Math Workshop: Hands On Independent Learning

So excited about cohosting Chapter 6 in our Guided Math book study! Don't forget to check out Mechele at Barrow's Hodgepodge who is hosting it with me!

In Chapter 6, Laney gave some components of math workshop and some examples. After reading it, I happily found I use a lot of these in my room! I decided to make a table (yep, I love them!) to show how I use them in my room.

Laney's Component	Where I Use It	How I Use It
Review of  Previously Mastered Concepts	Math Workstations	My math workstations are a great spiral review for students! As the year goes on, I try to keep units that we've learned in their stations so students can continuously work on them.
Math Fact Automaticity	Team Meeting, Math Workstations	These are easy and great to place in a workstation. I also use them while students are waiting for me to start our Team Meeting. They just grab a box of flashcards and work with their math partner on them.
Math Games	Math Workstations, Current Even, Team Meeting, Mini Lesson,	I try to make math fun, so we use games all throughout the day. Once they have learned it in a mini lesson or Team Meeting, they are ready for me to add it to their independent practice in Current Event or Workstations.
Problem Solving Practice	Math Workstations, Mini Lesson	I do a Problem of the Week which you can find more out about HERE.
Math Journals	Mini Lesson	I have students keep all their notes from our mini lessons in their math journals. They carry them with them all throughout math and can reference them any time. We also do a lot of closing activities that require a math write.
Computer Use	Math Workstations	I love using the computers! One workstation is always designated as the computer. One program I love to use is Xtra Math. It's great for fact automaticity and provides the teacher with weekly progress graphs for students. Best of all ITS FREE!

Now when I first read this book a few years ago, I loved the ideas Laney presented but HOW DID YOU RUN A WORKSHOP!!?!?!?! I have tried many different approaches, but last year I felt I had finally found one that worked for me! So if you are STILL wondering HOW, here's what I do! :) Please review my other Math Workshop posts, as they'll give you a better idea of my framework. Below will focus on what students do while you are in your meeting.

Just a refresher, in my room, I do 3 rotations. Team Meeting is with me, and Current Event and Workstations are independent.

Again, here is how my student's rotate through stations.

Rotation #	Workstations	Current Event	Team Meeting
1	Lions (bubble)	Giraffes (high)	elephants (developing)
2	Giraffes (high)	Elephants(developing)	Lions (bubble)
3	Elephants (developing)	Lions (bubble)	Giraffes (high)

Sometimes I will switch the developing and bubble groups just to keep things different. I always meet with my high group last however, and my bubble (average) and developing (low) first so that when they go onto other activities they understand what to do.

So, what do students do while you are in a Team Meeting (a meeting with a small group)?

MATH WORKSTATIONS
Just like Debbie Dillers book, I use activities that are review. Whether it's reviewing a concept from 5 weeks ago, to a concept taught yesterday, these stations are geared towards activities they understand and can practice independently. I have games, math books we've read aloud, and manipulatives. All of the activities are things I have already taught. There's nothing worse than hearing, "I don't know what to do!!" (although let's be honest, there's still times that I hear that!!)

 How I organize my math stations (I have about 10)

How students know which station to go to. The orange number is the workstation. 2-3 students can go to one station per day. I move the orange numbers at the end of every day. I try not to change stations until each student has rotated through, so that means I like the station to stay there for at least 2 weeks or more.

EXAMPLE MATH WORKSTATION

First off, all my math workstations have a menu.

 

As I teach new games that fall under that unit math station, I'll add it to the list. I also draw pictures next to it, showing the materials needed. It also helps remind them what game it is, and all the resources they will need to be successful with the activity. I keep this menu in a page protector, and write the menu with sharpie. That way it doesn't rub off, but can be removed completely with a little nail polish remover! Easy for when I need to change the station or pull out a game! I also velcro this inside one of those colored buckets you see above. Students can then pull it off to read it, and velcro it back when they clean up. That way it doesn't get lost!

Inside the colored bucket, I put a large folder with the number of the station.

