Estimation, Math Notebooks, and Anchor Charts

This week we are teaching estimation by rounding to the nearest 10 and to the nearest 100, CCSS 3.NBT.1.  

On Monday, we created this anchor chart with our classes:

We also watched Brainpop!'s Rounding video and stopped before the Rounding Decimals part.

Students copied the anchor chart into their notebook onto their Frayer model anchor chart:

We also felt that it would help students to have a hundred chart with rounding tips, so they glued this chart from Super Teacher Worksheets into their notebook for this week, too.

Switching Groups Mid-Week

For the first time since starting math workshop, we changed our four math groups mid-week this week. We noticed certain students in the lowest group grasping estimation quicker than students in the low-medium group.  Based on yesterday's closure activity and in-class observations at the teacher station, we swapped some students between the red (lowest) and yellow (low-medium) groups.  For example, Johnny was in the red group but was catching on quicker than Suzy in the yellow group, so we switched the two.  Today, Suzy received more support during teacher station because her peers were at the same instructional level. This change emphasized to us how important ongoing assessment and closure are to driving instructional decisions. This is truly differentiated instruction.

Another Math Workshop Board

Anchor charts from the year so far...

Join us next week for a Q & A with a guest blogger, a fourth grade teacher starting math workshop this year! :) 

--Tabitha & Chloe

4 Stations!?!

Happy Tuesday! :)

After half of a school year of math workshop, we decided that our students still struggle with basic facts.  Now that we have introduced multiplication and division, we wanted a fourth station for students to practice all four operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. 

So--we spent our last professional work day creating a fourth station: Fact Practice.

After observing a math workshop at another school in the district and brainstorming how best to make this change, we came up with:

We changed our groups to colors: Red=Low, Yellow=Low-Medium, Green=High-Medium, Blue=High. (Groups still change weekly based on pre-assessments, of course) The colored groups make differentiating worksheets much easier. Groups pick the colored sheet or colored game pieces that match their group color.

The bottom part of the board shows how our rotation schedule works.  The dots show where each group starts.  Students rotate in a clockwise circle to the next station around the room.  The low group starts out at the teacher station, while the high group will come to the teacher station last.  The white board space allows for activities to be written in so that each student knows what task to complete.

We came up with the norms together, and the students refer to those norms to self-evaluate at the end of each math workshop.

<--Along with adding a fourth station, we also decided to add a Math Station Sheet (Thank you, to a math coach in our district!).  

This Math Station Sheet cuts down on copies and holds students accountable for the work completed at each station. 

At the start of math workshop, we display the teacher's copy of the sheet on the document camera (ELMO).  We fill in the titles for each station together.  Students also decide on the appropriate voice level for each station and write it in the boxes.

As students go to each station, they record information from that station.  For example, today at Fact Practice, students played Bingo Facts.  As they drew cards out of the basket, they recorded the answers on their Math Station Sheet under the Fact Practice station. 

To encourage us as teachers to always have a closure , we included it on the sheet as well. :)  The closure today in Chloe's class was: "I have 6 vertices, and all of my sides are equal in length.  What am I?" In Tabitha's class, students were told to write two attributes of a hexagon.

For the magic rectangle in the top-left corner, students rate their behavior according to the math workshop norms.  They write a 1-5 (1=many improvements needed, 5=keep it up!).

To keep grading simple, we assign a point for each box on the sheet=10 points (1 for the name!)