Math Mini Lessons

hi i'm jamie from that's 1b teacher and this is the second video in my math series this series is all about how to teach math using the math workshop model so in my last video I kind of went over what the metaphor truck model was and why I loved using it in my classroom and today we're gonna talk about one of the big components of math workshop which is the mini lesson or the whole group lesson okay lots of us have experience with just teaching the whole group and spending our whole math our whole group that can be so boring to our students especially our lowest learners who don't understand the skills and are getting bored and our math learners who doesn't need an hour to understand the skills so they're getting bored so we're losing like two-thirds of our class just like that by using a math workshop model we're speeding up that mini lesson which is actually hoping to keep our behaviors intact so we don't have as much time to chat we don't have a lot of transitions and it helps us to get to small group time which is where all the magic really happens because that's when we're able to give differentiated content and teach students right where they're at okay let's talk about this mini lesson this is a review from the last video just to give you a reminder the mini lesson is about twenty to thirty minutes the small group and center time is about forty to sixty minutes so you can see it's twice as long as your mini lesson time the bulk of your math instruction should be spent to small groups with the smaller amount being the mini whole group lesson and then a little share time at the end so today we're gonna focus on that mini lesson the next video will be about the small groups and then we'll move on to centers which is my very favorite part you do need about 60 to 90 minutes to make a successful math workshop at least 60 60 will work 90 is a gift and you'll love it less than 16 I really think you don't have quite enough time for and might need to relook at that schedule if possible all right the important thing about teaching and a workshop model is really making sure you have the right mindset if you used to teach all of your lesson whole group then you're really going to have to reprogram your mind to think of this whole group lesson this mini lesson that's just the introduction to this skill all of your students are not going to master it in skill during this lesson and that's okay because if you're only giving them part of the lesson right now they'll receive the rest of the lesson in their small group so it's okay if at the end of the lesson you still have some faces that look confused and that can be tricky for us as teachers to get past we have to understand that the small group is the time or this mini lesson is the time where we're introducing a skill or vocabulary or a strategy but we're really going to get to practice it and dig deep is coming soon I do think it's still important tackle group lesson some people like to just teach all small group I think you end up repeating yourself too many times because there's certain things every student still needs to hear regardless of their level and if you repeat have to repeat it for every single group I actually think that's sticking up more time and getting you less time to differentiate so I think a whole group lesson is important but it still needs to be mini and it still needs to be thought of as just the introduction to the skill okay this is key use your math curriculum that you've been given you don't have to create something all new your school probably has some sort of curriculum that they've given you or required in you and that's fine I think any curriculum will work it's okay whichever cooking we use no matter what problems you might find with your curriculum I think when you start teaching in a workshop model and you add in those centers and add in that differentiation that it's going to make your curriculum feel much more all right I used Eureka or engage New York which is a pretty tricky curriculum I love it but it's it's big and I could still use it in a workshop model so it's possible but use the curriculum don't create something totally different because that's just to take so much of your time the key is that you're not gonna get through the whole lesson your curriculum is probably designed to be like a 60 minute home grab blasted you're gonna kind of go through and highlight what you're gonna do whole group the rest of it will become your small group lesson so you're just splitting it up into two different ways that you're going to be delivering so keep that in mind you're not gonna get through the whole old lesson whole group but there's no reason you can't start there okay all right let's look at some things that you might do during your holger blessing November you have different students than me you have a different classroom different curriculum so you might need to make some little changes to make it work for you one thing you might do you might have a little warmup warm-up for me was often skip counting or am a fact quick practice you might have a review problem my curriculum started with like a review problem and so often I'd start a math workshop with a couple minutes of skip counting and then a review problem keep this quick your mini lesson is so short keep this quick by making sure you use a review problem that you have it ready to project onto your board as soon as you need it not having to write it out if it's not something that's already typed then type it out ahead of time if it's coming straight from your curriculum then