With a new school year come many new goals. One of my goals is to implement math workshop. I really do enjoy teaching with the workshop model and I have tried it in the past with math. While I enjoyed it, it just was difficult for me to remain consistent. I would try a different way every 2 weeks it seemed! I struggled with finding a system that worked best for me and my students. I want this year to be different.
I set out to get my self organized and wanted to begin with a guided math binder much like my guided reading and conference binder. I really needed a way to help keep myself organized, on track, and I needed a way to track student progress, too.
(I’m sorry about that horrible glare!)
That evolved into making a schedule for small groups.
As I was working through it in my mind, I decided to give my little math workstations a “theme” so to speak. They are robots gearing up for learning! I created a 7 week implementation plan for getting started with math work stations. Each week tells me what new things I am introducing to the students and when to start pulling groups. I have to remind myself at the beginning of every year that the first six weeks of school my focus is not small group instruction, but classroom management so that I can pull small groups for the rest of the year. It truly helps me to have a big picture in mind and a map about how to get there!
I know the first week of school it spent teaching procedures very heavily so I created Math Workshop Guidelines to help teach procedures for Math Workshop.
I could not be happier with the way this all came together. It has been in the works for about 3 weeks. It isn’t huge, but it will impact my teaching and the students’ learning in HUGE ways for sure!
Check it out by clicking the pictures above.
What are you hoping to implement this year? Have you set any goals yet?
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