Inside the folder I place games in ziploc baggies and page protectors. I always label them with the game name that corresponds with the menu.

In this particular game you'll see all the materials inside the page protector. Oh and you see that colored dot? My 3 groups also have a dot associated with them, so for some games, I differentiate them with a colored dot. This game is blue for my lower students, and contains math cards that are easier facts. I could put a red dot on for example, and then use the SAME game, but include challenging math cards for my higher students. Cool right?

One thing I am super big on is MATH TALK. I try to make sure every math station has a talking bubble.

Students use the talking bubble as a sentence stem to help them learn the vocabulary. You should hear them in my room! They love these things! If a station doesn't have one, they'll beg me for one. Again I always teach the stem before I put it in a station. Even my lower readers were able to recognize words since they practiced so much- talk about awesome for when they encounter these vocabulary words on quizzes! Win Win!! I'll tell you these are my FAVORITE thing to use. If you take anything away from this post... PLEASE try these. I learned about them from Debbie Diller in Math Workstations. She has a lot of great sentence stems.

Math workstations can be anything! Sometimes I'll include worksheets that correspond with a game so they can show accountability.

How do you assess students?

This is definitely a work in progress! If a station has work shown, they'll turn it in to me. Sometimes I'll have them come up and show me what they worked on during transition time. I also grade them on cooperation and participation.

CURRENT EVENT

 In this station, I make sure to have one activity the whole class is expected to finish. This can be an art project(sooo fun!), worksheet, game, poster, anything!! I usually explain the current event int he last few minutes of my minilesson so students know how to do this. I also ALWAYS check in with this group while my team meeting buddies are using the flashcards. This allows me to answer any last minute questions or give some quick feedback. I make sure the activity can be completed within 20 minutes (or I'll extend it to the next day.

This is an example of a fun current event project we did for place value. My mini lesson was on creating one of these as a class (which is pictured below! my students turned out MUCH more detailed products), my small groups that day were using whiteboards to make sure they new how to do expanded form, place value form, and written form for a number. We might have played a game that day practicing different ways to write a number.

In this project students were given a baggie with a random number of popsicle sticks and beans. They could use all of them or just a few. (They could only use 1-9 of each item). They then had a paper sheet of 4 hundreds to choose how many they wanted. I had ducks, hearts, flowers, houses, all kinds of creative pictures! Once they created their picture, they counted their hundreds tens and ones and showed the different ways to write the number.

What if students don't finish?

I always leave time at the end of the day for this. If it's still not finished they will be expected to take it home, or it will become a 0 for their grade for that day.

What if students finish early?

If its a game, they play again and again.

If its a project they can make another one.

Our math program comes with beautiful colored workbooks. Since I make up most of my activities, I don't use the worksheets from our workbooks very often. I always start out the year telling students they can do ANY page they want when they finish their current event, as long as they know HOW. They get really excited about it, especially when it's something they learned last year and still remember. Can you believe it, students getting excited about their workbooks? It's possible! Since we viewed them in a 'fun light', they'd even want to do these during free time! Crazy right?

What if students have questions while you're in a meeting?

I always teach my students to ask their partner first, then ask someone in their group, then if NO ONE could answer it they were to write me a note. They could drop it off to me while I was in group. I could read it when I was ready and get back to them.

What if students are messing around?

Okay, I give NO warnings. If they mess around or argue with each other ONE TIME, they pack up their things and become my shadow. That means they have to come sit in on our team meeting, not participate,  but listen. I learned this in Debbie Diller's book. Usually they grow bored and don't want to come back again. I feel like this helps me not interrupt my group to address the problem, AND they are learning math in the process of shadowing. I really push this the first few weeks, and to be honest, I didn't have a lot of off task behavior this year. They wanted to be in stations, not shadowing me.

I'm also linking up with Ms. Alley's Second Grade! Lots of great math ideas going around! :)

Okay wow this was LOOOOONG. I hope this was helpful. Please leave any questions, suggestions, exclamations! :)