just have it ready to display so you don't have to search through a website to try and find it well the kids are waiting you don't have time so before school starts or you know well they're at recess make sure you've pulled up these sites or a document that has the problem listed so that you can really quick review or warm up then you probably need to model a new skill or strategy that comes from your lesson so you are up at the board and your students are either on the carpet or in their desks whatever works for you and you are modeling that skill in front of them and you think aloud so that they can hear your mathematical thinking why you're doing what you're doing and they're watching you also during this time you might be introducing some new vocabulary a lot of lessons include new vocabulary I like to be able to tell them or show them I'm on the board and I'm showing them and so this is the perimeter it is the distance around the shape try to tell your partner what the perimeter is immediately your kids turn and they go the perimeter is the distance around the shape okay and then turn back there's the engagement right there but speaking also helps just yourself too if you can add those into some of your definitions so this you've you've kind of warmed up you've modeled a skill once or twice on the board you've introduced in your vocabulary you needed to now it's time for the student practice time this has to be quick and there's many different ways that teachers do this you have to decide what works best for you perhaps your students are practicing on whiteboards you could be display the practice or problem set that comes with your curriculum onto the board and circle which problems you want them to do how to do it on the whiteboards having to do it with a partner how to discuss it with a partner just how to do the problem and then the class discusses together the strategies they used I like to print my problem set out I didn't actually have carpet space where my students could sit and still see the board it was unfortunate about my question was pretty tiny but I did print out their problem sets here's the thing guys they don't have to complete the entire problem set I only have it in our head that they need to and I get messages all the time going but how are they going to finish the whole problem set if they only have 10 minutes and not and that okay I mean some nights maker mice learners mic that's okay that's kind of your differentiating if you think about it you know whatever your problem sets are organized with Eureka engage New York which is what my school use it started off simple and gradually got more and more challenging to where actually the bottom problems exceeded the standards and skills for the great level so when I was actually listening to someone who helped write the curriculum I said they did not ever intend that the whole class would get through the entire box that every day that those bottom problems were actually meant to be an extension and a challenge those students who needed it were ready for it and if you only gave them ten minutes only those students would ever get to the bottom because if you weren't really certain of the skills and take you longer up at the top and so that's differentiation maybe my lowest learners only gonna get to the top so my middle learners might get to the middle of the page three fours the page my highest learners might be giving a stab at those challenging problems the bottom but look at yours maybe yours is it more by skill like you kind of have more matter-of-fact problems than word problems so tell them you want them to do two in each section and then they can go back and complete a section if they have time be okay with them not finishing the problem set especially during the mini lesson one thing you can have them do is put them in the problem set if you print it out I'll put the pump set in the math folder and have them carry that math folder to small groups so you can continue to work on it during a small group with your individualized attention with manipulatives as far as going over the problems on the problem set you're not going to be able to go over every single one of them and they're working on the problem set walk around and notice ok I went into what problems you're really good with number one too so don't spend class time going over them they already got it if you start noticing some challenges problem number three maybe that's what you need to do go up to the board work on problem number three in front of the class and then tell the students turn tell your partner what strategy I use to solve this problem so now they've got a look at your work determine how you solved it until the partner they're learning and then you can say now could your work do you need to make any changes you have any errors by going over that one problem you've helped them gruff you didn't go over the whole Lulu sheet that's okay many lessons the introduction you've introduced a new skill you can continue this discussion during small groups when you're able to speak right at their level okay when you have the manipulatives in front of you you don't have to do it all right now all right these are some don'ts but they're my don'ts and if you want to still do them you may and they work in your classrooms and Soviet remember that this is just some things that along the way didn't work out for me be careful about spending too much time on review we tend to get caught up in it I do not do spiral review worksheets for this reason because they never matched my curriculum and therefore I'm