Need Your Help

 It was announced at our faculty meeting that our focus next year will be on math and science. That being said, I do my best with math. I have math "stations" during our enrichment time when I meet with students who our struggling. (This meets my RTI needs) However, I know what I have isn't the most efficient I need help! I'm really trying to figure out changes for next year early on so that I can use up my copy count each month before school is over and then be super prepared for next year. (I fully admit that I am OCD when it comes to my classroom set up) Please leave a comment on how you run your math stations/centers or email me with pictures and an explanation at rowdyinfirstgrade@yahoo.com
Thank you in advance!

7 comments:

  1. I am totally OCD as well...I get all of my back to school stuff, new bathroom passes, etc. printed at the end of the year so I am ready for the Fall. I did a post about how I organize my math games if that might be helpful to you...I called it Everyday Math Games and Tool Organization. Here is the every so long link:
    http://randalllearninglibrary.blogspot.com/2011/03/everyday-math-games-and-tool.html

    I hope it is helpful to you.
    Kelley
    Mrs. Randall’s Learning Library

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  2. My students sit in groups of 4. (5 groups). I set up 5 baskets of math stations at a time. Sometimes there are two activities in it, sometimes in addition to the activities I add flash cards, task cards, different things, just so they have enough to stay busy during our center time. Unlike our reading centers, which I do every week 4 out of 5 days, I do math stations after I feel my students have grasped the concept and are ready to review and practice with games and activities. I set up a basket in each group and establish a rotation so that each group will get a different basket each day. Group 1's basket goes to group 2. Group 2's to 3, etc. Some days we may not have time to get to them. I don't feel I "have to" like I do my reading centers. I can also pull small groups back to the table during centers. Some days we play whole group games instead. After we go through the rotation with all 5, I set up 5 more baskets of centers. Hope this made sense and is useful. Thanks for all the things you share with us.

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  3. Have you read Debbie Diller's Math Work Stations? If you haven't, you must!

    http://www.firstgradebrain.com

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  4. No, I haven't! My school doesn't own the book and my local B&N doesn't have it. But I have been thinking about heading to Half Priced Books to see if they have it. Do you use it in your class?

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  5. Amazon.com has the books for a good price check it out!

    Now on to math. I teach a whole group lesson for 15-20 minutes. Then I have my children rotate in math centers. The math centers are as follows:

    Computers: My kids play FASTT math, EnVision math games, math playground, and cool math.

    Games: I have a drawer of math games on each topic and I put out the topic we are working on. The kids can then choose what game they want to work on since they are all on topic.

    Workbook: I have my students do math problems in there workbook. They do not have much work but this sometimes takes a while for some of them. So I just require them to finish by the end of centers instead of the end of the rotation.

    Teacher: I work with each group to reinforce the lesson of the day, reteach, and enrich depending on the group. The then students take a quick check mini quiz that is three questions for me to assess them each day.

    Then we wrap up math with reviewing the concepts we have learned. I hope this helps you! Good luck!

    Jess
    http://ramblingaboutreading.blogspot.com/

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  6. For Math, I have station buckets. My reading stations are labeled by skill (fluency, listening, phonics, etc), but my math stations are by numbers. I have 5 math stations. Two are always addition, subtraction, skip counting, number matching, etc...the review skills. The other three have been what we are working on in each unit. One has been measurement. One has been time. One has been Money. My kids are grouped heterogeneously for their stations, but homogeneously for the teaching table. I call them by their color when they come to me for direct or guided instruction.

    I have been fortunate to have another teacher in my room during math stations. He pulls a group and I pull a group while the others are working in stations. My kids play games in stations or do file folder games. I honestly haven't made a lot of produce-able worksheets. My kids will do them wrong or do a lot when they only need to do one. Also, we have a shortage on paper, so I am trying to not have unnecessary copies.

    Some days we just have whole group instruction and then cooperative projects.

    I hope that's easy to understand. I personally don't like our math curriculum and plan on changing as much as possible next year.

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  7. This all helps so much! Thank you everyone!

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