help them remember their multiplication songs. Of course this could be decorated more... but you get the point! To purchase the templates I used visit my TpT store.

Food Chains Notebooklet

When we began our unit on food chains, I wanted a nice tidy area for students to record their notes. Having a hard time finding one that fit my needs, I created this food chains note booklet where students can record their notes.

Sections included in this are:
-what i already know about food chains and illustration
-producers, consumers, and decomposers notes page
-herbivore, carnivore, omnivore notes page
- 3 practice food chains pages which include a producer.

For the 2nd and 3rd parts mentioned above... I used this website. Not only was it written in kid language but it also included fun graphics and games related to food chaints. Check it out: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/foodchain/producersconsumers.htm

If your interested in buying this booklet, I kept it well priced and it can be purchased here.

Measurement pt. 2

Measurement Part 2

     This week my students have been working hard on the second part of measurement. Above is the anchor chart I created that we referenced all week.

      To start the week off, we started with Weight. After discussing our prior knowledge on it, we weighed ourself and talked about where our weight number came from... gravity. We talked about ounces and pounds and each of them got to hold an ounce bag full of popcorn kernals and a pound bag of popcorn kernels. We determined which was more and which was less and that ounces come before pounds. I made the connection that when counting in units we count ten units out and trade them in for a long/rod (10) and that we do the same with ounces and pounds by counting 16 ounces and turning them into 1 pound. Next, we explored food scales, the one I brought from home and the ones we see at the grocery store. We talked about their importance when working with recipes. To connect it to their everyday lift, I pulled out a snack version of applesauce and showed them where on the label they could find its weight. I repeated this with cleaning items, chapstick and drinks.  Last each student recieved their own scale and was able to determine in ounces and pounds the weight of differen classroom objects.

     Day 2 consisted of a short review of where weight comes from (gravity) and ounces in a pound (16). We moved on to mass and how we are not trying to determin its weight but how much stuff was used to make the item. Students learned about balance beams, gram cubes and then explored once again with items found in the classroom. I used the items from the day before (applesauce, etc) to show them that our food packaging often tells us the mass of it. I feel like the kids really understood the difference between mass and weight.

     Day 3 consisted of Volume. We talked about the anchor chart... what we could see, and what was hidden in the picture. We talked about how to build it and how to count it on the paper. Once students built it, they compared it with the answer they got when they counted it on the chart. Lastly, students worked on a worksheet consisting of different block quantities, first shading and counting it. Followed by building it and checking their answer.

     Day 4 wrapped up our lesson. We focused on capacity. Items in our lives that have the capacity written on it and why they thought it was important to have this printed on the packaging. Following our discussion, students explored, each getting their own large tuoperware container filled with water, different measuring cups and graduated cylinders. We ended the lesson by creating a visual of different units used to measure capacity.

Quiet Table Signs

Ever wish you had a way to keep requests at bay during a lesson?!? Well here is all you need. These little buddies will be your new best friend... Say hello! These signs include: restroom, water, sharp pencil and a help sign. They also include a specific sign language sign so that when they are not near the signs they can still use the classroom hand signals.
Simply run multiple copies on cardstock, laminate, attach to popsicle sticks and place a set at each table group. Places to store them include: table cups, table container, etc.



 

Check it out on my TpT Store!

Measurement... the length kind

    For this unit, our students are learning all about measurement. Prior to me, most of my students exposure to measurement revolved around "non-standard" types of measurement. Here is the most recent anchor chart I have created for my classroom to help keep students fresh on the terms.

 



    I have learned from 5 years of teaching this unit that my kiddos struggle with the customary and metric system. To help them out, we first start with the easiest one... customary. After hunting for items that are about inch, foot or yard and recording them on the flowchart below, each student got to create their own inch ruler, foot ruler and yard ruler. This was simply done by cutting 1 inch strips of paper for the inch ruler, 12 inch strips for the foot rulers and 3 additional 12 inch strips for students to put together to create a yard ruler. Basically, I start with the inch ruler. Students draw a line from one side of the inch paper to the other and mark a 0 and a 1 on the line. Next, they fold the paper in half, open it and draw a line where our paper has been halfed. Since we have already talked about fractions, the kids have a easy time understanding why that line is called 1/2 line. I repeat this with the foot ruler. Students use their completed inch ruler to mark off 12 inches and the 1/2 inches between each inch. Then we discuss and label why each 1/2 inch has a whole number in front of it (eg- it is called 2 1/2 because it is the half way mark between 2 and 3). Lastly, students put 3 foot rulers together to make a yard. We label each foot (3 feet total), and how many inches are in a yard. Because we have learned to multiply kids have an easy time telling me that 12x3=36 inches. To conclude the unit, students learn the customary song with kinesthetic movements.