having to do many lessons to teach them how to do the spiral review which means it's not bothering you anymore and it starts to take 30 minutes to do five problems that's too long when I only have 30 minutes to teach a whole new lesson so if you're starting your mini lesson off with a review make sure you're keeping it short I love to do skip County because we're learning multiplication in third grade I love to do a real quick math backed x exercise with them but whatever you're doing maybe you need to have a little stopwatch or something so that you know that I can't it's been 1 5 minutes reviewing ok I don't recommend giving your students manipulatives during the mini lesson now don't get me wrong I love math manipulatives I use them every day what I was teaching but not very many lesson time I don't give the students the manipulatives until small group mostly this is a huge time saver by even if you have them all in little baggies for individual students you're passing them out there getting them out there using them you're not sure if they've used them correctly because it's hard to watch 25 people use manipulatives the same time and they stop to put them away and I feel like that takes up but eats into your time considerably now if I need to use manipulatives when I'm modeling my skill I might use digital manipulatives or magnetic manipulatives on the board in front of my students or I have to draw a picture if that's not possible I mean Josh draw a picture that's fine but passing them all out having students use them at this time can be a time waster they will get time to use the manipulatives during small group and that's partially why small groups so magical it's because of the manipulative so I'll talk about that more in my next video don't feel like you should spend the entire or a lot of time during your small group assessing remember this is only your introduction so if you are hard on yourself and you're assessing kids and going whoa Johnny's got it wrong and Betty's going wrong you're gonna feel like you're not doing a very good job teaching but you don't assess after the introduction they haven't completed the lesson so although we're always gauging where our students are at so we can determine what speed to teach Shaq know that this is just the beginning it's not the end of the lesson yet so don't feel like you're going to assess throughout the whole lesson or you might be discouraged we don't want that this is tricky for us teachers especially me don't talk too much you might want to rehearse those many lessons maybe tape them and listen back we tend to talk a lot we tend to repeat ourselves a lot it's just it's just part of who we are so if you spend a lot of time chatting during your lesson you're going to lose out on so much of the time that you could be spending modeling or having your students practice which is more important so get them doing some of the talking by doing parish airs and make sure you try and eliminate some of that repetitiveness and definitely eliminating that's off task at beginning I do recommend rehearsing these lessons until you feel more comfortable with the timing the next one is super super tricky don't move at the pace of your lowest learner this is so hard for us as teachers we're looking at that lowest learner and we're wanting so badly for them to understand and when they are the confused look on my face we do another example when they still have confused which cracks laying in another way and we just keep looking at them waiting for their aha moment we can't move it that paced or the mini-lesson waiting for their aha moment means we're losing the rest of the class and we're taking so much time before getting to those small groups where all that magic is gonna happen I'm not saying we should not teach to that child by any means it may be important to let them know that you will help them during small-group hey Billy do those math lessons today sometimes confuse you to make it you a little discouraged why I just want you to know that I will be meeting with us in small groups every week and I'm going to help you so if you feel a little bit lost during the whole group lesson I don't want you to get frustrated just try your best and then I will help you move at the pace of at least your medium you're on level learners sometimes you may even need to move it even a little bit faster than they are used to so this is only the introduction when you're going to be able to move at the pace of the learn of your learners right the pace they really need is there a small group and that's why math workshop is so amazing is because when we did everything whole group we were always moving at the pace of just one type of learner whether was our slowest learner on level learner or high learner we were always missing about two-thirds of our class and by doing the math workshop model yes we're going to move faster in the mini lesson but then every small groups right where you need it to be and bats can help our students to move forward and to grow so I hope that these tips these ideas are helpful to you and I can't wait until we can talk about small groups those magical small groups and all of our centers and our my next videos so see you then bye

Channel: Not So Wimpy Teacher

Views: 17,935

Rating: 4.8600001 out of 5

Keywords: Not So Wimpy Teacher, Math Workshop, Math Mini Lessons, Math Centers, Math, second Grade, Third Grade, Fourth Grade, Fifth Grade, 2nd GraDE, 3rd Grade, 4th Grade, 5th Grade

Id: -8d2ymDaz58

Length: 16min 53sec (1013 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 22 2018