Visit my TPT store (for free song printable)

Next, we move to the metric lesson. Again, students find things that are roughly a millimeter, centimeter, decimeter, meter and kilometer big and record it on their flowchart. The following day, students are placed in groups fo 3-4 to create their very own meter monster. Below are the directions I created as well as some of the meter monsters. Materials needed: pencils, coloring tools, large pieces of white butcher paper, meter sticks.

Visit my TPT store (for free template)

 

 

Meter Monsters





 

To get my Meter Monster directions, visit my TPT site.

Math  Charts in the Classroom

Here are a few of the math charts that I have hung up around the room to keep the kids fresh on what we have learned. The first is a place value poster. In Texas, 3rd graders are expected to learn to 999,999. Now, since this is such a big jump from 2nd grade, my kiddos often get confused on the place values after the hundreds place. 

After teaching addition and subtraction we dive right into multiplication, followed by division. Below are 2 posters that students use when solving those types of problems. We imphasize to our kiddos that it does not matter which way they use to solve the problem as long as the choose a way the are comfortable with.

Recently, we just finished up learning abotu fractions. We first had to review numerator and denominator. We taught the kiddos a fun way to remember it. They stretch out their arms to make the fraction bar then "Nod their Numerator" (head), and lastly, Dance their Denominator (bottom). Gett it N=numerator and nod, and D=dance and denominator!

Once that concept is down we moved equivalent and comparing fractions. Whew, is that a tough one for them. I'd love to hear from yall about what you use that has been succesful when it comes to teaching about those!

Next, we moved onto clock fractions. That was fun. Each student was given 3 big clocks. First we talked about what a whole clock was (60 minutes) and recorded it on the first clock. Next, we folded the 2nd clock in half and talked about what that meant and recorded it on each half (1/2 clock=30 minutes, when the minute hand points to the 6 we say "half past".) Finally, we took the last clock, folded it into fourths, talked about it and recorded on each fourth (1/4=15 minutes, quarter past, quarter til)

Lastly, for this unit we talked about fracions on a ruler. Again this was another doozie for the kiddos, but we got through it and I think they got it for the most part. Obvisously more review is needed!

Our Changing Earth

Our Changing Earth

This unit was focused on how our wonderful Earth changes daily. Students learned, explored and observed the different rapid changers and slow changers of our Earth. After learning about weathering and erosion, I taught them a cool way of remembering the different between weathering and erosion. You can see the hand signs in the picture below. Basically, students make a "w" with each of their hands and wiggle their fingers as they lower their hands and while saying "weathering is the breaking down of rock". For erosion, students turn their "w" hands sideways so now the "w" looks like an "e", moving their hands across their body and saying "erosion is the movement of weathered material". Great for teaching kinesthetically.

 

 

After learning about weathered material, we moved into our soil unit where we focused on what soil is and how it is created. Students studied soil samples and recorded it in their AIMS Soil Study booklet. The next day, students created their own soil sample in a vial using the same ingredients we discussed the day before. After filling the vial with material, students added water, shook the vial and let it rest till our next class. Upon entering the next day, students got to see how their soil sample settled, which parts were which and why they thought it settled that way. Lastly, we discussed how important soil was. Students did not think that soil was in their lives as much as it was. We learned that without soil we would be "naked, hungry and without shelter". Students discussed with partners using a Kagan Structure about how we use soil to make our food, clothes and shelter. To wrap it all up, students created a "Storyboard" about how to create soil. They had to include different types of weathering, erosion and the mixture of weathered material to create their soil.

 

 

Lastly, to wrap of this unit, students explored our Natural Resources. We created a 6 part foldable about how important Natural resources are to survival.